Meals for Busy Days

Readers, I am so sorry for skipping last week. It was one of those weeks that was so hectic and busy that I had almost no time for myself, and the time I did have to myself had to be spent doing things like cleaning the house or taking care of myself. But it did put me in the mood to write about what the heck you can do for dinners when you know you’re going to have a week like that. A week where you just know that by the end of the day you aren’t going to want to get off the couch to stand in the kitchen for thirty to sixty minutes to cook. A week where your child has been needy and clingy and the thought of going in the kitchen gives you an anxiety attack because you just know they’re going to scream their heads off. 

When you know you’re going to have a day like that, or a week like that, I want you to know that eating out isn’t the only option. There are definitely days we have eaten out because I just couldn’t bring myself to cook dinner. But there are also days where I know going in that I don’t want to spend my time cooking that I can prepare for that inevitability. 

So I want to share with you some of my favorite crock pot and instant pot dump meals.

You might be asking yourself, what is a dump meal? That doesn’t sound pleasant at all.

But, oh, dear reader, dump meals are amazing. Dump meals are the meals where you literally just dump everything into a pot, hit cook, and walk away. And when you come back it’s done.

If you don’t have an instant pot, I would highly suggest looking into getting one or some other pressure cooker with similar functions. They come in all sizes and are highly useful for massively reducing the time something takes to cook. 

BUT, if you have an instant pot that also has a ‘crockpot’ function, you may find yourself also needing to have a crockpot for certain dishes. I can use my instant pot just fine for most crockpot dishes. But if there are potatoes, I find the instant pot just doesn’t cook them through when in ‘crockpot’ mode. So I have both an instant pot and a crockpot.

Now, most days, if I’m doing a crockpot meal, it’s because I know going into the week that I’ll have a day where I don’t want to cook. Usually it’s Thursdays because I’m out of the house all day and I don’t want to spend the limited time I am home cooking. 

But there are also days where I wake up and start hanging out with Dorian and it becomes clear it’s going to be one of those days where I’m not going to have the energy to cook.

Like last Sunday, when Dorian was still recovering from a highly overstimulating day at the Vallejo waterfront, watching his dad compete in a rowing race and then going to a massive dinner with lots of people and kids on top of not taking a nap. Yeah. It wasn’t pretty. For either of us. On these days, and the recovery days following, it is great to have an instant pot and a dump meal ready so I can just prep, dump, and hit cook.

Some people, I know, don’t have either a crockpot or an instapot. And they can be pricey. So if you don’t have one, I still have a really quick recipe for you that takes hardly any prep and is one of my husband’s favorite meals EVER.

Meatballs and rice.

Ingredients:

Meatballs

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Rice

Now, if you want to be fancy, like his mother, you can make your own meatballs. I never do. I find the meatballs from Costco are our favorite, but you can honestly go with whatever brand of frozen meatball you fancy.

But, here’s how simple this recipe is:

Wash and start your rice (whether that’s in the rice cooker or on the stove) 

Put meatballs in a pan on the stove, empty a can or two of mushroom soup (depends on how

saucy you like it, you can always add more)

*just remember that the meatballs will give off a little moisture and thin it, so there’s no

need to add water

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the meatballs are hot and the rice is done

Dish out rice, spoon meatballs on top. (make sure to cut them up for your little one)

Wasn’t that simple? And it doesn’t take a bunch of time out of your day.

Today I’ll share two of my favorite crockpot meals. Note that as a busy mom, I prefer the crockpots that have timers because even if you leave something on low, if you go over the recommended ten hours your meal will start to burn. 

The first one is a complete dump and go. We call it J Bug’s Soup because my mom came up with it when my sister was little and she just devoured this stuff. 

Ingredients:

2 good sized Chicken Breast (frozen is fine)

1 ½ cup Rice

1 can Black beans

1 jar chipotle garlic salsa (trader joes or get something similar somewhere else)

1 carton chicken broth

Frozen corn

Cheese

Put everything except the frozen corn and cheese into the crock pot, cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

When it’s done, shred the chicken. You can either do this by leaving it in the pot or removing it to a cutting board, shredding it and putting it back in. I usually leave it in the crockpot so I don’t have to clean more dishes.

Add the frozen corn (as much as you prefer) and like a cup of cheese, stir it up, cover for about ten minutes (no need to turn it back on) and then enjoy.

We have found that the rice is a preference thing. My mom thinks the rice turns out too mushy. I don’t. But if you try it and you think it is too mushy, you can combat that by either using brown rice or by cooking your rice separately and just spooning the soup over top. We serve this with tortilla chips, but my husband and I also think it makes a great burrito or soft taco filling.

Recipe number two can either be dump and go, or a little prep and go, depending on you and how much time you have. This one actually has a recipe I follow.

It’s beef tips and rice.  (You can also serve it over mashed potatoes or noodles) This is one of my all time favorite crock pot recipes, especially for fall because it is so simple, yet it is SO delicious.

Now, I will make a couple of addendums here. 

First, when you’re doing your shopping, compare the stew meat to the chuck roast. If you’re on a budget, go with the cheaper option. I usually end up using two containers of stew meat, but I can get away with one container of chuck roast. Yes, you’ll have to cut it yourself and sometimes there’s quite a bit of fat, but do what works for you. It’ll be delicious either way.

Second, if you have time, before you dump everything in, season your meat with salt and pepper (always do this) maybe even some garlic powder and then brown it in a skillet. You’re not trying to cook it all the way through, you’re just browning the outside and locking all the juicy meat flavors inside. It does make a difference. 

Alright. Now for a couple instant pot meals that are definite go tos in my house.

The first is a literal dump and go again. Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole. I will admit, I do not do the last step because I am lazy. But I’m sure it elevates the flavor. If you’ve never used a pressure cooker, please note that although the instructions say the cook time is 10 minutes, it takes a good 3-5 minutes for it to get up to pressure first. Also, when you do a quick release, I suggest you have a dish towel you’re willing to get dirty over the vent, otherwise it is likely that whatever wall or window is behind your instant pot will get grease or sauce or whatever else is inside on it.

The second recipe is still a dump and go, but I have a couple changes that I make to it to make it better.

This one is definitely my most used recipe for the instapot. A Creamy Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Rice. 

Alright. Changes I make to this recipe are as follows:

Before you saute your chicken, sprinkle salt, pepper, and garlic powder over it. I don’t know why people who write recipes for instant pot and crockpot feel like there is no need to season their meat.

Before you add your meat into the instapot now on saute mode, add in two or more (depending on how much you like garlic) cloves of minced garlic, saute until fragrant, then add in the chicken and onion.

Lastly, if you use regular, medium grain rice, the cook time is probably fine. But if, like me, you prefer to use short grain rice, go ahead and add a minute to the cook time. Otherwise it’s just a little too al dente.

Hopefully this post gives you at least one alternative option to eating out if you find yourself with a busy, hectic week. Next week I’ll tell you guys all about Dorian’s second birthday (I have a two year old now!) Mickey Mouse Club House birthday party.

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood.

Baby Sleep on Vacation

Hey there, Readers. So sorry about the late post. It has been a hell of a weekend complete with short nap, overstimulation, and a mommy burnout. But more on that next week. 

Alrighty. Continuing my little series on our trip to Chicago, I want to talk about staying in a hotel room with your baby.

Again, tons of research was done. Mostly because I was terrified. I was so anxious I thought I would puke. What made me anxious? The thought of how would he sleep? Where would he sleep? How would I sleep? Was this even going to work?

At one point I just decided that it’s vacation and whatever happens, happens and if we end up having to share a bed, I just won’t sleep.

