I love November. It still feels like I'm getting some cozy fall remnants, and the mornings that get frosty are novel. Thanksgiving is on the horizon (YES to food holidays), and it's fun to get excited about Christmas and prepare for it, but without feeling stressed about last-minute Christmas stuff yet. This year is especially wonderful with 2-month-old Baby Al. We're starting to get into a good routine! We're back to usually only 2 night wakings, and last night she only woke up once. She's had some extremely fussy, seemingly painful days in the past, but lately, some combo of probiotics, reflux meds, and limiting my dairy intake has her mostly very happy and calm!
Some favorites from this week.
-Postpartum clothes thrifting! Thrifted clothes are way more expensive in Washington than they were in Wyoming so this is my first time really diving into the clothes section. When I realized I'd need to buy myself some new pants I started with Walmart. I didn't find much that sparked joy for me at the price point I was looking for (cheapskate price point), so a few days later I took myself on an evening thrift date. Definitely my happy place. I'll have to do a post with some of the outfits I found and some of my thrift tricks!
-Homemade applesauce. I think I mentioned last week that Jared's mom brought us a big box of apples and a big box of pears. I needed the easiest possible way to use them up so I opted for slow-cooker applesauce. I had about 25 apples and thought I'd end up freezing half of it to pull out later. NOPE. It came out so insanely delicious that I put the full batch in the fridge and now, 4 days later, it's almost completely gone. Here is the recipe. I added a few grinds of sea salt to bring out the flavor and maybe a Tablespoon or two of brown sugar:
-Homemade pear sauce. When the slow cooker applesauce came out so good, I decided to make pear sauce with the pears that are already ripe, and then make pear jelly when the rest ripen. It was a good life choice. The smell of apples and pears slow cooking with cinnamon is the VIBE. I decided to add a few grinds of sea salt and a dash of brown sugar to this sauce, too. I left the applesauce mashed/chunky, but ended up pureeing the pear sauce:
-Bonus: French Onion Soup. I made french onion soup for the first time this week and it was a hit. The only bummer is that Alice was REAL fussy the next day--pained sounding cries, red eyebrows, the whole fussy baby thing. It occurred to me that maybe eating a bowl full of onions topped with cheese could be PrObLeMaTiC for my potentially tender-tummied breastfed baby. So I'll share the recipe with you so you can enjoy it while I'm abstaining for the next year (be aware that you need to slice and throw the onions in a pan to start caramelizing around 3 or 4 in the afternoon so they can be ready in time for dinner):
Least favorites from this week:
-Postpartum hair loss has begun and it is EVERYWHERE. Every time I run a hand through my hair there's a good handful of loose strands. Good thing I've got a thick head of hair, but I don't love finding loose hairs between my toes and in my pants and tangled in Alice's fingers and somehow just everywhere.
-Postpartum dry everything has begun. At first it was just dry skin and I was like, "Huh, I guess this is because winter is coming?" But we live in a pretty humid area, and then everything else started to dry out. Dry scalp, dry mouth, dry eyes. And I'm remembering the postpartum dry phase and trying to really up my water intake and see if that helps a bit.
Ok that's all. Here's some cute pics of a cute bb:
