Starting a quilt

I started on my quilt this week. I've never done one before and actually never wanted to make quilts until recently. I had in my mind that quilts only looked a certain way and I wasn't a huge fan. And then my friend Bev, showed me quilts from magazines that were not your grandmother's quilts. Bev let me borrow the pattern which I am now using. At first, I was going to try to do just a small one but then Paul wanted one for our bed...so my quilt grew. My quilt is browns and oranges...the main blocks are african in print. The one I finished today was the african mask...I need to do 4 more like this one. Each block is 18 inches wide so it's quite a large block.

Who would have thought that I would have become this interested and consumed with quilting? I am already imagining my next one....one at a time...right? :)

9 month check-up

On Monday, we took Abby for her 9 month checkup. She weighed in at 15 pounds, 1 ounce and is 25 3/4 inches long. I chose to go to the SIU teaching clinic. My thoughts were that an experienced pediatrician would be assisting a new doctor and wow! I would get really great medical care. Instead, only the resident came in, very nervous I might add, and seemgly out of his element. After asking me “Did she come in for her 8 month check-up?” (there is no 8 month check-up) he then proceeded to ask “What shots are we getting today?” (There are no shots scheduled at the 9 month check-up). Another weird question – is she gaining weight appropriately?” Well, in my “professional” opinion yes but isn’t that why we are here. Finally, after a barage of questions, we got to the actual physical. Paul was the one holding Abby and talk about awkward. Paul had never been to a check-up like this before so I don’t blame him at all. The dr. though, well eh should know better. He was trying to look in Abby’s ears with her sitting up. With a squirmy baby, not a good idea – one jerky move and that ear piece would go just a bit too far. I could tell the doctor was not comfortable with it and finally he said “why don’t we lie her down?” Most pediatricans that I have been to tell me what they are doing and giving assessments as they go such as “she has good reflexes” or “she has great eye movement”. Nothing from him. He started checking her hips and kept pusing her legs around to the point where Abby was screaming. Sorry but Abby doesn’t cry very easily – in fact she had blood drawn and DID NOT cry. But the dr. kept on and kept on. I could tell that he thoughts something wasn’t right. He slipped out to get the senior resident. During this little break, we tried to calm Abby down thought her little body is heaving with sobs. Senior dr. comes in and repeats almost the entire physical ending with the hip area. He showed jr. doctor how the fats rolls are identical on both the front and the back and thereofre everything was fine. Junior dr. finishes up with us and tells us we are free to go. Abby is still bawling at this point so after dr. leaves, I try to nurse her and comfort her. She still isn’t even dressed either. Well I guess we took too long because jr. doctor comes back in adn tells us that we can leave. Poor uncomfortable doctor. I thought we were finally done but as we were checking out, senior dr. runs us down and asks for our phone number “just in case we need to follow-up”. That evening, jr. dr. calls and tells us that he forgot to tell us that we need to get hemoglobin checked and then Abby should start taking vitamins. I said I had a couple quesitons. ”Did Abby need to take vitamins if her score was okay?” ”Yes, it is recommended” Then I asked what they thought was wrong with Abby’s hips. ”Oh nothing, she was just fighting me hard”.

So Tuesday we go to get her hemoglobin checked. I pick up the orders and see three tests – hematocrit, hemoglobin and lead. I wasn’t told by all these. The dr. promised me it would only take 10 minutes. 45 minutes later, we were finally called in. I told the “nurse” that we didn’t want the lead test. She argued with me and finally said “Well, it’s kinda required”. ”By who?” I ask. ”Well the state in certain areas”. I said I still didn’t want it done and she said “Well, I’ll just let the doctor know”. Okay, fine.

Wednesday afternoon, jr. dr. calls, Paul answers. He says Abby’s levels are “low” and go immediately and get the prescription which is already at our pharmacy. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him but I wish I did. The “low” level wasn’t actually in the bad zone – just above it. I would rather try to correct any low levels via diet rather than medicine. So now the question…do we get the vitamins and then just store them or do we just completely ignore the fact that the prescription is at the pharmacy?

Final irony. Jr. dr. says that Abby’s lead levels are fine. After I refused??

9 months old today

Abby is 9 months old today. I am sitting here watching her play on the floor where she is rolling over and over until she gets where she wants to get. This is brand new. It's almost as if her body knew she was hitting the 9 month mark and said "Get mobile now". I guess that means we have to babyproof the house now. I think she'll find out soon enough that rolling is not an efficient way to get around and hopefully figure out crawling. Another fun thing Abby is doing is trying to mimic what we are doing when we talk. She can say bababa now. She used to do "k" sounds - I know - backwards. She has also figured out to do the "all done" sign with her hand but she does it all the time, even when hungry so no context for it yet, I guess. We're only using three signs so far - "more", "all-done" and "please". Question for mothers out there. Is juice necessary for babies/toddlers? Do they really get important nutrition from juice? Abby so far does not like juice and loves water. I am fine with this and would actually prefer it. I don't want to push juice on her unless she needs it. I was thinking that it has got to be better to eat your veggies and fruit than to drink it.

Cloth Diapers

In an earlier post, I admitted that I wasn’t doing cloth diapers for the double yuck factor. Well, we are now using cloth and it really isn’t that bad. We use prefold diapers with diaper covers and it is actually super easy. One of our most recent additions is a diaper sprayer which is attached to the toilet. You can use this to spray off the poop from the diaper rather than the traditional dunk and swirl. My husband loves using the sprayer so this is a double blessing for me :) Since we still have lots of disposables, we are using them at night. I haven’t quite figured out what we’ll do when we are out of them. Abby soaks the diapers pretty fast so not sure how to get through a whole night. I can’t imagine trying to do cloth diapers if I didn’t have a washer and dryer in house. A factor that I didn’t take into account was that the diapers add a lot of padding to Abby and her clothes don’t fit very well anymore. The onsies are barely snappable and her pants look like highwaters….oh well, what does a 9 month old know about fashion anyway?

Making tuna tolerable

Tuna is one of those necessary evils. I have lots of it. I know it is good for me and yet, I dread eating it. Today I combined several different ideas and wahla! tolerable tuna.

My new combination:

* Mayonnaise/ ranch dressing (2-3TB)
* Relish (2TB)
* Mustard (just a dab)
* 1/4 Sweet Onion – diced
* Cilantro – chopped, about 1/4 cup
* 1/4 apple – diced small

It tastes even better if you let it sit for about 2 hours before eating. Enjoy

Cruel and unusual punishment is

. . .watching your daughter get shots. Today Abby had her 6 month check-up. All is well and she is growing right along the curve. She weighed in at 12 pounds, 12 ounces and her length was 24 inches. She was all smiles until the end. The nurse came in to give the shots and this time asked me to hold down Abby’s hands. Now that’s CRUEL! Abby looked at me with such a confounded expression like “how could you do this to me?” She’s been quite fussy all afternoon and actually sleeping a lot! I pray that she is able to sleep well tonight.

One thing that bothered me was that they popped the question of do I want to give a flu shot to Abby? I am a bit leery of flu shots in general let alone in such a little girl. I asked if there were side effects, etc but nothing out of the ordinary. I wish I had had time to check it out myself. I found out that there is mercury in a lot of the flu shots out there and that is what is bad for little ones. But just as in the past, I can not panic. God is in control and faithful with my family.

Homemade baby food

So those that know me know that I can be cheap. Not all the time. For example, I am using disposable diapers instead of cloth diapers. Probably only because I only have access to a washing machine once a week but I must admit that I like using disposable. You only have to deal with the “yuck” once. So I’ve been researching making my own baby food because I just can’t stomach the idea of buying those jars of preservative rich baby food. I’ve also been to enough baby showers where you have to smell and taste to guess what the food is. Gross!!! I am also a control freak. I want to know what I am really feeding my baby. So yesterday was my first attempt to mass produce some baby food. I steamed carrots in the new steamer bags (awesome by the way since to get the most nutrients don’t cook veggies in water). Then I added a bit of water and blended it into a smooth texture. Next I filled an ice cube tray with my carrot mush and froze them overnight. This morning, they popped right out and I placed them in good freezer bags. Now when I want Abby to have some carrots, I just take a carrot cube out and let it defrost.

My next goal is to start making my own rice cereal. Something just makes me cringe about the packaged cereal that I buy. Eventually, Paul and I would like to purchase the Nutrimill which would let us grind our own wheat and anything else such as rice to make nice rice flour. We’ll have to save up for that or maybe we’ll get enough Christmas money for that