The posts and articles I found about sharing a room with a baby seemed unrealistic to me. They all said, ‘form a barrier’, ‘even if it’s just a walk in closet’. I’m like, what kind of fancy ass hotels are you staying in??  Walk in closet? Excuse me?

But, other parts of their suggestions were really useful like: bring their lovies and blankets (duh), or to make sure that we brought a noise machine and a baby monitor that didn’t rely on wifi (not something I initially thought about). 

So, I want to talk about what our experience was. You know, for those of you using hotels that don’t have annexes or walk in closets in the rooms. 

First of all: we requested a crib, but I brought my pack n play as well just in case because I never heard from the hotel on whether they had one, plus we were going to Chicago for a family event and I didn’t know if we would be at someone’s house for nap time when I could put him down or anything. SO. They did end up having a “crib”. I put the quotes around it because it was a pack n play. And I’m so glad we ended up bringing ours because we have a thick mattress for it. And if I hadn’t brought that, he would have just had the thin padding for the five days. So make sure you verify with the hotel what kind of crib they will be providing.

Our room was pretty standard. You walk in and there’s a bathroom and closet to the right and further in is a room with an entertainment center, a desk, and just enough room to walk between the entertainment center and the two queen beds with a nightstand between and a giant window at the far side of the room. 

I was worried, at first, that the pack n play wouldn’t even fit in the room. But it turned out the space between the first queen bed and the wall was just big enough for it. So that’s where we put him: close to the door, farthest from the window. The bed served as a barrier not only from us, but also light coming in from the window despite the ‘blackout’ blinds. We also left our luggage on the bed(far enough away that he couldn’t reach it) to serve as a further barrier. 

When the time came to finally put him down for bed, I was honestly terrified. I placed the fan white noise machine in the space right in front of his pack n play, between him and the door so that the noise from the door or bathrooms would hopefully be drowned or at least muted by the fan.

I even made sure our pjs were in the bathroom so we didn’t have to look for them when we came back in and risk waking the baby.

We tried to make the routine as close to the same as it is at home. Go potty, brush teeth, good night mom and dad, kisses, I love you’s,. And then Devin and I gathered our books and laptops and left the room to go into the lobby. We plugged our half of the baby monitor in and held our breaths, waiting to hear him screaming. Well, I held mine. Devin just opened his book, cool as could be. Jerk. 

And all we heard was Dorian settling in and then sleepy breathing. Success. And finally some relaxation time for me. 

Devin and I stayed in the lobby for an hour or two, the same amount of time we stay up at home after Dorian goes to bed, then we gathered our things and tried to plan out our entrance. We finally just steeled ourselves and opened the loud ass door that all hotels seem to have, because no one could possibly be traveling with someone who goes to bed at a different time than them. 

Anyway.

He was fine. Didn’t even stir. We got ready for bed, tiptoed past his crib, and got into our own bed on the other side of the room. 

And we slept away. Dorian didn’t wake up until wake up time the next day. And when he did wake up, he was happy and well rested. Ready to take on whatever family events we had planned for the day. 

That was our schedule for the remainder of the time in Indiana. (I said we went to Chicago, and we did, but we stayed in Crown Point, IN.) 

It was really nice, after that first night, to know that we can travel. I had the plan of just going into this experience to get fodder for my mom blog, and to determine whether or not Dorian could do hotel trips. And now I know.  He totally can. And so can I.

But, I think the single most important lesson I learned from this trip is: What happens on vacation, stays on vacation.

Vacation time is different from home time. 

Let your toddler watch tv if they’re stuck in the hotel with nothing to do. Let them have a car nap or a late nap or no nap as long as they’re handling it ok. You don’t have to stop your day to cater to your toddler’s nap schedule unless it is convenient to do so. The first full day we were there, we happened to be at a cousin’s house and she had a couple toddlers, so there was a room for Dorian to sleep in and get his full nap. But, most days, the nap was caught in the car. Either because he was dissolving into a mess so I took him out or because he fell asleep on the 30-60 minute drive on the way to somewhere. The point is that they will figure out how to sleep when they are tired. And if they don’t, early bed time.

We also chose to keep Dorian on California time, which put his bed time at 9/9:30. And he even got to the point where, when he was tired and done with the day, he would tell me that he wanted to go to bed. And in that case, we would leave without his dad to go back to the hotel. That is something you might need to be ok with doing. If it is one partner’s family reunion, you are probably going to need to step up and take care of your child’s needs the majority of the time. And if it’s yours, talk to your partner about what you expect to be able to get from the trip. 

So, moms, don’t be nervous about taking your toddler on a vacation where you have to stay in a hotel. Get a two bed room and order a pack n play or crib or whatever they have available. 

The next weekend trip we take, maybe Monterey or San Diego, we will definitely make sure to book a double bed room, but I will also make sure to call the hotel to find out what their crib situation is so I don’t have to lug the entire pack n play with me. BUT, on the next 4+ day trip we take, we are very seriously talking about looking into an Air B&B condo or something so we can have 2 bedrooms and a living space. That way we aren’t limited to staying in the lobby of a hotel for two hours until we want to go to bed. 

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood.

Flying With Baby

OK, guys. If you are a millennial mom, like me (am I a millennial?) you probably do a TON of research on any given thing before you do said thing with your child. My latest internet search rabbit hole was how to travel with a toddler. Specifically, how to travel by plane. And let me tell you. There are a lot of parents out there with a lot of suggestions. But I feel like most of them were for hard core travel. Like, out of country or across country. 

But I was just traveling from San Francisco to LA (about an hour, if that) and LA to Chicago (About 4 hours). 

I will say this: if you can manage a red eye or time the flight with their nap time, I would definitely do that. It was so nice for the 45 minutes that Dorian slept. But I’ll get there.

Getting ready to go on a trip is always the most stressful part, when you at on planning that trip WITH a toddler?? Nightmare. And just trying to think about what to take on the plane with us to keep Dorian occupied was really mind boggling for me. My kid likes to hit things and tear ass around the house. What the hell is going to keep him entertained in a confined space for four hours???

So I did some research and some Amazon searches and some real soul searching about Dorian as a person and I came up with a few things to do. 

1. I bought him a new toy: a leap frog laptop. He’s obsessed with our laptops and always wants to play on them. I did not give this to him until we were on the plane, so it was completely new and totally novel for him.

2.  I ordered a couple sticker story books. Dorian is now at the age where he likes stickers and the concept of peeling them off and sticking them onto paper. You just have to watch that your kid doesn’t try to stick them to, like, the seats and trays.

3. I ordered a couple coloring books with magic markers. These things are amazing. It’s a marker, which he loves, but it won’t color on anything except the specific books! How great is that? He can mark up the seats and trays and it won’t do anything. Of course, we still discourage this because I don’t want him doing that with a real marker at some point. (Side note: you can also get these with water brushes. You fill the brush pen with water and it colors the pages as you brush them. Then, as the water series, the picture goes back to being black and white so they’re reusable. Pretty cool)

4. I ordered a 50 count of fidgets: popits, spinners, things that you pull apart, things that squish, etc. and after I went through them and picked out the ones that were too small for Dorian, I wrapped them in tissue paper, easy for baby to tear apart and it makes it pretty novel because they’re ‘opening a present’. (you could also do this with stuff just from the dollar store or even toys they have around the house that they haven’t played with in a while. It makes it new if they’re opening it on a plane)

So I got his backpack stuffed full of activities and toys and books to keep him occupied. 

A few things to know about my kid: Once he wakes up, he’s UP. And he has a hard time going to sleep not in his bed. Also, he is a terror when he’s over tired.

We decided to fly with Dorian as a lap baby because it saved like $300 and the flight wasn’t long enough for me to really have a problem with it. Also, he is just barely under the 2 year age limit. So we might as well do it while we can. 

Our first flight out of San Francisco was at 7:10am. That means we had to leave our house by 4am to get there, get parked, get through security and get onto the plane. I tried so hard to keep Dorian asleep when I got him out of his crib. I had the lights off, Devin turned off the dome light in his car, but it didn’t matter. He blearily opened his eyes and then his eyes popped open and he said, “ride airplane?”

I think he dozed in the car, but mostly he was awake. 

Just an FYI, if you fly with Southwest, there are no assigned seats. There is no picking a seat before you fly. BUT, if you have a baby, you are ‘family boarding’ which goes right after Boarding Group A. Also, if you have a baby, people will actively avoid sitting next to you until there is no choice. 

On our first flight, the plane was only half full. We already put ourselves towards the back because I figure the front of the plane fills up first because everyone wants to be the first ones off. Since the plane wasn’t full, Dorian got to have his own seat. Sometimes he sat in my lap, sometimes in Devin’s, and sometimes in his own seat. 

He really liked watching the plane takeoff and he found the clouds really interesting. We actually didn’t have to really do anything to entertain him until about 30 minutes in when I gave him his new laptop toy. And then I gave him some peanut butter balls (You can bring all the snacks. Just make sure if you bring fruit pouches that they meet TSA requirements for liquids) and he was the happiest camper ever. 

The only thing he really had an issue with was waiting to be able to get off the plane. We were stuck on the tarmac for quite a while after we landed because we were so ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, that means the seatbelt sign was on and the flight attendant kept yelling at people to “please sit down.”

Layover was only an hour, barely enough time to grab breakfast and a coffee before we had to board again. By this time, it was 10:30am and Dorian had been up for 6 hours. Unfortunately this flight was packed nearly to the brim. I’m still a little salty that the last kid to board sat next to me instead of in the middle seat right in front of us. But, he definitely paid for his poor decision. More on that in a moment.

Dorian loved watching takeoff from Daddy’s lap. But pretty soon he was melting into a monster I barely recognized as my own baby. I got his blankets, binky, and lovies out of his backpack and asked him if he wanted to sit with mommy and try to take a little nap. He whimpered his assent and climbed into my lap. He fell asleep maybe 15 minutes after takeoff. 

The great thing about planes is that they are their own white noise machine. It’s great. I didn’t worry about little noises bothering him. The only thing that really suffered was my arm from supporting him in his cradled position. But the bad thing about planes is they’re so loud that people feel the need to talk excessively loud to the other passengers. So about 45 minutes into Dorian’s much needed nap, the older retired navy man behind us yells to his seatmates about something or other for the third time and this time, instead of just startling and going back to sleep, Dorian is up. Thanks, dude. I was hoping he would sleep for about half the flight. Now we’ve still got like 3 hours left. And he’s still tired. Great.

We tried the laptop. We tried a few books. We tried a new toy wrapped in tissue paper. It entertained him for a while, and then he’d start getting antsy and trying to kick the seatback and wriggle out of his dad’s lap and getting generally ornery. Then, disaster struck: I had to pee. Also I needed a freaking break. 

So the young man who chose our row had to stop his very interesting documentary and get up so I could go to the bathroom. I took my time. I come back, get seated, “I need potty too!” 

Seriously???

Fine.

So the young man has to move again. I take Dorian to the potty, realize that I packed plenty of pull ups, but they’re in the diaper bag in the overhead compartments and I think going back into the plane with a naked baby would be frowned on. His pullup is semi filled with pee and I feel really bad knowing I’m going to have to put it back on him. But, he sits on the potty and proceeds to poop…a lot. So now I’m exceedingly glad I took him to the potty. No poopy diaper at least. We put the gross pullup back on and head back to our seats. Not even five minutes later, “I need potty.”

I tell him to wait.

He starts screaming. 

Young man has to move again.

This happened at least another three times before I pulled out my last resort, the thing I had been saving, my hail Mary: the tablet with downloaded Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and other shows and movies on it.

Now, something to note here is that just because they are downloaded from Disney plus does not mean you will be able to access them sans internet. Didn’t know that when we did it. But they will play better. Either way, you still have to pay for the internet. And at that point, I was like: whatever, just pay the $9 to get him to stop screaming.

Also, these kid’s headphones from Target are a terrible choice for a plane ride. They have a noise limiter which is probably great for everyday use, but on a plane it means you can’t hear anything that is going on in the show. Luckily, Dorian seemed to hear enough to be occupied for a while. Long enough for the plane to get close enough to Chicago that we had to put the trays up when the shows had run out.

Overall, riding on the plane wasn’t nearly as stressful as I had convinced myself it would be. And Dorian never had a problem with his ears because on takeoff and landing he was either eating or sucking on a binky. We are working on weaning the binky, so he usually doesn’t get it unless he’s in his crib or somewhere else sleeping. So we just gave it to him and told him, “Keep this in your mouth, baby, so your ears don’t hurt.”

I think at one point I told him, “it’s for your ears, baby.” and he looked at me for a second, then took his binky out of his mouth and studied it for a moment, then slowly, looking at me, put the binky in his ear. It was honestly the funniest thing that has happened in a while. 

The flight back wasn’t too bad either. I mean, aside from having a hyperactive toddler on a completely full flight and the internet not working so hot. But he slept from LA to San Francisco at least. He fell asleep as we were heading down the tarmac and stayed asleep until baggage claim.

Now I’m excited to plan our next plane ride somewhere. Though, next time I’m definitely getting better head phones and he will have his own seat. It was much cheaper to have him as a lap baby, but it would have been a lot easier to have him in an airplane safe car seat strapped in and tell him it’s like being in a car and he has to stay in his seat while we’re moving. 

It was definitely an experience, and I can’t wait for the next one.

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood.

Sacramento Train Museum

Have you ever had your kid come up with some new obsession completely out of the blue and thought, well, crap, now there’s another thing I have to try to support them in and foster their interest? After I had a great weekend of some alone time with my husband, Dorian came home from his grandparents house suddenly obsessed with trains. He saw a picture of Devin and I in front of the Napa Wine Train and insisted that he needed to go on a train too. So we started looking at trains on my phone. When we came across a steam engine, it reminded me of the Thomas the Tank Engine show and I found out it was on Netflix and only like 10 minute episodes with some really cool social emotional lessons. 

I digress. 

After that I started trying to think of any trains around us that Dorian could go ride. I knew of the skunk train in Mendocino because I rode it as a kid and my aunt rides on the Niles Canyon Railway every Christmas time when the train is all lit up with Christmas lights. But I needed something now. 

And then I remembered that Sacramento has a train museum that I had never been to, but I thought, hey, looking at trains might be super fun for him. 

A little research later and I found out that they have an actual train you can ride. It’s a 45 minute ride out of Old Town and along the Sacramento River. The ticket for Dorian was free, and the tickets for Devin and I were only $15 each, so I jumped on that and booked our first available weekend to go to the train museum and, happily, Papa, Titi and our nephew all joined us. 

If you are going on the weekend (and the train rides only run on the weekends) definitely go as early as you can as Old Town gets really packed the later in the day it gets. We took a 10:30am ride and it was already pretty warm. We were in an open air car and Dorian absolutely loved it. 

He liked watching the world go by, he was startled by, but really enjoyed the noises the train made, and he really loved all the people wearing ‘choo-choo hats’. But his very favorite thing was the ‘train bells’. That is, the bells that ring at the train crossings as the train crosses the roads. He even started associating the train blowing its horn with coming up to a ‘train bell’.

But if the train ride was fun, you should have seen him in the actual museum. There were so many train engines and cars to look at and go in that he hardly knew what to do with himself. 

The museum is three stories tall. The bottom floor is all train cars and old engines and the history of the trains and tracks running through California. 

