In which we brave the wilds and have some adventures

With Mini-Memblers starting Kindergarten later this month some adventures were in order before that change hits the household. After mulling it over I decided he and I would go camping at McCormicks Creek state park.

Camping is funny, you cram your vehicle full of stuff, drive to the campground and then for awhile it looks like the car barfed it's contents all over the campsite. Then things get sorted out and the tent appears and you cram all you can back in the car. Then the rest of the time it's like a daily (or more often) repeat of that, the car barfs all over, you sort it out and cram it back in. Then home where it has it's final sick all over your house and you just kind of wallow in the mess because you're just DONE craming stuff back where it belongs.  

So I picked McCormicks Creek because it's one of my favorite parks and because it was just over an hour away.  Mini isn't the greatest passenger at times to put it mildly.

I didn't actually plan very well, but it turned out really well. We didn't have reservations or anything and they weren't sure they had a space for three nights but they did find one and we settled right in. The campground was maybe 1/4 full which was nice. We had someone two sites over and there weren't many others close by us which was nice. When everything was sorted we went out for a short hike. We hiked until Mini wanted me to carry him, which was the signal that we were ready to go back.  Then we went for some firewood and had a short fire and then crashed out.

Our first day we went swimming, it's a nice enough little pool. We splashed around for an hour and a half and then the busses arrieved. One bus after another of kids, I think there were boys and girls club, camps, church groups, it was really something. So we left and had lunch and a hike and saw the remnants of a 1860's farm and the spring house and what had been the barn and went back to the campsite to get changed for the pool. Upon getting back I realized I made a big camping boo-boo. I had placed the loaf of bread and a package of rolls in a tub and then placed something on top of them. I was intending to put the whole thing in the van but forgot. Well a critter got to them. Took all our rolls and half the bread. Zane held the torn bag of bread up and said "LOOK MOMMY! They left some for us!". 

 Then after that it was back to the pool. The nice thing about the pool the second time was there was shade over the little pool and Zane was happy splashing around in it so I laid in the shade while he systemically eradicated all dry spots on the concrete around the pool. Mommy win! 

The next day we swam again. This time we hiked a trail first, we hiked to Wolf Cave and we poked in it until my claustraphobia got the best of me. I guess you can go all the way through if you can squeeze through a 1 1/2 foot wide opening on the other side! Zane wanted to go father but it was just a big no from me. But it was a nice 2 mile hike and a lot of fun. It was a trail for pansies in a way, there were benches every so often all through the trail. Zane would scream BENCH!!! and run and sit down :D Then we hit the pool again and after swimming it was back to the campground again.

We ate hot dogs, canned biscuits, I made a pie iron sandwich(Zane looked at it in distrust), chips and cookies. It was a good dinner.  

So I had debated going home a night early because there was rain predicted. In the end I decideed we ought to stay, I hated the thought of not getting the third night I'd paid for, and camping in the rain is a character building experience.  I have plenty of character of course but a good mother keeps their child's character development in mind :D  And I thought how bad can it be? 

The answer was bad. It could be really really bad.  There was a solid hour of torrential downpour and crashing thunder.  Then the rain kept up another two hours.  We happened to have our tent at the low point of the campsite so I could feel the water running between the tarp and the bottom of the tent. Some puddles appeared in the tent. Everything just felt damp. The rain started about sevenish? Zane crashed out in short order after that robbing him of his chance to fully build character.  I could hear the people two campsites over who had just come in hours before dealing with their toddler. The toddlers cries went from "I don't really like this" to "can't this be over NOW?" to full blown "I'M DYING HERE AND YOU DON'T CARE!". I could hear the parents patience wearing thin. I was so eternally grateful that MY tiny tent companion would rouse periodically, look around groggily then be drug under again.  I tried to sleep, it didn't work but it was still really peaceful. Even with things feeling dampish we stayed really dry on the mattress and were cozy under our blankets. 

