The sun is shining in Washington state! There's frost covering the ground too, but the sun feels wonderful. On days when Jared doesn't have work, I always take Savvy and myself for a nature walk on a nearby forest trail. Feels extra rejuvenating in the sunshine. I am eager for daylight savings to switch in March so it will be light when Jared gets home from work and I can take Savvy for the nature walk every day. The thing I miss most about Wyoming is that empty, wide open prairie with walking trails right across from our house. It was so easy to pop out for a walk multiple times a day with Jack and Savvy. So fun. My forest walk here is beautiful though, and worth the 10-minute car ride.
This last week, Jared and I recovered from our cold just in time for Alice to catch it. Poor girl still has the stuffiest lil' nose, but we've got humidifiers. Jack for once didn't catch the cold, so we are feeling lucky. On Saturday we drove to Bellevue to celebrate Jared's brother Will's birthday at the Cheesecake Factory. I'm still doing the "determine which foods bother Alice" game (no new food sensitivities discovered so far, hooray), but now I'm able to eat enough that I could order and enjoy a good meal. (No cheesecake this year as dairy is her main issue, but there will be many more cheesecake years in my future so I'm not too bothered!) Even better, Alice slept through the entire dinner in her carseat so we could relax and talk. It was a good time.
Jared and I have started reading a chapter out of a marriage book together each evening after the kids are in bed, and it has truly become the loveliest part of the day. I'm guessing this is a normal thing (maybe not), but in those first few months after having a baby I really struggle to feel connected in my marriage. Because there is less sleep and a lot of new baby-related work going on, I'm drained to begin with, and then it doesn't help that our relationship out of necessity takes on a bit of a co-worker type of feel. It's like, "Sweet, Jared's home. I am DONE. Now I can clock out to take my union break, then we'll both take a kid and work the evening shift, and then he gets to clock out while I do the night shift." (Jared did recently offer to do the first feeding of the night when he doesn't have work the next day, which is hugely helpful 3 nights a week and he loves having that special time with Alice.) Anyway, I was feeling disconnected and told Jared I wished we had the time to do marriage counseling to learn some tools for navigating this year, but honestly, figuring out childcare and timing would have been a headache. I asked if we could order a few marriage books and read them together in the evenings instead? Jared of course was like, "Yes! That would be amazing." He's a gem.
I did some research before ordering two books (Gottman's Institute seems to have the top books in the genre), but while we waited for them to arrive we decided to start "The Five Love Languages" since it was already on our bookshelf and we'd never read it. I think it was a wedding present, but we never got past the first chapter when we were engaged because it felt depressing to read about all these struggling married couples who weren't speaking each other's love languages haha.
In the past we've been so exhausted by the time the kids are asleep that we usually would default to just watching tv before bed. Now we still watch a short show when we're done, but we try to cuddle up and read a chapter together aloud first. It made an instantaneous difference in bringing that connection back! Now that we're halfway through the book I think I realize why: My top love language is clearly quality time (it's one of Jared's top ones as well). The author, a marriage therapist, says that watching tv together doesn't count as quality time. Oops. So basically we've had hardly any quality time together since bb 2 came along, but now that we're prioritizing quality time reading together most evenings, I'm feelin the love again. Anyway, 5/5 stars, would recommend reading together in the evenings--especially if you're a "quality time" type of person. Jared's top 2 are touch+time, so cuddling up to read is a great option for both of us. Ok, enough talking about marriage on the internet! Here are some pictures from our week. I did a photoshoot of Alice on my nice camera, but I haven't uploaded them yet so I will post those next week:
Happy Monday! I hope it's a good one. I wrote down three things I wanted to blog about during this last week, and there is a common thread: food. One of my favorite topics. Let's chat!