We did not visit the second floor as we were short on time.

But, the third floor. Oh, let me tell you. The third floor has a Thomas the Tank Engine play area for kids. There is a large train/jungle gym and three or four tables that have train tracks and toy trains to play with. We could have spent forever there. But Dorian was tired and we had somewhere else to be.

I would definitely allow at least 2 hours for the museum by itself. There is so much to see and do and interact with. So many buttons for kids to push. 

Overall, definitely kid (and even toddler) friendly and a must see if your child is as obsessed with trains as mine just decided he is. We’re thinking about going back in the winter because they do a Santa train ride, they even have a Polar Express train ride with hot chocolate and a silver bell for each kiddo. I mean, can you say Christmas Spirit???

Maybe this will be something he is fascinated by for a long time, maybe it will peter out by the time I book the Christmas train tickets. But it has made for some fun memories already. 

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood. 

A Day of Food (Sick Baby Edition)

Mamas, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: baby colds suck. 

But do you know what sucks more? Toddlers having a cold while you also have a cold. What is it about toddler colds? How is it that you can have the same cold as your toddler and it knocks you flat but they’re up and running and screaming and playing, until they’re not and they whine and cuddle and break your heart?

As you can probably guess, Dorian and I have been sick this last week. And, man, has it been a doozy. I actually had to have my husband come home early from work and stay home with me the next day because I was just so out of it and exhausted. This cold started in our heads with runny noses and sinus pressure, but it quickly moved into the chest. Yay mucus. 

But it did bring up some fun stuff about food. I told you I wanted to post once a month about the food that Dorian eats and some of our favorite recipes. So, this one will be based on things to feed your toddler when they’re sick.

Now, obviously you can just feed toddlers the same things they always eat. But there are foods that can help and foods that can hinder recovery when you’re sick. 

Let’s start with breakfast. 

When Dorian is sick, I try to steer him away from his waffles and syrup. Instead, I make him eggs. Either scrambled or over medium. Eggs are easier to digest and are packed with protein and vitamins to help him keep his energy to kick his cold to the curb. I pair his eggs with fruit, specifically citrus fruit like oranges. There’s some debate about whether the vitamin C will actually help when you’re already sick. But, I figure it can’t hurt. 

If your child likes oatmeal, that’s a great breakfast when they’re sick too. It’s what I eat when I’m sick. But Dorian doesn’t like oatmeal. If he did, I would add some brown sugar, cinamon, and a little honey to help soothe the throat. 

Now, I know there’s the generalized thought that you have to avoid milk when you’ve got mucus. But, from this article by RN Kristina Duda, I’ve learned that it isn’t necessary to avoid unless you already have a milk allergy. If you have no allergy to dairy, it apparently only makes the mucus feel thicker because it coats the stuff. If you do have an allergy, it can produce more mucus and congestion. But, it seems mostly to be a person by person basis. So, if your child seems worse after having milk, maybe limit the amount they get while they’re sick.

For lunch, I like to do something hot because usually by this time he’s been coughing quite a bit and I feel like his throat could use some soothing. 

He recently discovered ramen while at his Nonna and Papa’s house. So I stock up on that while he’s sick. He doesn’t eat a whole package of it, so I usually split it with him. For the most part I just have him eat the noodles, none of the broth, because I don’t know if he’s quite ready for actual soupy noodles. So I take the noodles out of the broth and put them on a plate. We also like to get the Cup of Noodles. This way there’s some veggies. But it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to defrost some frozen peas or put some broccoli in it. I cut the noodles up a bit because my kid has no sense of ‘slow eating’. 

While he’s sick I try to stick to fruit or the Quest protein bar for snacks. But, honestly, if he’s not eating well, I’ll give him whatever he wants. 

Meanwhile, dinner pretty much stays the same. I try to add some good healing veggies like broccoli more often because they’re really good for you when you’re sick. 

For dinner we keep it pretty normal, but I make sure it’s full of foods that are easy to digest. White rice is a staple in my house and we make good use of it when we have colds. Your body needs to focus on healing and fighting off your toddler’s cold. So here’s a recipe that we really love that Dorian really loves too.

Tonkatsu with Rice.

This is a Japanese dish that is really easy to make and tastes really yummy. For those of you who follow pretty strict recipes, I’ve included one here. Otherwise, if you’re a cook by feel type of person like me, my recipe is below.

Tonkatsu:

Ingredients:

Boneless Pork Chops (if they are not thin, pound them out)

Panko bread crumbs

Eggs (2-3)

Flour

Vegetable Oil for frying (not olive oil. If you don’t have vegetable oil, use another high smoke point and neutral taste oil like rice, bran, or canola oil)

Rice

Instructions:
First get your rice going. To do this, WASH the amount of rice you want to cook. I usually do about two cups because that gives us left overs for the next day. To wash the rice, put your dry rice into a bowl or even the pot you’re going to use (I use my rice cooker). Cover the rice with cool water and then use your hands to swirl through, squeeze and swish around the rice. This will release the starch which makes the water look milky. Drain the water. If you’re picky, you can use a sieve or something, I just get most of the water out without dumping the rice and then fill it back up. You want to do this until the water is clear. It may be a hassle, but I promise you it’s worth it. Also note that I use NIshiki sushi rice because it comes out more tender and the moisture sticks around the next day, so it’s a good rice to have for leftovers.

When the rice is washed you fill your pot or rice cooker with water up to the first knuckle on your middle finger. (honestly, I learned that from Jo Koy (comedian) but it works). I also have no idea how to make rice the “normal” way. So here’s a rice cooking recipe. 

For those of you using your handy dandy rice cooker, simply let your child hit the ‘cook’ or ‘white rice’ button (or whatever yours has) and let it go. 

Now for the pork. Like I said above, if you got the nice thick cut boneless chops, go ahead and smash those guys down a bit. You want these to be about ½ inch thick. If you got the thin cut, go ahead and proceed without further ado. (note that I like to get the thick cut ones because they make for larger tonkatsu cutlets)

You are going to want to get your pan heating. I like to use a large steel pan and fill it with oil so that it covers the bottom. Now, every stove is different. On mine, I can’t go past the 4 or else everything burns. You want it hot enough to fry the outside and cook the inside without burning. I like to do it on medium heat. 

While your oil is heating up, go ahead and set up your three shallow dishes (or plates). The first will have flour with salt and pepper mixed in. Then scramble your two or three eggs in the second one. The third will have panko bread crumbs. 

When your oil is ready to go, start dredging your pork. 

Cover it in flour and shake off the excess

Dip it in the egg to cover the whole chop

Cover it in panko

Place it in the frying pan.

It should sizzle when you put it in. If it doesn’t, your pan probably isn’t hot enough. Fit what you can, but don’t overcrowd it. You want to have a little space between the chops. This means you might have to do more than one batch.

When the bottom is nice and crispy, about 3-4 minutes if your pan was hot enough (mine almost always isn’t), go ahead and flip them to finish cooking. You want your pork to be 145 degrees before you pull them off.

*Note that if you turn up the heat because it’s not cooking fast enough, this is usually what happens to me…

As your pork finishes ( some might cook faster than others) pull them off onto a plate lined with a paper towel to drain the excess oil off. 

This is served on top of rice, cut into strips. I eat mine in a bowl. But I serve Dorian’s in a plate and add some veggies. I think this is usually served with a wilted salad of some sort, but Dorian hates lettuce and spinach type foods, so I usually make broccoli, lima beans, or edamame to serve with it for him. 

And finally for dessert. Now, when he’s sick I don’t let him have a lot of sweets. But I wanted to share one of our favorite recipes that our family really enjoys for Oatmeal Cookie Creme Sandwiches.