The next morning we did another hike, a short one neither of us was really into. We did the nature center which is really cool! I hoped the tent would dry. It didn't.  I ended up cramming it and the tarp into a trash bag and it's in the backyard right now set up and waiting to be folded up properly.  Then after stuffing all the rest of the stuff in the van, I forgot the bag of trash(there wasn't much and no food waste but still :( ) at the campsite and we came home so the car could be sick all over the house.

All in all it was a wonderful trip and I'm looking forward to doing it again :D

Confessions of a blogging failure....

Facebook put a "memory" up for me and it was an old blog post.

I was like "Oh wow, I had a blog I was trying to blog".

I'm a failure at blogging. It's okay. I'm at peace with that.

But I can't help but to come back and scare the dust bunnies away and play with this for awhile until life overwhelms and my brain robs me of knowledge of the existence of this blog.

So Mini Memblers is almost FIVE! I don't know where that time went. He'll start Kindergarten this summer.  I'm so ready and not ready at all for that to happen.

Mr. Memblers is okay.

And I am keeping on keeping on.

Maybe I'll try to revive the blog again, but if not here's a friendly wave and I'll be back the next time I remember this blog exists. 

In which I play Captian Obvious and call Matt Walsh hateful and bigoted.

So every once in a blue moon I think "Oh, I have a blog, I ought to write something on it again!" and then I get pulled away because The Toddler needs fed, he's doing something that could potentially land him in the ER or one of a dozen different other things that seem to be constantly pulling me every which way.

But today, I needed a bit of a rant about something and The Toddler has crashed out for a mid-afternoon nap, a true rarity now-days, and I have something to rant about :)

My topic of ranting today is a blogger/writer named Matt Walsh. He proclaims himself a "truth sayer" and prides himself on being conservative and brash.

He rants on all sorts of issues. The latest one I read was about how in his opinion, gay marriage doesn't exist. That it cannot exist.

Link through donotlink here to what he said for any who are masochistic enough to read it ;) http://www.donotlink.com/byjp

The reality is that saying gay marriage does not exist is like looking at a tree and declaring it isn't there.

He says it cannot exist because..... wait for it..... gay people in gay marriages can't have babies with each other!

Facepalm

Really? Except he's wrong and reality proves him wrong.

First, let's talk about the ways straight people make babies.

First there's the man and woman have sex.

Then there's go to the doctor for various treatments to get pregnant.

They can have a baby with donor sperm or eggs.

They can hire a surrogate to carry their child for them with the child created by genetic material from neither of them OR from only one person in the relationship OR with genetic material from both of them.

It seems there should be more but I'm drawing a blank. But my point is that even for men and women in straight marriages there are a wide variety of choices in how they create life and sometimes it includes using biological matter from other people outside the relationship. If gay marriage doesn't exist because of the procreation then all the marriages of people who don't have a baby the old fashioned way don't exist either I'd think. Because people who are gay DO procreate, the same as people who are straight. They procreate with people of the opposite sex, they procreate with surrogates, they procreate with donor genetic material. They become parents through adoption. They can become parents in all the same ways that straight people can become parents.

So if an adopted child of straight people becomes their child, so does the adopted child of a gay couple become their child. If a straight couple who use donor sperm have a child it is THEIR child, not a child raised by the wife and the sperm donor. Same with a lesbian couple using donor sperm, it is THEIR child not being raised by the sperm donor and the wife who bore the child.  If a straight couple use a surrogate is it still their child, it is not raised by the surrogate, they raise the child. Same with a couple who is gay. That is THEIR child, not the surrogates child to raise.  

Then we get to the fact that creating new humans of our own biological material is not required for raising children and plenty of folks who create new humans don't raise them. Even straight people adopt sometimes even when they suffer no issues with infertility.  If adopting even with no fertility issues is a valid option for building a family for a straight couple or single person then there's no reason it's not a valid option for people who are gay to build a family.

And then, even though it takes two humans to donate genetic material to make a new human, some single parents, both biological and adoptive, choose to be single parents. I'm sure Matt Walsh would have some way to hate on them too but that does not change the reality that families exist that are built that way.

