Category Archives: Recipes

1 Month (20 Meals) of Yumbox Daycare Meals!

Yup, this Saturday’s a fun one!

No research articles, no checking statistical integrity or inclusion criteria for control and intervention groups to formulate a conclusion, today! And I know it’s been a while since I actually published a *new* Saturday post, but with a sick toddler, I’ve had my fair share of distractions.

After getting slightly burned out by the time- and brain capacity- intensive Saturday Sproutings posts, it’s time to take a break and post about something I have been learning to adjust to, as Jia’s new routine is full time daycare for 8-9 hours a day:

MEAL PREPPING!

Nope, I’m not a gym rat referring to some uber healthy meal prep that involves a ton of brown rice, lean meats, veggies, and plastic ziploc containers, I’m talking about daycare meals. Continue reading “1 Month (20 Meals) of Yumbox Daycare Meals!” »

The Best Lactation Cookies You’ll Ever Eat

So I was inspired to post this cookie recipe that I deemed on the Little Sproutings Facebook Page as “the best cookies I’ve ever had – even better than DoubleTree Hotel cookies!” after my friend asked for the recipe for her friend who delivered her babies 2.5 months early. I’m not even exaggerating, not even a little bit. They are THE BEST cookies I’ve ever had. They’re the kind that are a little crisp on the outside but soft and gooey on the inside.

If you are a nursing mom, you more than likely have some intense cravings for goodies in almost all forms – burgers, croissants, huge sandwiches, and let’s be honest – cakes, brownies, cookies, chocolate… So why not make those goodies count toward your milk supply?

Filled with milk supply-supportive brewer’s yeast, flaxseed, and rolled oats, these cookies pack a good punch of lactation power. There are other supplements you can take to increase your supply, but those (like fenugreek) aren’t evaluated by the FDA and the effects on babies – especially fragile NICU babies – are unknown. However, brewer’s yeast, flaxseed, and rolled oats are safe and I’d been given the OK in the past to donate my pumped milk while having consumed these ingredients.

(A little on low supply: A lot of new moms think they have a low milk supply, but usually they don’t. If your baby is gaining weight appropriately and on breastmilk alone, you don’t have an issue with supply. For more on that, read KellyMom’s post here. It is not common for moms to have issues with milk supply – nature intended on moms to breastfeed. There is a lot of propaganda and false information out there about moms having issues with supply – this is purely a money-making tactics of formula companies. Most often it is a latch or supplementation problem, where moms supplement breastfeeding with formula, which tells the body it doesn’t have to make more milk since baby isn’t taking it.

I have never had an issue with my supply and was patient from the get-go knowing what to expect (only teaspoons amounts of colostrum to start, milk kicking in around 3-4 days postpartum), but I do like my sweets. Why not make them count? Continue reading “The Best Lactation Cookies You’ll Ever Eat” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: My Little Chatterbox

In the past week, this is what Jia has been up to:

She now knows how to say her name (through mimicry). It sounds more like “Zshee-ya” but we’re working on it!
She eats yogurt now! Yay! It took us about 5 attempts, and the success came from her eyeing me enjoying my regular yogurt. I would give her TEENSY tastes of my yogurt (like the size of a grain of rice) and then my mother-in-law came up with the idea to have her try her plain yogurt in between tastes of mine. No scrunched up face, nothing! She flat out started sucking it down without needing to try mine again! Win!
Mimics lots of word sounds and faces, still amused by sticking out tongues. 😛
Stands alone for anywhere from a few seconds to 20 seconds and once she realizes she’s doing it, she sloooooowly squats back to a seated position.
She’s starting to subtly learn right from wrong by doing “bad” things slowly. For example – I think it’s so adorable – when she has found, say, a Christmas tree needle (yes because there are still hundreds of them hiding away in the crevice between the carpet and wall), I’ll say “Jia, whatcha doing??” and she’ll look at me, and put it up for me to see so I can take it. But she has had it in her hand for a long time, so that I can “catch her.”
Has learned how a rocking chair works. She shook the rocking chair and watched it move Mei Mei who was seated on it. She was belly laughing over this!
Doors open and close, and she really likes closing them and giggles when we say “Open!” “Close!”
Look away from the hungry beast! Looking away from Jia helps her concentrate on eating. This is counterintuitive, but it’s something I think a lot of us moms are learning as our kids enter this similar phase in life – if you stare at them and hand-feed each bite to a toddler who refuses to look in your direction and open their mouths, they (maybe) won’t eat. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. But, as of late, if I am looking at this computer as she’s seated in front of her new food, I see out of the corner of my eye a daughter who is devouring her zucchini/spinach/apple pancakes. (recipe below) That being said…
She knows what we mean when we say “In your mouth,” when she threatens to drop the food morsel on the floor. Does she always follow? Well, “60% of the time it works every time…”

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: My Little Chatterbox” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: Tongue Twinsies!

I really enjoy writing these posts. They’re so much easier to write; stream of consciousness writing at its best. I mean, I see why there are so many moms out there in the blogosphere writing about their kids these days. It’s so easy to write about your fascinating child, sharing with the world how your day-to-day is changing, what s/he is doing now, what challenges you’re facing, etc. No research, no citations, not having to make sure what you’re saying is backed by legitimacy. And, judging by the numbers I’m seeing, you guys enjoy reading this type of post, too! So I think I’ll be able to keep up with this What’s She Doing Wednesdays thing! (I’m definitely NOT going to start shifting away from the health-topic posts for Sproutings Saturdays!)

I found out that not only does she love mimicking certain things we do, but she LOVES sticking out her tongue and watching me do it back. As we stand in front of the mirror, she sticks out her tongue. She looks at me (in the mirror), so I stick mine out. She smiles then turns to look at me face to face to make sure I was still doing it. She laughs and continues to stick her tongue out in all sorts of directions. So cute.
She’s discovered how doors open and close. I was in the bathroom and she was kneeling on the ground one hand on the door, moving it back and forth. She realized if she pushed it enough, she could close it completely.
We can self-feed pouches! The picture above is of her first time holding and sucking down a pouch on her own! Now, deciding to finish it is another story. She only wants to eat from the pouch if she’s holding it, because if I hold it (after she gets going) it’s just not as appealing 😉
“Pacifier Pop” is what I’m calling this new game that Jia finds absolutely hilarious. Jia is the squirmiest most stubborn little booger during a diaper change, writhing and refusing to lay on her back while I remove sharp diaper pins, fold a diaper, or even take off her pants and socks. She turns on her belly and gets on all fours trying to grab at anything she can, whether or not that would cause her to fall off the changing table. She sometimes even cries because she doesn’t feel like getting changed. So, today she was crying, so I got her pacifier (Wubbanubb) from the crib and I brought it to her face then thought – I’ll put it in my mouth! So I did. She started reaching for it, lying down nicely on her back. I turned my head away dodging her hands and she starts laughing. Then once she grabs ahold of the frog, I refuse to let the pacifier go. Then I let her “POP” it out of my mouth with a loud pop. She CRACKS UP!!! I struck gold. At least, for today.

Mom Thoughts:

My car needed maintenance done so I was driving Jeff’s car to Trader Joe’s. With the shopping cart cover in the back of my SUV, I realized she would have to sit in a shopping cart without a cover. It actually turned out even better than using it, because the seatbelt on the cart does a much better job at keeping a squirmy Jia well-seated. Thank you, Trader Joe’s (and Target!) for having sanitizing wipes. (I usually bring a ziplock of Lysol wipes in my mom-bag but didn’t take it with me to TJ’s since I thought I remembered them having a bucket of wipes near the carts) This is nice to learn since TJ’s and Target are my second and third homes.
I finally took out the newborn insert from the Infant Car Seat. I’m probably really late on this one but my little girl is *sniffle* growing up so she doesn’t really need that head support anymore. Sad day. She is already 1.5″ away from the top of the seat, soon to be outgrown.
I learned a lot about carseats in the past 7 days. I think a purchase of the Graco Milestone or Diono Radian 3-in-1 carseat is in the near future. Once Jia outgrows her infant car seat, she’ll need a seat to continue rear-facing until 2-4 years old. Two years is the absolute minimum the AAP recommends, four years is preferred. But, I want a seat that will be more-inclusive, meeting requirements for when she turns forward-facing in a harness (until 5 years old), and then with a normal seatbelt in the high-back booster (from 5-10) and then a backless booster (at least 10 years old). I had no idea before THIS WEEK (thanks to Car Seats For The Littles!) that you needed that many car seats. Am I the only one? My gosh. This also means my in-laws will need to get one for their car since the big seats aren’t meant to go in and out of cars all the time. Why can’t they make infant car seats slightly larger so that it can hold them til 2 years old? Like an Infa-Toddler Car Seat. Then we can bypass getting another rear-facing seat and just get one for front-facing? I know there’s the Graco 4ever and a few other types that go from infant seat to backless booster, but I’ve learned those are super bulky, really heavy, hard to install, or don’t allow for much room in the back for other carseats or people.

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: Tongue Twinsies!” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: My House is a Battlefield

So in an effort to publish mid-week posts on this blog, I figured I’d give a shot at “What’s She Doing Wednesdays” to write about new little quirks, developmental milestones, likes/dislikes, funny behaviors, etc. So here we go:

What’s She Doing Wednesday – My House is a Battlefield

In the short few days into this first full week of 2015, Jia has managed to really show me a new and growing side of her. This week I really felt like I was starting to raise a toddler. Oh boy.

Here’s what I’ve experienced in the last (maybe not even) 48 hours:

I put safety gates at the top of two sets of stairs, not bottom. We decided to wait on the lower gate to see if Jia would actually climb them. Tonight (Wednesday) I turn my back to load the dishwasher real quick and was away for MAYBE one minute and return to find Jia already climbing up on the 3rd stair. I supervised her while she successfully climbed the remaining 4 steps to the gate. Time to get a bottom-of-the-stairs gate. This was definitely THE week to get the safety gates installed. Thank goodness I ordered them Saturday and PRIME delivered them by Monday. Patting myself on the back here.
She has decided she doesn’t like smashed food. She was a fan on Sunday. Not after. Unless it’s breakfast and she’s eating mixed berries with oatmeal. Turns head violently away from the spoon and refuses to look back at me til she can “feel” that the spoon is nowhere close.
We found the first food she disliked: Yogurt. HATES yogurt. And it’s great that I got a huge tub of Plain Organic Whole Milk yogurt, since that was a waste. Thank GOODNESS she was a fan of the (yogurt) chicken I baked tonight and scarfed down an entire mini-chicken breast! (recipe is below). This kid loves (loved, because who knows now): black eyed peas, spinach, pumpkin, quinoa, lentils, all fruit, brussels sprouts, green beans, avocado, beets, carrots, butternut squash, peas, fig, kale, persimmon, salmon, chicken, turkey. Yogurt really took me by surprise.
She’s found she can command the doggies by dropping food on the ground. She gets a huge kick out of this (look at the picture above), in between screaming because she doesn’t feel like eating the food she used to love.
Threw her head back in annoyance that she wasn’t allowed to drink from her sip cup until her spinach/sweet potato-smothered face is cleaned off.
I can no longer dump a handful of Happy Baby puffs to keep her occupied while I prep her food/dinner/clean dishes. She now eats a small amount then drops them one by one to Mei Mei. Then laughs her head off.
As I’m typing this, she’s flicking the cords behind the TV and peeks around the corner at me with a VERY mischievous grin on her face as she cackles.
Discovered and loves trash cans. This includes the bucket we keep her dirty soaking poo cloth diapers. Ewww.
“Doggie water bowl? Fantastic place to clean my hands” (I’ve had to run and pull her away from it twice since starting this post)
She discovered the unending fun that is toilet paper. We keep a roll of the “good stuff” in her changing table area, in case we get a real hefty poo in a cloth diaper.

But thankfully, here are some beautiful and adorable new things we’ve seen: Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: My House is a Battlefield” »