These are really yummy, but the frosting in the middle is very sugary. Now, the way I make them, I only end up using half the frosting for the amount of cookies this recipe makes. So I usually make a double batch of the cookies and a regular batch of the frosting. Because I don’t mind if we just have some cookies without frosting, Dorian can eat those. But I hate wasting frosting. 

I know it can be hard to even try to think about cooking or come up with a menu for the day when both of you are sick. But I hope this little blurb about what I do when Dorian is sick can help out a little.  

Now if you’ll pardon me, I have to go convince Dorian to blow his nose for the fifteenth time this morning…

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood.

Baby Growing Too Fast

Alright, Mamas. This post is going to probably be a little more of me venting than anything else. But I think these posts are good because they let me get my emotions out, and if there’s anyone else feeling the way I do, it lets them know they’re not alone. 

Y’all, my baby had me in tears last night. Like, not happy tears. Not proud tears. Straight up bawling because I was heartbroken, tears. 

Now, I know what you’re thinking. He said something mean. He hit her. He didn’t want to give her a hug or kiss. No. Those are normal things. I mean, he doesn’t really say mean things yet. But I know he will, and that will probably hurt me too. But no. This was worse. Much worse.

He refused to read Pout Pout Fish. 

Now, the thing you have to know, if you haven’t read or don’t remember from a previous post, is that Pout Pout Fish is our night time book. This is the last thing we do before he lays down for the night. We have developed little things we do during the book. Like when the Octupus is talking to him, we tickle him. When the purple fish kisses him, one of his lovies kisses him. When he goes around kissing all his friends, his dad and I take turns kissing him. And then he kisses his teddy bear, our dog, and finally us, telling us ‘night night’ and ‘I love you’. 

I have read this book to him every night he has been home since he was six months old. That’s almost two years of reading this book almost every night. And now. Just no more. It’s gone. And I didn’t have any real warning. I didn’t have any time to prepare myself for this because I thought I had at least another year of this. 

But I kept my cool. He said, “no Pout Pout” and I said, “Are you sure? You’re going to bed whether or not we read Pout Pout.” And he said, “In? Night night, mama. Light off.” And then came and turned his light off and started trying to climb into his crib (which he can’t manage yet because it’s on the lowest setting). But, guys, my heart broke. He gave kisses out to everyone and told us ‘I love you’ and then he got tucked in and just….went to sleep…

I made it through kisses. I made it through tucking him in and telling him goodnight. I made it through shutting the door. And then the dam broke and I started crying. And then I got into my room and shut the door and I started sobbing. Devin, bless him, held me and told me it would be ok. He told me, half joking, ‘just because he doesn’t want to read Pout Pout Fish doesn’t mean he doesn’t need you anymore. It doesn’t mean he’s gonna go get a girlfriend tomorrow.’ 

Of course that made me cry harder. After a little while, Devin asked, “why is this bothering you so much?”

And I had to tell him I didn’t know. I don’t know why it was so hard for him to grow up just a little bit and not want that book that has been both a curse and a blessing for the last two years. 

But I called my mom. I called her crying and told her that Dorian refused Pout Pout Fish and you want to know her response? “Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry. That’s tough.” 

There’s just something about moms, guys. They get it. I can’t put into words why it broke me so completely. I think part of it was the suddenness. Part of it was that it has been such a big part of our nightly routine for so long. It was something fun we did to end the day. And, yeah. There is that feeling that when you’ve put so much time into something and developed it into a routine and suddenly the baby doesn’t want it anymore, that you are becoming less needed. 

Which is ridiculous because he’s still two and needs me for a ton of other stuff I wish he didn’t need me for. Like freaking potty training. 

But there is that gut reaction to it. That hard blow of, oh my God. He just grew up a little. I wasn’t ready for that. I thought I was, but I wasn’t.

So we have changed our nightly routine. Especially since introducing potty training, the routine changed a little anyway. Now…it’s just a little more different. We read for a while in his room, then we go brush teeth, go potty one last time and get a night night pull-up on. And when we get back in his room I tell him, ‘ok, Bud, you have a choice. Do you want to read Pout Pout or just go to bed?’

This is only the second night, but he still said, ‘bed’ and ran to turn off the light. He almost didn’t even give me or Lola a kiss tonight. 

I just have to keep reminding myself that this was the first thing I established with him. But there will be many more things to establish. Cooking together. Cuddling. Watching movies. Inside jokes. This was just a big step for me in my growing up with him. And maybe a bit of a rude awakening to the fact that nothing lasts forever. 

So, Mamas, if you’re going through something similar and your baby broke your heart, but you don’t understand how or why, you’re not alone. It’s a rough, emotional, pothole filled road we’re on. And there will be times we love more than we’ve ever loved, there will be times we are angrier than we knew was possible with someone so tiny. And there will be times we feel lost and heartbroken even though nothing is technically going wrong. I think heartbreak might be a natural indication that you are doing an amazing job giving your child choices and independence where they’re allowed to have it. Even though it’s hard when they start exerting that independence. 

Hang in there Mama.

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood.

Teaching Consent to Toddlers

Good morning, moms and dads and guardians of all sorts. This last week Dorian and I spent a couple days with my parents and little sister, and I started noticing all the ways I’m preparing my child for when he’s older. How I’m already having thoughts and fears about having a boy and what that will mean I have to deal with and what he might have to deal with.

I have already heard a lot about how boys are different from girls. Mostly that boys are harder when they are younger, but easier as they get older, and girls tend to work the other way around because, you know, girl drama. Even if it’s just that other girls make your girls life harder, boys aren’t really, generally speaking, dramatic the way girls are in middle school.

However, that’s not really the only thing that makes boys different. For me, at least, it’s also about what and how we are teaching them. I know that the ‘what’ of what we teach is similar. But I think the thought process behind it is a little different.

Consent is a huge thing we start teaching our kids early now. And for good reason. With more and more stories and reports of abuse, assault, and unwanted advances coming out, we have to teach our girls early on that their ‘no’ matters. And there are a whole slew of concerns that come with having a girl, like wondering if the boy she dates is also being taught to listen to her ‘no’.

And that’s where I come in. 

I am the mom teaching her boy that ‘no means no.’ No matter what.

For those of you who are not quite at the stage where you have to start that yet, or those of you who are reading this blog with older kids, wondering how on earth you can teach a toddler about consent, I’ll run through a couple scenarios that happened recently and how that will tie in to consent.

The first, and biggest example you’ll see all over the internet is respecting your child when they say ‘no’ about certain things. Obviously not if it’s about safety, bed time, or anything like that. This is when you go to grandma’s house and grandma asks for a kiss, but your child says ‘no’. This can be really hard, of course, because you know grandma doesn’t mean anything bad by her want for a kiss and you don’t want your child to just not kiss his grandma ever. But, teaching consent early means teaching your child, and those around them, that everyone’s ‘no’ matters and should be respected. Otherwise, put your child in this situation: she’s fifteen now and has been with her boyfriend for a week. He wants to kiss, but she doesn’t. If she says ‘no’ and he does it anyway, is that ok? Should she just sit there and take it and wait for it to be over? Absolutely not. She should nope right out of that relationship until he can learn to respect her.

I know, it’s weird place to put your brain.

Another really common example online is stopping a game of tickles if the child says ‘no’ even if they are having fun. This teaches them that they can say ‘stop’ at any point in time and should be taken seriously. Sometimes something starts out fun but it gets scary or you get unsure. You should be able to say, ‘stop’ and have your partner listen to you.