So we can see that despite Matt Walsh's best efforts to take procreation and make it the central factor in declaring if gay marriage exists that it does indeed exist all the same.

One thing he says is this:
The government doesn’t ‘award’ marriage or give it away like a cash prize in Wheel of Fortune. All of the government can do — and should do — is recognize the natural reality of the situation.

If marriage is anything, then it is an institution meant to bind a husband to his wife, a wife to her husband, and both mother and father to their children. If it is something at all, then it is the foundation of civilization. It establishes the context in which families are formed and children are raised.

The natural reality of the situation is there are families headed by people who are gay that deserve and demand the equal legal protections that families that are straight have. The context in which families are formed and children are raised as we've addressed is much more varied in reality than Matt Walsh will admit because it doesn't fit into his narrow view of what society should be based on his personal religious choices. Children are raised by adult humans. Someones one adult human, sometimes two adult humans, sometimes 3 or more adult humans. That's the foundation for civilization, we care for our own young and sometimes the young of others.

Marriage is not for the purpose of procreation. Marriage is a contract that two people, two adult humans capable of consent, agree to join lives and share the joys and burdens of life together with a legal binding. That is what legal marriage is whether Matt Walsh likes it and whether deigns to declare it as "existing" or not. Just because you call yourself a "truth sayer" does not mean that everything you say is then the "truth".  Some people in marriages procreate, some don't. Some people not married procreate. Procreation is a biological fact of life and has bumpkis to do with marriage other than some people who are married procreate one way or another.

Then later, ironically, he says this about the government recognizing straight marriage: The only other options are for the government to pretend it doesn’t exist, or to pretend that it’s something other than what it is.

Oh, you mean like marriage between people who are gay and the way you want to pretend it doesn't exist? Like that?

Frankly, Matt Walsh deserves no engagement. His views on this matter, and on other matters, are ridiculous and while are perfectly fine for an individual to choose for their own personal belief they are not fine and rather they are downright dangerous at times when he seems to think they should apply to everyone. So that's why I decided to write up this rebuttal. Because anyone who tries to declare themselves as a "sayer of truth" and then spews hate and bigotry like this deserves to be called out as hateful and bigoted.  

Because here's the reality. He's free to pretend that gay marriage doesn't exist. Just like some sects of Christianity(like Catholicism which Matt Walsh practices) only recognize the first marriage. They don't recognize divorce and they don't recognize remarriage. Now Catholics can get an annulment if they qualify, but some sects don't have any option for annulment. You're married and that's one time and to the death. If you do legally divorce, it doesn't matter to the church. You cannot get remarried in that Church until your ex-spouse passes away. So in that way certainly, he's free to feel like gay marriage doesn't "exist" in his religious beliefs. But to want to keep legal rights away from people, from families, from marriages that are easily proven to exist outside of the narrow strictures of conservative religious beliefs is a really hateful and bigoted thing to want.

How about this Matt Walsh. You live by your beliefs, everybody else gets to live by their beliefs, the government provides equal protection to all forcing none to live by the religious beliefs or non-beliefs of others and you blow your idea that everybody should live by your beliefs out your ol' wazoo.

In Which I ponder things...

Just imagine me like Winnie the Pooh, sitting saying "Think, think think...." some days that's how I feel, trying to get my thoughts into order.  I've sat down to write another blog post a half a dozen times and each time my thoughts putter out before they start making sense or the baby stops being contented or I remember there's a mountain of dishes perpetually waiting (okay not really but that's how it feels) and a mountain of laundry, twin peaks Mt Stinky and Mt Clean to be conquered as well.  They too feel like permanent fixtures in our house.  Sometimes I can ignore them, sometimes they mock me and I must engage them in battle.  Sometimes I weaken their positions greatly, sometimes I just annoy them but don't manage to gain any ground.

