Mediocre Martha

Most people who know me even a little bit well know I am not exactly a beacon of domesticity. I turn a blind eye to clutter and dust, and vacuum, sweep and mop only when it becomes apparent my child could make a meal out of the things he's finding on the floor. Clothes have been known to remain in the dryer until wrinkles set in. Permanently. Dishes are the bane of my existence. And my husband is a better cook than I. Don't get me wrong, we hardly live in squalor, I'd just rather do oh, about 8 million things with my free moments other than clean. I'm seriously considering finding someone to trade hair services for housecleaning services. That being said, I've had to get my act together somewhat in the cooking department. I can't expect Dave to cook EVERY night. Besides, with Max eating solid food regularly and becoming increasingly adept at feeding himself, I can't exactly serve him nachos and graham crackers dipped in chocolate syrup for lunch (a perfectly acceptable lunch for myself however). So I've checked out the internet, gotten creative and through trial and error have come up with the following successful, baby-friendly, healthy, easy peasy recipes that us adults like too:

Banana French Toast
Just like regular French Toast, but healthier...
1 very ripe banana
half cup plain yogurt (or milk, or kefir, or whatever you're into)
1 egg
dash cinnamon
splash vanilla extract
a pinch of nutmeg and/or ground ginger if you're feeling exotic (I don't believe in this bland food for babies business. I figure if I expose him to spice at this age his palate will be more open to lots of different tastes as he gets older. And except for black pepper-HATED it-he's been pretty cool with strong flavors. I steer clear of the spicy stuff, but garlic, onion, cinnamon etc is fair game.)
Bread

Blend ingredients (except bread, obviously). Heat butter or oil in a pan. Coat both sides of bread slices with blended mixture. Heat on low/med heat in pan until suitably brown on each side. Voila! Super tasty French Toast that doesn't even need syrup cuz the banana gives lots of sweetness.

Meatballs
1 1b lean ground beef (or turkey or chicken etc. We use island-raised beef because we know where it comes from. I really only like to use organic, locally-raised meat thanks to Jamie Oliver's "pink slime" lecture on Food Revolution-Google it. You'll never look at a burger the same way again. Its worth every penny of expense in my opinion.)
3 eggs (you can substitute applesauce for the eggs-makes it a little sweeter and lower in cholesterol if you watch that sort of thing)
half cup shredded zucchini
half cup shredded carrot
or
1 lb frozen chopped spinach, thawed
or any other veggie you can chop or shred within an inch of its life
quarter to 1/2 cup quick cooking oatmeal
Mix it all together with fork in a bowl. Roll into inch(ish) balls. Put on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for, oh I don't remember, I have to ask Dave every time I bake something. Bake until you cut one open and it looks done.

And finally, I don't know what to call these...Egg Bake Power Bars? Random Shit From The Refrigerator?
Shredded zucchini, carrot, steamed broccoli chopped fine, spinach, again, whatever veggies you want to use, chopped or shredded.
Cooked wild rice
Quick-cooking oatmeal
Eggs
Shredded cheese (sharp cheddar is my favorite because it gives a lot of flavor with a minimum amount used)
(I have no exact quantities because I just threw things in until it was a semi-solid consistency)
Put your concoction in a greased casserole dish and bake at 375 for 30 minutes-ish. Let cool and cut into squares.

Max ate the hell out of all these things. They were easy to handle and broke apart in his mouth so no scary choking-size pieces to deal with. I felt like the most successful chef in the world watching him gobble. And they are all easy to refrigerate and reheat (or eat cold) for on-the-go meals.

Whew. I feel so accomplished. I'd better go eat some graham crackers and Hershey's syrup on the couch until Max wakes up to feel like myself again.

Spaghetti OH!!

One member of the Small family is having a lot of fun with food lately. And by "having fun" I mean "smearing it in one's eyebrows".




And for those of us (me, really) who can't get enough of watching the boy "eat", here's a totally unnecessary video clip. The symbiotic relationship between baby and chihuahua is especially heartwarming, no?

It Happened, It Really Happened....twice

**sigh**

Serves me right for being smug.