But there are other ways I am teaching my son, as well. Teaching him that his no isn’t the only no that matters. This is mostly while he is playing with other kids or his Titi (auntie, she’s 10). The other day we were over and they were playing a game where they would both go under the blanket. After a while Titi decided she was all done. This upset Dorian a lot. He kept crying and asking Titi for more play. He even came to me to scream about it. This is what I told him, “sweety, I understand that you are upset that Titi isn’t playing anymore. It’s ok to be upset about that. But you still have to respect that Titi said she’s all done. You can’t make Titi play if she said she’s all done.”

I validated his feelings, but let him know that I wasn’t going to make Titi play with him and he shouldn’t either. Now, did he understand? No. He’s two. It’s a difficult concept for toddlers. But if I make it the dialogue now, it’ll be easier to continue that dialogue when he’s older. Picture the conversation (that I hope he has with his dad instead of me) as this:  “I know it’s upsetting that she said ‘no’ when you thought you were going to *sexual/intimate activity here*, but you can’t make her do it if she said she doesn’t want to.”

See how the dialogue is the same? It’s just a more adult conversation. 

Another way I’m teaching my son that he needs consent from others is with his touching.

I don’t care, right now, what part of the body he’s touching, because he’s two and doesn’t see anything as sexualized. But if someone tells him to stop touching, that’s when I start caring. 

We were in the car the other day and his Titi was sitting next to him. He kept touching her and playing with her spaghetti strap. She told him not to, he kept doing it because, again, he’s two and when you tell a two year old to stop doing something, they generally smile and carry on with it. But, I told him that if he didn’t stop touching Titi’s clothes when she told him to stop, Titi was going to move. He didn’t stop. Titi moved across the car. Why is it so important to me that Dorian not touch Titi’s clothes if she doesn’t want him to? Because God help him if I EVER find out he’s one of the boys snapping bra straps or anything like that. I will not be one of the moms defending that behavior in her son. I will ground him and make him apologize because it is not ok for someone, anyone, to touch you when you don’t want them to.

I also make sure he knows he has to ask the person in question before he touches them or if he wants to touch them. Now, this one isn’t an all the time kind of thing. You don’t always ask to be touched by your husband or wife or child or friend. Sometimes you just do it, which is why the listening when they say ‘no’ or ‘all done’ is important. But just last week when we were over, after the blanket game, Dorian came up to me and said “Titi belly.” 

I was thoroughly confused. “What about Titi’s belly?”

“Me touch?”

See, we play this game at home where Dorian finds everyone’s belly button or he wants us to poke and ‘beep beep’ his belly button. So I looked first at my little sister and then at Dorian and said, “Well, baby, it’s Titi’s belly, you’ll have to ask her. But if she says no, you have to listen and not touch, ok?” I know, it’s a lot of words for a two year old to take in. I’m still working on how to fit these concepts into as few words as possible. In the end he went to Titi and said, ‘belly’ and she said, ‘yeah, you can touch my belly’ and now it’s a fun game they play. But only when Titi says it’s ok.

There’s a lot of research out there on other ways to teach your child the concepts of consent. And if you think your child is too young to need to learn consent, think of it more like a building block. Learning shapes, colors, and how things fit together are building blocks for math. Learning words and songs and labeling things are all building blocks for language. These are the building blocks for abiding by social practices.

Even Mickey Mouse songs have lyrics about consent. Daisy wouldn’t kiss Donald (as a frog to turn him back) until everyone gave consent. And then there’s the Bake Sale song that Minnie and Mickey sings where Mickey wants to eat all the things Minnie has baked, but she keeps telling him no until the end of the song when she tells him to ‘just back off’ and, as I’ve listened to this song at least three times a day for the last two months, if that isn’t an illustration for consent, I don’t know what is.

This is so important now. But I’m not just protecting the girls. I’m trying to protect my son. I never want him to be put in a situation where he thought his partner was ok and then find out later that what he was doing was unwanted. That’s why I’m not just teaching him to say ‘no’. I’m trying to teach him to ask first, and respect the ‘no’ if it comes. Because not every girl is taught that saying no is ok. And, though it shouldn’t be his responsibility, ensuring that she really is ok with it will be his job.

And, guys, I have to admit that I am scared. I am so scared that what I teach him won’t be enough. Because, with all the true, terrible claims of rape and sexual assault, also come those very few and far between fakes. And I am so scared that Dorian will experience that, no matter what I teach him. So, I have a plea, as a boy mom, to all you girl moms. Teach your girls that their ‘no’ matters and should be respected. That a boy’s ‘no’ matters and should be respected. That regret and rape are not the same. And that there is no circumstance in which anyone should ever make up an assault. 

All of our children need to be protected. And I’m doing my part to make sure my son will keep his hands to himself, and hopefully even protect those who are being told their ‘no’ doesn’t matter. 

Consent is easily learned, easily taught, and something that is essential for us to start teaching now. Whether they are a girl or a boy or somewhere in between. Everyone’s ‘no’ is important.

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood. 

Potty Training

OK Mommas. Let’s talk some crap. No. Really. Like actual poop.

See, in the last couple weeks we started being a little serious about potty training. I know there are a lot of different tactics and a lot of different experiences. But I thought I would just share some of my own research and experiences. Because you can never read too much, right?

I will say that as a SAHM (stay at home mom), it is almost impossible to go to the bathroom by myself. So Dorian has been watching me sit on the toilet since he was born. He’s now almost two. And you know, I read the book The Help and in it, one of the characters talks about how observation is a key part of potty training little ones. So, I figured, I’m keeping my kid from screaming bloody murder in my absence and maybe I’m helping show him what potty time is at the same time.

When Dorian started showing an interest in the potty a couple months ago, we decided we’d do what I termed “pre-potty training”. That is, if Dorian said he wanted to go sit on the toilet, we’d let him. And if he pottied, we’d be ecstatic. But if he didn’t it was no big deal. And if he messed in his diapers, it was just a regular occurrence. 

Then it started getting annoying for me because every time I went to the bathroom it was, ‘me too! Me potty too!’ and I’d have to tell him it was mommy’s turn first. So as soon as I was done it was a breathless chorus of ‘my turn, my turn, my turn!’

We had thought, previously, about getting a toddler seat for the toilet. Specifically one with a large guard on the front because I have been peed on a number of times. I think this is more of a problem with boys than girls. But because of the ‘my turn’ thing, I just didn’t know how it would work out in the long run.

This is when we decided to get a kid’s potty. So he could just go at the same time as me. That turned it into ‘mommy has to go potty, are you going to go potty too?’ and the answer was almost always, ‘yes’. 

I let him pick out his potty from Target. It helps, I think, that his Yaya already has the same one at her house because his cousin is a year older than him and working on potty training too. So he chose Paw Patrol. He really likes the buttons that he gets to push for ‘flushing’ and cheering for going potty. This potty also comes with a sticker chart, but since we weren’t really potty training, I just let Dorian stick the stickers all over the place on that chart. He had a lot of fun with it. 

Now, I know that a lot of parents recommend the 3 day pantless method. For those of you who aren’t sure what this is, let me explain. For 3 days you go absolutely no where. You put the potty somewhere easily accessible for your toddler. Maybe their room or the living room. Or, just stick with the bathroom. Then, having prepared baby by talking and maybe reading some books, you take your toddler’s pants and diaper off and let them have free reign. This is in an attempt to be able to catch them when they are peeing or pooping and explain to them that when they feel that urge, they should go to the potty. You aren’t reprimanding them for it, just using it as a teaching opportunity. They should get the hang of it and within 3 or so days, you have a potty trained toddler. Some thought behind this is also that if you provide your toddler with the escape of a pullup, they will take it and it will take longer to potty train.

You also have to be prepared to just clean up A LOT of messes. 