Anyway so I've been wanting to post again but keep getting derailed. Topics it has run across my mind to post about

The food I want to make

The cookbook of favorite recipes of Joey's and mine that I'm working on

The baby

Various issues I'm passionate about

Breathing

Now, interestingly, three days just passed between writing that and now this!  I got distracted by something, I can't remember now what it was and have just now gotten back to writing this.   I was just thinking about the last topic, breathing, last night.  I was getting baby to sleep and he was crawling over my head and winding down and he stopped moving for a second to take a break and his abdomen and chest were right on my ear and I could hear him breathing (and his heart beating <3 ) and I did something I do a lot when I'm trying to get him to sleep and he's bouncing around like a spider monkey on too much caffeine, which is odd because he's down to one Mountain Dew a day now(I kid!). So I start breathing deeply, long breath in through the nose, blowing it slowly out.   It calms me down and then that helps him calm down too.   So I started consciously breathing deeply and within a couple of breaths I could hear his breathing slow down too. Then after a minute it was obvious he was asleep. It was also obvious my neck was going to pay the price for having a 21 lb infant lying across it like that. Such is the price of parenthood. Anyway it was really neat having that instant feedback that my actions can directly influence Mini-Memblers state.

Oh, and I've figured out why babies don't come with warning labels.  Nobody ever sues the baby!  

In Which I mess up my kitchen...

You know that thing that happens, well maybe it doesn't happen to you but it happens to me, where you get the dishes all done and the kitchen relatively clean and then you just cannot resist messing it all up again for the sake of some delectable treat?   Then you're left with a big mess in the kitchen right back where you started from.  It's like some sort of insidious compulsion.  A delicious insidious compulsion I say. 

So the alternate title of this post could be "In Which I make sour cream cake donuts".    I've tried to make yeast donuts before and they were good but these donuts were marvelous!  They were tender and cakey and had just the perfect amount of nutmeg.  

After looking through some recipes I settled on one that kept popping up.

I used
2 1/4 cup of flour (the recipe I used called for cake flour but I used AP)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup sugar
2 TBSP shortening or butter
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp vanilla

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg into a bowl and set aside.  In a mixer bowl beat shortening and sugar together for a couple of minutes, then add egg yolks and beat at medium speed, stopping to scrape occasionally, until it's light and creamy.  Then I mixed the vanilla in the sour cream, then you alternate adding the flour mixture and the sour cream  After its' all incorporated it should be like a thick sticky biscuit dough.   Then you leave it to rest.  The recipes said to let it rest for 45-60 minutes but it also keeps for up to 24 hours.   I ended up cooking mine at the 12 and 24 hour marks and they were wonderful both times.   Then you roll it out the thickness you want, I ended up between 1/3-2/3's an inch thick I think, and cut into donut shapes(I ended up using a biscuit cutter and the top to baby's saline spray, you can quit laughing now it was perfectly round and just the right size :P). Then you fry them in hot oil (I don't know what temp but I had my heat set to medium high) till they are golden brown turning them over once then drain them on paper towels and then glaze them while hot (Glaze: 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (I sifted mine) 1 tsp corn syrup, a pinch salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and 1/4 cup hot water).  The recipes said to dip but I spooned the glaze over and I liked that because it kept the glaze from coating the bottom making them too sweet. 

They were wonderfully wonderful.  Although probably quite bad for me in the end but they were indeed wonderful.  Just as good or better than any store bought donut that's for sure :)

And just for fun here's a picture of the finished product.  So I have my kitchen to clean up again, but these lovely donuts were worth the mess!

In Which I feed baby-part 2

So I posted last about feeding baby dinners. I thought I'd post a little more today about the rest of his meals and my general approach to feeding him and his eating.