1. I've been watching the newest season of my favorite tv show: "The Lost Kitchen." I don't watch a ton of Magnolia channel, but it's a Magnolia show and I love it. It follows a woman who started a small seasonal restaurant in her tiny hometown of Freedom, Maine. She hosts 4 dinners per week, seating 48 people each, during the 6 warmest months of the year. The dinners became so popular that they started a system where the only way to get a reservation is to mail them a postcard, and then they draw reservations from the postcards at the beginning of each season. People fly in from all over to eat there. She sources all of her food locally and plans her unique weekly menu based on what produce is available that week. I have no interest in working in the restaurant industry, but it makes me want to grow some of my own produce and plan meals around what's fresh. It also makes me want to create the warm, homey feeling she fosters during her dinners. I also love watching her come up with the menus. I watched the second season during the first part of my pregnancy last year, during a time when I had absolutely zero interest in food and everything made me want to throw up. Somehow this show didn't sicken me. Just made me look forward to being able to enjoy food again. Very fun. Would recommend.
2. The Feeding Littles Course: Last year I purchased an online course about feeding kids and fostering adventurous eating. It was created and taught in tandem by a professional childhood dietician and a childhood occupational feeding therapist, who shared lots of strategies for how to work with kids to get them past picky eating. It was on my resolution list to finally take the class, so after a few days of Jack refusing to touch his dinner, I pumped through it last weekend and really enjoyed it! The content was interesting and helpful, but also I just love the experience of sitting down in a quiet room for hours at a time, watching a class, taking notes, and learning something new. There was lots of information in the course--much of which we've already been doing. I went into the class with a handful of questions about how to handle specific situations, and it answered all of the questions and more.
The main struggle I wanted to troubleshoot was Jack touching basically nothing at dinner, and then either having a bowl of cereal with Jared before bed or begging for a snack after he was already in bed. The more we'd try to make him fill up on dinner and refuse to offer more food afterward, the more tense and less successful dinnertime was becoming. We'd thought about or tried out several different strategies on our own, but in the end none of them felt great or worked great, and I found myself wanting to see what the professionals would suggest rather than stumbling through dinnertime battles and constantly questioning and readjusting my strategy for years and years. One of the top points in the course, which we already knew and had been doing for the most part, is "You decide what goes on the table. Your child decides what and how much to eat." An important footnote is that you should always have at least one thing on the table that you KNOW your child enjoys and will eat. That way they have no reason not to fill their bellies. And then it's good to have lots of variety in the other dishes on the table from day to day, and to vary the brands and shapes of familiar foods they enjoy so they don't get stuck on food looking just one specific way. It also helped to hear them explain that picky eating in children is normal and natural, because evolutionarily, kids had a better shot of survival if they stuck to eating the few foods they knew to be safe, rather than adventuring out to try a new berry or mushroom that may or may not kill them.
So sometimes your kid might eat only dozens and dozens of strawberries for their meal and touch nothing else. Other times they might just eat bowls of plain pasta and nothing else. And the dietician assured us that that's ok! The key is to consistently expose them to a wide variety of foods on their plates and make the mealtime environment casual and fun, not stressful and tense. If they won't try a food, don't say anything. Maybe try playing with the food sometime, with absolutely no pressure to eat it. Yesterday Jack refused to touch a pear I cut up for lunch ("I hate pears!). He just wanted his toasted bagel. Instead of forcing the issue, we had fun hacking away at the pear slices with a butter knife and making shapes. He didn't eat any pear that day, but the next day he tried some pear for dinner, after months of insisting he hates pears. (Another point they made was to have fun conversations and talk about anything else other than the food being served, so I proceeded to say absolutely nothing about him trying the pear because I was playing it cool and casual, lol.)
Anyway, I was skeptical about some of the approaches initially, but when they explained the logic/science behind them, and as we've implemented the information and strategies in the course, I'm a believer. It goes much deeper and they have more practical tips I won't dive into, but it's nice to know that we're doing our side of the job, and Jack's doing his side of the job, and there's research and professional advice backing my strategies now, instead of making blind shots in the dark. It's only been a week since taking the course, but the dinner/bedtime snack struggle is already gone, yay! He knows that dinner is the last chance to eat before bed (the first night he went to bed starving, no issues since), but he also knows that there will always be something he likes on the table and it's ok for him to fill up on it if he wants, so it's not a stressful situation for any of us anymore and he's already trying new foods more and more often and just, yes. Good purchase. 5/5 stars, would recommend the Feeding Littles course if you have a problem with picky eating in your house. The dietary sections were useful, but the strategy sections from the occupational therapist were my favorite.