I’m not there yet. I’m still questioning whether my kid is FULLY ready to be potty trained. Sometimes he’s super into it. And sometimes he doesn’t want to take a break from playing. And sometimes he wants to sit on the potty so he doesn’t have to wear pants. (I have found that keeping the pullups in the bathroom with us prevents us from running around naked and refusing to put a new one on.)

So for now I have him on a 1.5-2 hour schedule and if he tells me he needs to go in between those alarms, I take him. Just to start showing him that going potty isn’t an option, it’s just a normal thing we do throughout the day. I also let him go potty with me every time I go to the bathroom to show him how much mommy stops what she’s doing to go potty. 

And we’ve had some pretty good success. They say boys are harder and they say pooping is the hardest. Dorian pooped on the potty with absolutely no prompting from me. I was totally prepared for it to be one of the last things we learned to do. But he’s never had a problem with his poop, never hid to do it, just let me know when he had it. And then he said he had to potty. I took him and he kept pushing pee out and saying, ‘poop’ and I was like, ‘no poop, bud, just peepee.’ But then, after a little bit of pushing and time, he did poop. And my brain shut down. I was ecstatic. Like, wait, Yeah! You pooped! Great! 

If you go the pullup route, like we are in now, I would go with Huggies because they have tear away sides so if they poop or something and you don’t want to pull down the mess, you can just tear it like a diaper. The Huggies New Leaf were suggested to us by another mom whose 4 year old son said those ones were the best because they are the softest. We also bought night time pullups because I didn’t trust regular pullups to have the capacity of a diaper in case he messed through the night, but he was very over diapers. It was like he thought I was punishing him by not putting him in a pull up.

And let them choose the design. My kid chose Minnie Mouse and Trolls. “Girl pullups”.  But so what? No one else sees them. And even if they did, who cares? My kid is in love with Minnie Mouse and he really liked the colors of the Trolls ones. Just this last trip he chose Spiderman and Frozen Olaf pullups. Denying your kid something they want just because it isn’t the ‘right gender’ isn’t going to help them get through potty training any faster. It might even deter them because they aren’t getting what they want out of it. They aren’t getting the cool Spiderman or pretty Trolls pullups they wanted. So why bother keeping them clean?

Now, I have had to deal with the frustration of, ‘dude, why is there peepee in here? Why didn’t you tell me you had to go potty?’ or ‘seriously, kid. You just went pee, I highly doubt you have to go again two minutes later.’ Or, ‘just how long are we going to stay in the bathroom while dinner burns so you can sit on the toilet with no pants on, because we both know that’s why you’re here.’

I’m not going to even pretend to try to tell you that potty training isn’t stressful and time consuming and annoying. But it also doesn’t have to be something that ruins your day or your week or your year. You, again, have to figure out which way you want to do it, what path is right for your life and your family. 

I’m still in what I call, ‘pre-potty training’ where I’m still just getting Dorian used to taking potty breaks and going potty in the potty and being happy and giving high fives and fist bumps when he goes in the potty. (I do make sure to tell him, ‘yay! You went peepee in the potty and not in your pull up! Good job, bud!’) So he can start understanding that the act of peeing or pooping isn’t what he’s being rewarded for, it’s the where of it.

But once I feel like he and I are both ready for the next step of moving into big boy underwear and going full on potty training mode, I’ll probably take three days where I know Devin will be home too and we can do the naked thing, or wear the underwear and just show him, you know, it’s really uncomfortable when you pee or poop in actual underwear. That’s why we have to use the potty. 

And I will let him pick out those underwear too. I’ll tell him, ‘when you go potty in the potty, we can start wearing big boy undies.’ So he has a motivation and a reward built into one.

There is no specific age when you’re supposed to potty train, so if you’re freaking out because your child is three and you haven’t really started potty training yet, don’t worry. Instead of an age, there’s readiness signs. Things like hiding to poop; telling you they have a mess in their diaper, whether verbally or by tugging at it because it’s uncomfortable; and showing an interest in the toilet or what you’re doing on there.

Do some research, read some children’s books, and watch for those signs. Your kiddo will tell you when they are ready. There’s no need to rush it. There’ll be plenty of crap to deal with regardless of whether they get trained now or later.

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood.

Co-Sleeping vs. Sleep Training

I thought I was going to talk about potty training for this post. But after a couple hard nights I’ve had this week, I think I need to vent about this topic instead.

Let me start off by saying that some of you will not agree with me and some of you may think I’m a monster. Sometimes I wonder myself. But I did sleep train my son. That is, I presented him with situations, at a young age, in which he had to learn how to self soothe so he could sleep through the night in his own bed in his own room. I know some of you will not like that. Some of you will. When it comes to Co-sleeping vs. Sleep Training, just like everything with babies, you have to figure out what’s right for you and your family. Sleep training was right for me. 

Back up. I didn’t actually have to train him. He just slept through the night the first night I put him in his own room at 6 months old. 

So let’s look at the thoughts behind sleep training.

The American Pediatric Association wants you to have your infant with you, in the same room, until they are 6 months old. By that point, barring medical issues, they should be able to lift their heads and roll over. The threat of SIDS is no longer looming over you.

Now, I was super nervous about the prospect of sleep training. So I did a lot of research on pros and cons on both cosleeping and sleep training. And how to even go about doing the transition to his own room. I landed on the website and blog called Taking Cara Babies and bought their sleep training program. I discovered them through a family member who had recently used her program and swore by it. I loved that Cara, the founder, was a mom as well as a certified pediatric sleep consultant and that her husband is a pediatrician. I loved that the blog she had was already so helpful.

We decided to do the sleep training after a lot of agonizing over it on my part. See, Dorian is naturally a pretty chill, easy going guy. And we had been doing the whole, ‘sleepy but awake’ (putting your baby in his crib or basinet when they are tired, but not asleep yet) thing for naps and bed time for a while. But I was not sleeping during the night because even though he went down really well, he was waking up every couple hours to eat and it usually took me about a half hour to get back to sleep myself. I was dreading putting him in his own room and having him scream and figuring out how to start weaning him off night feedings because he didn’t need them nutritionally and I am apparently a complete sleepaholic and don’t know how to function without it. But I read through the program and, kind of luckily for me, COVID shut down our area, so my husband was home to help me get through the promised two weeks of ‘training’. 

Taking Cara Babies does something like a modified ‘cry it out’ theory. (I know. This is where anti sleep training people usually start making me feel terrible about my decisions.) There are set times that you listen to baby’s cries to determine if you need to go in and comfort. And she has a great scaffolding model on how to do it. You can choose to hold them the first time to get them calm. Then just touch them. Then you’re just talking to them. Some babies require more comfort than others. Some, like my son, don’t require any. 

Though I did not have to do sleep training the first time around, he did get to a point where I had to kind of go back to it because he was all of a sudden not going down without a car ride or me sleeping with him. 

Another thing that makes me feel like a monster was the decision to go with full on cry it out method. But, the reason we chose to do it this way was because Dorian loses his mind if we go in to assure him we’re there but do not pick him up and take him out. I know. It’s so hard. I can’t do it by myself because I feel terrible.

BUT.

I hear all you mamas saying, ‘just take him in the bed with you!’ And I’ll tell you why I don’t do that. Firstly, because I watched as my sister, much, much younger than me, grew older and still slept in my parent’s bed. I didn’t want that. I don’t want to train my kid to sleep in his own bed when he’s school aged. Or a teenager. Or whatever. I want to be able to spend my nights in a bed with just my husband and my dog.

But also, moreso, because of things like last night. Last night my husband was at rowing practice and we had to do bedtime by ourselves and then mommy idiotically watched a tv show that had a loud explosion and freaked him the hell out and then the screaming ensued. After about 15-20 minutes without him calming down or settling at all, I went in because I couldn’t take it anymore and I wanted to make sure he knew he was safe and I was safe. I made another mistake and turned the light on and we read a few books to kind of calm down. I put him back down about 20 minutes later and he immediately started crying and saying, ‘I need daddy’ and ‘I need yaya’s house’ (because I told him we were going there tomorrow).