My approach to dealing with baby's eating is I don't want there to be any power struggle there that I am creating.  Not to say there won't ever be any but I'm going to try to create a space where he feels in control over what he eats. I mean I think I'm succeeding, he felt very in control when he found that bug the other day and ate it and if I'd found him trying to eat it ahead of time I'd just have engaged him in a power struggle and tried to stop him while as it was I just got to dig the half masticated bug parts out of his mouth! See, it's important to not create needless power struggles with babies :P.  Seriously though I think kids will, in general, eat when they're hungry and my job is to provide healthful choices for him to choose from when he feels the need to eat. My goal is to help him learn to listen to his bodies signals and develop healthy eating habits from the first.   He's not going to like everything, heck, I don't like everything.  I will have him, when he's older, take a "no thank you" bite.  Both because we should in general give new foods a fair shot but we also have to be able to reject them politely if we don't care for them.  So I will use it to teach him how to taste something he doesn't like without  making faces or saying "yuck". But after that bite he won't be forced to eat any specific amount of the food and if he gets hungry later there will be simple healthful snacks (veggies and fruits) around for him to have then.   I also am not going to fight with him over how much he eats.  He won't get to go fill up on junky food after rejecting healthful food but I want him to learn to listen to his own body, not mama saying "you need to eat this much of this".    I want him to listen to mama when it's important but I don't want to tell him to listen to me instead of his own bodies hunger/satiation signals.



His meals now tend to be fruit (jarred baby food fruit) and yogurt (plain regular dannon right now) and baby cereal all mixed up for breakfast. I give him this with cheerios to pick up for pincher grip practice. Sometimes I scramble him an egg and he can pick those pieces up.  Lunch is some sort of veggies(sometimes home pureed, sometimes jarred) with crackers ( a few ritz style crackers, graham crackers or oyster crackers).  And dinner tends to be a baby-safe version of our meal or if that's not possible (you try to babyfood frozen pizza, go on, I dare you! It also has to not give the baby blowout diapers in the end, so yeah, not possible) then I make him a separate dinner for him. Sometimes I boil pasta and put it through the mill and mix it with jarred baby veggies. Sometimes I cook some frozen veggies and put them in the food processor. 

In Which I feed baby.....

I thought I'd write a post on how and what I feed baby.  I love cooking and I love cooking for my son as well. 

For making his food I have a food mill  and a little food processor.  Not an expensive food processor, just a cheapie one I found for under ten bucks.   I have a big bad food processor too but it just didn't work for me to make babyfood in it, way too big.   I don't freeze mini's food, we don't have enough freezer space so I just make enough to 2-3 meals for him at a time. 

Here are some of the meals I've made for him:

Baby s'ghetti
zucchini
pasta sauce
whole grain spaghetti
Parmesan cheese

I took a small zucchini and shredded it and cooked it with probably 1/4 cup of water stirring it occasionally until it was well cooked  I put a good handful of cooked whole grain spaghetti and put it through the food mill and added it to the zucchini then I added about 3 tablespoons of pasta sauce to coat everything and added the tablespoon of Parmesan cheese and divided into meal size portions.  I tend to put things in 3-4 ounce portions for Mini.  Now my little guy likes things chunkier so I didn't put the zucchini through the mill or processor after it was cooked.

And Mini-Memblers really loved his spaghetti, he ate all of it happily through three meals.

Baby chili mac:
Whole grain pasta.
pinch ground turkey
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
4 tablespoons finely chopped peppers, I used 2 tablespoons green and 2 tablespoons yellow
small spoonful chili beans
regular spoonful kidney beans
tomato sauce to bind everything

I made this alongside our chili, I sauteed the onion and peppers in a very small amount of olive oil.  Then I added the ground turkey and cooked it very well.  Then I added the beans, pasta and tomato sauce and cook for a couple more minutes. I didn't make it saucy, I put just enough in to coat everything.  Then I put it through the food processor which worked really well. 


Grilled cheese and tomato soup for baby

Grilled cheese sandwich, real American cheese, two slices whole grain bread, a little bit of butter
Tomato soup (I made mine with milk)

I tore the sandwich up into small pieces and put it through the babyfood mill (who knew a grilled cheese sandwich could do that?) and then mix in enough tomato soup to create the consistency desired.

Baby loved this as well. 

So that's what I tend to do, take what we're having and make a babyfied version alongside ours if ours is too strongly spiced or too rich.    

I'm lucky to have such a wonderful son and I'm happy he's an adventurous little eater!