Mommy did it again. She put me in that sleeper that makes me look like a little boy. Can you have a talk with her? I tried to protest, but she kept saying things like, “You’re growing like a weed!” and “Your feet won’t fit in any of these footies!” I know she’s washing clothes for me in the next size up, but that won’t help me today. Please do something!
Your daughter, Mirabella
My meathead is finished!
I was inspired by the University of Nebraska football corn hats. Although it might seem strange to some that people wear corn on their head, in Lincoln, NE it’s perfectly normal. I used Lamb’s Pride Bulky Blue Blood Red for the hat; pattern for the corn found here. I modified it a bit to show more of the corn and less of the husk. The hat knit up fast and I had just enough yarn to finish the smaller size. I was just under the pattern gauge on size 17 needles. I didn’t have larger needles, so I knit it on the 17s. (Actually, I borrowed the size 17s. Thanks, Liz!) I love the finished hat, even if the corn is a little silly.
You should go check out the other meatheads! I think my favorites are the snake meathead and the cheesehead.
We had our first all-family chat on Thanksgiving and it was a blast. Do you have a web cam? Let us know so we can video chat! Here’s a screen cap from Thanksgiving: the oldest and the youngest member of our families chillin’ on the Internet.
Cool, huh?
…a dairy-free Thanksgiving. Yes, you read that right. Our friends Herb and Jocelyn made the most amazing Thanksgiving dinner and I could eat practically all of it—all except the green bean casserole. They even mashed a separate bowl of potatoes for me using chicken stock instead of milk! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and I can’t tell you how happy I was that they went to all that trouble to make sure I could share the meal with everyone. True friends, indeed!
I did my dairy-free part for dessert. I made dairy-free, gluten-free pies: one pumpkin and one apple. See, I’m not the only one with food issues. Sarah can’t have anything with gluten. I have to say the pie experiment was a success. I couldn’t really tell the difference between evaporated cow’s milk and rice milk. The gluten-free dough was a little delicate to handle, though. Rolling it out was a bit of a pain, but once it was in the pie dish it held up well.
I hope everyone had a great holiday!
I don’t have a lot of time to write right now, so here’s another video of Bella.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I’ve joined my first kal (knit along). I’m planning to do a cornhusker theme with my meathead, since I live in Nebraska and all. I purchased some red Lamb’s Pride Bulky last Saturday, but still need to get the yarn for my embellishment. Can anyone guess what that might be? Tonight is knitting group and I’m going to take this along. I’m also going to take M’s blanket, which is still not finished because I’m not really happy with it. It’s not knitting up like I imagined at all. This was supposed to be an heirloom kind of project, and I don’t think I can look at it the way it is for years to come if I am so unhappy with it. Last week I got some tough love on another blanket project I am working on for my parents. Hopefully tonight I’ll get some of the same. I’m thinking I’ll need to frog and reknit, but maybe someone can suggest a way to salvage it.
What little fear I had left of taking M out and her having a shriekfest is almost completely gone. The past few days have been busy ones for her and she handled them all with grace (mostly!).
Thursday she had her 2 month check-up and got her first four shots. She handled them great, or at least I thought she did. The nurse said she’ll never get used to hearing babies cry like that. I told her if she ever had a child with an intolerance to dairy, she’ll get used to it in no time. Honestly, I think M handled her shots better than nursing after I had a cheeseburger. I guess it’s all relative, right?
Later that evening T and I had an appointment and afterward we were too tired to deal with dinner so we took her to Macaroni Grill. Note: MG is a stupid place to go if you can’t eat dairy. They have one item on their dairy-free menu. ONE ITEM. I guess anything that doesn’t have cheese has butter. M was very patient while we ate our dinner. She even colored a bit on the tablecloth.
Friday was happy hour at T’s office. Everyone has been working so hard that they had a little afternoon fun time. M went with me to hang out and got passed around like a baby burrito. She loves hanging out with Rochelle. She’s an expert at baby rocking.
Saturday was a big night for T and me. It was the second time we went on a date without M. She went over the Masts for a few hours while we went to a reception for our friends Lauren and Paul, who were married in September out in California. When we left her, the whole family was surrounding her with attention. She even took a bottle while she was there!
Sunday we drove up to Omaha to look at furniture. M loves car rides, so she was a happy, sleepy camper most of the day. We had lunch at Burger King, where there is exactly ONE ITEM on the menu without soy, and had our first experience nursing M in public. We were in a booth tucked away in the corner and it was really no big deal. I think T and I are getting the hang of this whole parenting thing and we’re not doing so bad.
Sunday night M got a bath and then into the crib where she slept like a rock.
Is it any wonder?
p.s. There are a few more photos in the gallery.
It’s been four weeks since I went off of dairy, beef and soy and it’s made a huge difference in our lives. Mirabella is happy! The rash on her face is gone and she doesn’t cry bloody murder while nursing anymore. Also gone are the crazy volcanic noises in her tummy. And because she is doing better, we are all doing better. Nighttime feedings are a breeze. We’re so quiet, T barely wakes up. We’ve also started taking walks around the neighborhood in the afternoon. I was afraid to take her out before for fear we’d get halfway around the block and she’d erupt in a shriekfest.
We’ve also crossed another hurdle: bottlefeeding. We’ve been trying to do one bottle a day so T can be more involved in the feeding process. The first step was getting her to accept a pacifier. She chose the Nuk, so we got all kinds of Nuk nipples for her bottle. At first, she was all Goldilocks with This Nuk is too big. This Nuk is too slow. We finally came up with a solution: we put an extra hole in the smaller Nuk. Now the Nuk is just right.
All of these things combined have also helped us get on a schedule. Honestly, if you told me a few weeks ago that we’d be able to go three hours between meals with a little playtime and a nap in between I wouldn’t have believed you. We are actually getting in a groove with our routines (and y’all know how much I love my routines!).
I’m also getting into a groove with my new diet. After my initial shock of OMG — I can’t eat ANYTHING! I focused on the things I can eat. Before my Nine Months of Nausea (NMoN), I used to cook a lot. I was the master at low fat substitutions. So I pulled out my menu mailers (which I joined right before my NMoN and hadn’t used at all) and started getting creative with non-dairy ingredients. I also revamped our pantry, which had grown cobwebs from my NMoN. I threw out anything I couldn’t eat and stocked up on lots of non-dairy snacks. Luckily it’s getting to be soup weather. I have a gazillion soup recipes that will take me through the spring in fabulous non-dairy fashion. I have to post a picture of the pantry for my parents and in-laws. When they were here, you couldn’t even see the floor! Yes, I am a total geek and in love with my pantry.
We have had to change a few things on the blog to deal with comment spam. In the past, I was just deleting it as it came along, but over the last few days I’ve been getting 60 to 100 spam messages in the comments daily. I really want to keep the comments open, so now before you post a comment, you’ll have to type in the code that shows up in the comment box. Also, the first time you post, your comment may be held for approval. After you are approved once, you should be able post comments without waiting for them to be moderated. Hopefully that will reduce the enormous amount of spam the blog is getting. Thanks!
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