3. Top 12 Elimination eating! When Jack was the most pained-looking, colicky baby to ever live, I tried everything to find something that would help him. Reflux meds helped a bit, but nothing else did anything. In the 5 years since then, I've heard a handful of people who had colicky newborns tell me that their doctor suggested cutting out dairy and soy if they were breastfeeding, and doing so made a big difference in their baby's temperament. I so wish I would have heard that when Jack was a baby and at least given it a try, and I swore that with baby #2, if she every seemed exceptionally pained or fussy, I would at least try cutting dairy to see if it made a noticeable difference. When Alice was maybe a month or two old and needing to be held in the front pack quite a bit or else she'd be screaming, I cut dairy. It did help! I found that she was able to stay in her swing for longer stretches of time before crying to be held. One day, however, she woke up and screamed all day long. The weirdest part was that she refused to eat. Alice has never had any issues with breastfeeding, so I knew something was up. It occurred to me that I should write down everything I'd eaten the previous day, in case this were to ever happen again and maybe I could make a food-related connection. I hadn't eaten any dairy so I thought it probably wasn't related to my diet. But after a few more semi-fussy weeks and a smattering of days where she looked pained and had a hard time eating, I revisited my list and noticed I had drunk a big soy protein drink. Ironically, I had grabbed it because I was starving at the grocery store but didn't want to grab a dairy protein drink because I was worried it would bother Alice's stomach. In the end, the soy probably hurt her worse. So I tried cutting soy too and it has made a world of difference. Unfortunately soy is in SO many things, but I hardly ever have to front-pack her anymore, she never spits up, and her eczema has almost completely cleared up.
However, there have been days here and there where she seemed to be in pain again, and she'd be back to waking up every 2 hours all night. I began to suspect there was one more food bothering her, but I eat such a wide variety that I couldn't pinpoint what it was. So this last week I've been doing a "Top 12 Elimination." Basically you cut all of the Top 12 foods that babies can be sensitive or allergic to for a week or two. Then you start adding the foods back in, one at a time every 3-4 days, to see if you can pinpoint the trigger. The foods are dairy, soy, egg, wheat, corn, legumes, peanuts, beef, oats, rice, tree nuts, and chicken. I already know she does fine on chicken, and I know she doesn't do fine on dairy, soy, and likely egg. So the 8 things we're trialing at this point are wheat, corn, legumes, peanuts, beef, oats, rice, and tree nuts. Based on my food journaling for the past month I suspect wheat, peanuts, or oats being the culprit. As soon as I started the Top 12 elimination, Alice went back to sleeping great at night, only waking once or maybe twice. No spit up, no eczema, happy baby. There's been plenty for me to eat (not much different than when I was eating paleo in college). But I'm excited to start adding more things in. My first trial is wheat, starting today. As long as her temperament remains cheery and she continues to sleep well at night, I'm not going to be too concerned about a little eczema or spit up, or even mucussy diapers. Hopefully I'll pinpoint the problem during the next month and then coast on through the rest of the year of breastfeeding. Fortunately almost all babies outgrow their food sensitivities as their guts mature before they turn one year old. So I'm not really concerned about any of this. I'd much rather be cutting out a few foods than feeling nauseated by every food like I was last year. Perspective!
Ok, that was a long post. Probably an overshare, but maybe something in here will be helpful to someone. On a non-food note, Jared introduced me to the Martin Short movie "Clifford" over the weekend. As a mother of a 4-year-old, dino-obsessed, smart little sassy pants, and also as a person who grew up in the 90s, I loved it. So funny. I believe it's free on Amazon Prime so give it a watch if you have a dino-obsessed sassy little boy and want some 90s nostalgia.
Happy New Year! I know I'm officially in my 30s because I'm finding myself choosing a "word of the year." Last year my word was "baby." Or maybe it was a phrase: "survive baby." I knew I planned to get pregnant, and I also knew I had a history of debilitating pregnancy and postpartum recovery periods. And so I find myself feeling really fulfilled and proud of myself looking back on my year! Did I accomplish anything besides "baby"? Not really. But the whole list was "baby," and it was freaking hard, and I did it! And Alice did it! One of our most impressive years yet! Fist pump.