Bay Beach

Our recent trip to Green Bay wasn't all hospitals and worrying. We arrived the day before Max's test and spent a wonderful afternoon at Bay Beach. I had never been and wasn't sure what to expect...I couldn't have been more delighted. Bay Beach is an amusement park with a miniature train, carousel, Ferris wheel, wooden rollercoaster (the Zippin Pippin), bumper cars, bumper boats, pony rides (PONY RIDES!! I can't remember the last time I saw pony rides), and myriad other carnival rides. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what makes the place so charming. Its location, in a public park situated on the shore of Lake Michigan? The old-timey feel of the place? The ride tickets for a quarter? The total absence of booths full of crappy toys that entice the most well-behaved children to beg, plead and whine? The 250lb, ponytailed, be-earringed, total stoner dude employed as conductor on the mini train? The history of the Zippin Pippin as Elvis's favorite roller coaster?

Regardless it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.

MR...Ugh

First of all, there really is no question of Max's parentage is there? Second, look at the heads on those babies. Just LOOK at them.

These photos have been on our refrigerator for the last month to help keep me from losing my mind. You see, Max has a big head. An above the 99th percentile head. And until he was 7 months old, it wasn't a concern as he was following the curve. (For the childless, thats the curve on the graph of kids' head sizes. Yes, really.) Then his head grew a half an inch in 6 weeks. Teetering at nearly 19 inches (to give some perspective, the average head size of a year old baby is 18 inches), Max's head growth was now off the charts. I received a phone call from his pediatrician that went something like this:

Ped: "I'm a little concerned. His head growth should be leveling off and its not. We have a couple options. CAT scan or MRI. I prefer the MRI, because there's no radiation exposure, though babies do have to be sedated for the procedure. The risks of sedation are less than the risks of NOT doing the test though, in my opinion. This isn't something I feel comfortable waiting more than a few weeks to do. If there's something wrong, the sooner we know, the better...."

Me: **crying**

Cut to almost 3 weeks of waiting. Waiting for insurance to approve the test. Waiting for the pediatrician's office to coordinate and schedule with the hospital. Waiting to go down to Green Bay for the appointment. Waiting for the results to come back. Waiting, waiting, waiting, with a lead ball in my stomach. Now I know I'm a worrier. Worry is my forte. And for the most part I worry about NOTHING. None of the potential things that could be wrong with a baby's head are "nothing" however. They're all terrible. Hydrocephalus and brain tumors. Brain surgery. Staples in the head. Shunts. Terrible, terrible, and more terrible.


Not to mention the MRI itself. I scour the ingredient list of every single thing I give my child to ingest. We try not to give him too much baby Tylenol or Advil for god's sake. And now he's going to go under IV sedation.

We were reassured over and over again that the test was a precaution. Likely he just has a big head because his parents have big heads and the rapid growth was just a growth spurt. I will not tell you the dark, sad, sick-to-my-stomach places my mind went to upon having my beautiful, joyful little boy's health called into question because those feelings are too intimate and vulnerable. I will just tell you it was terrible.


The scan was scheduled for 10 a.m. but we had to be there at 7:45 for registration, an exam etc. Thank God he's breastfed, because he could nurse up to 4 hours before. At first he was a trooper, flirting with the nurses, playing with all the equipment and toys in the room. Then he got hungry and tired and very very upset when they couldn't find a vein for the IV. Every mom in the world knows how upsetting vaccinations are. This was that times a million. He screamed and screamed and screamed until he was hoarse and gasping. There was this teenage volunteer to there "distract" him, who kept waving a screen playing cartoons in his face, frantically repeating, "Look at the horsey! Look at the sheepy! Look at the doggy!".

I wanted to punch her.

He worked himself into such a state they suggested an anti-anxiety drug. I was like, "yeah, definitely, and can you give something to Max too?"....ba-dump-bum.

Seriously though, it was awful. Watching him go under the anesthetic was awful. Walking with him knocked out, hooked up to things on a hospital bed down to the MRI room was awful. Passing a closed door with a sign that said "chemo in progress" in the pediatric ICU was awful. Leaving and sitting in the waiting room for 45 minutes was awful. Waiting for him to wake up was awful. Waiting for the results was awful.

Me being the psycho that I am, I stared at the anesthesia doctor's inscrutable face as I asked how the scan looked. He claimed no knowledge; "My focus is totally on your child's vital signs blah blah blah". Right.

I called the pediatrician's office immediately after we left the hospital telling them they must call me that day. None of this waiting until tomorrow. Tomorrow?! Are you kidding me...after all this waiting, we were not waiting another 24 hours with those results out there, looming, potentially changing our whole lives. I was giving them 4 hours. Call me dramatic, but psychosis gets results. I heard from the pediatrician by 2:30, a mere 2 1/2 hours after walking out of the hospital. Diagnosis?

Our baby has familial macrocephaly.

Or in plain english, a big head due to genetics.