I was stressing and freaking out and crying and making myself sick. Mostly because I was alone to deal with it. So I caved. I took him into my bed. He was asleep within minutes. And I had the thought, ‘no wonder moms do this. This is much nicer than screaming baby’ And honestly, I loved cuddling. But it was not to last.

Co-sleeping is great for a lot of families. There are moms who really need to feel their babies with them. There are babies who need that connection. Plenty of cultures practice co-sleeping for years of a child’s life. And it has been shown to be beneficial to the mental health of children.

Unfortunately it just doesn’t work for my family. Part of the reason we figured out Dorian kept waking up every 2 hours was because I am a really light sleeper and any time he made a noise, I woke up and shifted, and that woke him up. 

The reason I don’t like him being in the bed with us used to be because my husband is a really deep sleeper and a sudden mover, like I’ve been elbowed in the face before. But now it is because my son cannot sleep in one position. He can’t even stay with his head at the head of the bed. I was slapped three times last night. My husband was kicked. And it is somewhat adorable but also pretty frightening to be woken by maniacal baby laughter in the dead of night. 

I was already feeling the exhaustion of not sleeping well or enough when my husband got up for work at 4:30 this morning. Dorian decided he also was up. Dad was up, so we can all get up. It doesn’t matter that Devin didn’t have any alarms go off. It didn’t matter that he rolled up a towel and put it under the door to block the light from the bathroom while he got ready. Daddy was awake so Dorian was awake. And he wouldn’t go back down. And I found myself angry and resentful. 

I always feel attacked by the loud co-sleep supporters because they seem very anti sleep training. But, like I said in my first post, each kid is different, each mom is different and each situation is different. And as long as you’re not posing a danger to your kid, I’m not going to judge how you choose to do your motherhood/fatherhood journey. 

I really envy and admire the people who are good with and can sleep well enough to function while co-sleeping. I wish I could have that connection with my kiddo. And I secretly cherish the rare days he can’t nap without being in my arms. But my nights need to be mine. If I can’t sleep at night, I can’t be a good, functioning mom in the morning.

So I needed to sleep train. And I am stressing about him going to bed today because every time he struggles with going to bed it breaks my heart and makes me question my choices as a mother and whether or not I’m doing right by him. But I have to remember that it is a phase. That he’s done this well for over a year and that each little setback is only that: little. It’s something we can get through. And it’s what is best for my family. 

In the world of co-sleeping v. sleep training, you just have to find what works for you. How, in the long run, will you sleep better at night and what is worth sacrificing to you? Absolutely no judgement here. Only quiet support. Or maybe not so quiet. 

CHEERS! To the messiness of motherhood.

Making Time to be Sick

I first want to say I’m so sorry if you were looking forward to a post last week and didn’t get one. I found myself stranded with no computer after I blew out two tires on the freeway because I ran over something. Luckily my parents were close and I was able to stay with them until I could get the car fixed. But, as everyone knows, watching your child at someone else’s house is always way more stressful, even if it’s Nonna and Papa’s house.

Alright, diving into what I really wanted to talk about last week. If you’re a follower of the blog, I dropped a little information the last couple weeks that I’ve had a surgery. It was a “voluntary” surgery, meaning, my life was not threatened in any way. I was, however, in a lot of pain on a daily basis. My ovaries had cysts, and while ultrasounds found these to be simple cysts, meaning they should have been fine to just live with, I was in pain and it was beginning to affect my marriage and my quality of life because I was just so tired and painful all the time. I had no energy to do anything by the end of the day because of the nearly constant pain. 

After a few consultations, we decided to do a laparoscopic surgery to remove my left ovary and scrape out the right one to rid it of the large cyst inside. For those of you who don’t know, a laparoscopic surgery is one where you are under anesthesia and there are three small incisions made, one in your belly button, and two in your abdomen on either side of the space they are going to be working. They fill your abdomen with gas so they can see what’s going on. The ovary is then snipped off, sewn up, and extracted through the belly button. You do have a catheter and are intubated during surgery.

The recovery time of the surgery mostly depends on what kind of surgery you’re having. For example, they were very strict about my recovery from the removal of my appendix (appendectomy). But this one was kind of up in the air. I heard some people recovered within a couple days and others took a couple weeks.

This made it very difficult to figure out what I even needed in post surgery recovery. I knew I was going to need at least the day of and the day after to kind of see where I was. And, luckily, my quickly scheduled surgery (because someone else canceled theirs) was on a Friday. We arranged for my parents to take Dorian on the Friday and Saturday, and Devin planned to take the Monday and Tuesday off so I could have three days post surgery with support. Then, despite all my questions and trying to plan, when I got my discharge paperwork, it said I was not allowed to lift more than ten pounds for the first week. 

We made arrangements to have me stay with my parents after Devin went back to work because I was still in a lot of pain. It was hard to move quickly, it was hard to lift Dorian at all and he still sleeps in a crib and wears diapers. I don’t know how many of you have gotten there yet, or remember what it was like to change diapers on a toddler. But it’s not easy. Lots of alligator rolls and kicking and laughing because it is a very fun game. But when you just had surgery and are still feeling woozy and painful, it’s really, really not fun. 

Going to my parent’s house ended up not going well just because I still felt like I had to be in charge of Dorian and it was just not restful. My mom ended up bringing me home and keeping Dorian until Friday.

But, something that I learned through all of this was that being sick, as a SAHM, is HARD! And it’s so frustrating to feel like I have to schedule time to be sick. I know a lot of other moms feel the same. It might be a little easier if Dorian was an infant again and I could just hold him or feed him and then rest. Or if he was older and in school. But I know both of those come with their own issues. But trying to recover from a surgery, even one as ‘minor’ as a laparoscopic ovary surgery, with a rambunctious, kicking, running, body slamming, diaper wearing, crib sleeping toddler is just overwhelming. And I found myself breaking down because I didn’t feel like I was being allowed to recover from this surgery that I was told I would have support for. 

The thing I learned the most through this was to speak up for myself. Nobody knows what you need unless you ask for it. And if you don’t know what you need, tell them. One thing I kept having to tell my husband and my parents, because they kept asking, ‘what do you need from me, just tell me what you need’ was finally, “I DON’T KNOW! I don’t know what I need! I need help! I need to sleep and rest and not have a toddler jumping on my incisions!” 

So, the key for recovery and being sick is twofold, as a mom or parent, stay at home or otherwise. You need to speak up and tell your support system when you need help, and if you know what kind of help, specify. “I need someone to help me clean my house because it’s a disaster and it’s freaking me out but I don’t have the energy” or “if someone could bring dinner by so I don’t have to worry about that, please help.” Or even, something you might not want but might be necessary, “Could you take my son for a couple more days because I cannot rest when he’s with me.”

I did not want Dorian to stay with my parents without me for two more days. But I needed to rest. Even if someone was staying here with me and allowing me to be back in my bedroom, it would be really hard for me to rest. Because when my son is home, I feel incredibly guilty for staying back in the bedroom and not being with him. I feel terrible when something is going wrong and I don’t feel like I can come out and help and then retreat again because I know he’ll lose his mind.

So make sure you speak up for yourself. Make sure, if it’s something you know is going to happen (like a planned surgery), you make a good, solid, worst case plan for help. And if it’s something that was not planned (like you woke up sick) just communicate with your partner and support system for what you need. It can be frustrating, but people are not mind readers, no matter how much we wish they were.

And what I need to do now is end this post, even though it’s short. 

Cheers to the messiness of motherhood.