Now that I have two kids and decreasing free time, I am finding myself craving something I never thought I would care about: organization. Systems. Working smarter, not harder. And so my phrase for 2023 is "Get Organized." I guess I'm FIRMLY planted in my 30s now. I spent most of my life operating under the misconception that organizing was pointless, boring, maybe pretentious?, and a waste of time. Now I'm seeing that if I put in the work this year to create better, more efficient systems for my own life and our home/family life, I will spend future years wasting much LESS time and able to enjoy living in the present more.
Here are a few areas that are currently problematic, inefficient, or nonexistent that I'd like to figure out/"get organized" in 2023. Probably won't get to all of them but it's a good direction and I'll be happy just to get to the end of the year and know that there's been progress:
1: Sickness Prevention. In the past we'd all get maybe one cold each winter. But since Jack started preschool it's a new virus (or two) every month for everyone. I know there's only so much we can do to prevent, but we're not doing great at them currently. So in 2023, vitamins for everyone! Water intake! More fruits and veggies! Better hand washing! And if all that doesn't carry us through next winter more healthy, then I give up and will probably never bother with vitamins again haha.
2. Home Organization. Instead of finding things for people in 2023, I'm teaching them how to find things themselves. And put things away too. It's a needed life skill. Jared does this well, but we tend to put things away in different places. So we're also going to carve out intentional places for everything so no one has to spend an hour or more out of their week looking for random things.
3. Regular purging/donations. The playroom is getting out of hand and Jack does not know how to let go of old/unused/broken toys. Honestly our bedroom is out of hand too. I'm probably the problem, it's me.
4. Family gospel study
5. Meal planning/grocery ordering system. This is the year I figure out how to meal plan and order groceries casually as I go throughout my week, and not in a panic when we're completely out of eggs, milk, and planned dinners. I actually have a goal to cook LESS this year because I want cooking to be a lifelong love for me. So I'm only going to cook when I'm excited about it (most nights I am), and on the off nights I'd like to lean into corn dogs and canned veggies.
6. Screen time plan. For me, replace evening screen time with reading by the fire. Something I've wanted to do for a while but will feel extra cozy once the built-ins are done and filled with books.
7. Kid eating strategy/plan. Jack was a great eater until this last year. I knew this was a possibility going into my pregnancy, as I knew I'd be spending most of the year in survival mode, not cooking, and hoping Jack could find his own snacks to stay fed. I'm glad he was able to do that, but now that I'm enjoying getting back into cooking it's time to figure out how to get my good lil' eater back. I have the Feeding Littles online course that I'll probably tackle next month. Bring it on.
8. Jack extracurricular activities for the summer so he's not just stuck at home all day with his mom. Age 5 is PRIME for running around with friends all summer, but we just don't have that kind of neighborhood here (going to be top of our list for our next move). Hopefully extracurriculars can pick up a smidgeon of the slack. (swim lessons, flag football, that kind of thing)
9. Family vids and pics organized and printed for walls
10. Home economy system. Aka, a chore chart and introducing Jack to the idea of earning, saving, budgeting, and spending money. Also introducing Jack to "listen here bucko, time to pull some weight and make a habit of picking up after yourself." I guess the economy system is slightly different than the chore chart. That's what this year is for though. We'll figure it out.
Ok, that was probably way more info than anyone needed, but there's my general direction for the year. And for Grandma (Hi Grandma!) here is a teaser picture from Alice's blessing yesterday. I need to compile all of the pictures on the computer and I'll share more next week. But for now, it was a beautiful day with family and my beautiful baby girl.
^^Trying to figure out who each present was for. Jingle the Elf comes by the Lamberts on Christmas Eve and drops off a bag with a present for each person. The only problem is that Jingle is dyslexic so the letters are all mixed up. You have to figure out who each present is for. For example, "Kacj" would be for "Jack."
