Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Petting Zoo

Saturday May 26, 2012 I took Mason to a petting zoo.  It was great.  I loved watching him get all excited with all the animals.  He got to pet a baby goat and he even touched a horse!  We will definitely be going back the the zoo.
Baby goat taking a nibble.
More nibbling
He really liked the baby goat.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Beginning solid foods

You should always wait a trial period when giving a baby a new food, even if it is a spice.  Anything can be a potential allergen.  I started Mason one at a time with each new foods, then I would start combining them once he had had each item.  I always wait a week in between each new food.  Some experts say 3 to 4 days, but a week is easier for me because then I only have to cook one day a week for the entire week and also his first allergy took a week to come out.  With all the recipes I will post I have combined them for a reason.  I always mix a constipating food with a non-constipating food, this will help to keep baby regular and not uncomfortable.   Before trying any of these mixed recipes please make sure your baby has already had all the ingredients. 

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Teething Tool

Two nights ago I found one of the best teething tools ever!  I was making mashed sweet potatoes for my husband and I and the sweet potato was very hard so I cut up a piece for Mason and he loved it!  He gnawed on it for about 20 minutes and it stayed together and didn't get messy.  Last night I gave him another piece of sweet potato but frozen, and it was not as good as raw.  The frozen sweet potato got mushy and lost it's shape.  I think this will be my go to teething tool from now on.  The piece I gave him was approximatly a half inch cube wide and three inches long. 

Thursday, February 16, 2012

My Auntie

So after I nervously published my first blog "the beginning", I sent a message to my friends and family to check it out and let me know what they thought and this was my first reply from my Aunt Doreen, just thought it was very sweet that I had to share:

 That was beautiful. 
You may not have any pictures of you when you were little, but in my mind's eye I can still see you crawling through all the dressing rooms in the store. 
I went in to try something on and took you with me.  Next thing I know YOU ARE GONE, BUT I heard giggles in each of the dressing rooms  as you went to visit the other people also trying on clothes. 
I couldn't even run right after you because I didn't have any pants on.  By the time I could manage to pull them on everyone was laughing with you. 
That was in the end of 1976, just before you turned two when we were living in Brick.  On the same day you disappeared into one of the circular racks of clothes. 
Guess you thought this was all very funny that day ... I however aged about 10 years.  I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell my brother I lost his daughter at the mall!

Glad I didn't lose you ... and don't be surprised when this little bundle does something similar to you!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

School lunches

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to provide really true healthy food choices for feeding babies.  I spent so much time searching the web looking for healthy recipes only to find recipes that were labeled healthy when in fact they were not.  When you add sugar and salt and other processed ingredients it is no longer a healthy food.  (To my credit I do have a bachelor's degree in Health and Human Performance)  I was in shock today when I was surfing the internet and saw an article referencing school lunches and how some school thought this child's homemade turkey and cheese sandwich was not healthy and made the child eat chicken nuggets!  How could chicken nuggets be more nutritious then a sandwich that has a protein, dairy and a whole grain?  It truly is an outrage what these schools are feeding our children.  As parents we need to stand up and speak our mind about how much fat and sugar our kids are consuming from thier school lunches.  I do believe that we have to start in the home and teach our kids about healthy eating and set good examples for them.  This is why I am making all of the food that Mason eats, down to his teething biscuits.  If you want your child to be thier best you have to fuel thier bodies with the best.  Just because the package says "healthy" does not mean that it is.  As I learn more on this blogging stuff I will start posting healthy recipes, and giving advice on other healthy options for your little ones.  It is up to us as parents to pay close attention to everything we give our children so this next generation can be amazing. 

Valentine's Day

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and I now have Two Valentines!  How great is that! 

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The Beginning

Hello there,

Well this is my first post and I have no idea what i am doing but here it goes anyway!  I never thought that I would be writing a mommy blog, but since having my son I feel the need to document everything.  My son Mason for who this blog will be about is the most amazing thing I have ever done.  Truthfully I am not even sure were to start but as an adult I look back on my childhood and there are almost no pictures of me as baby.  So I swore that it would be different for my child.  I want him to be able to look back and have an almost day by day recollection of his childhood.  I also feel the need to write everything down, I guess maybe I don't want to forget all the little things and also to heal you'll see why:

The beginning:
We found out we were pregnant on Friday October 22, 2010.    On Tuesday October 26th, my mother was flown to a hospital to have an emergency quadruple bypass surgery.  She woke up for the first time on Tuesday October 26th from the surgery.  I spoke to her for a couple of minutes, then again on Wednesday October 27th.  She had complications that night and passed away the next morning at 4:36am.  My biggest regret in life was not having the chance to tell her that I was pregnant with her grandchild.  I truly believe that I found out I was pregnant right before she passed so that I could not let the grief overcome me.  Every milestone that we had during the pregnancy was bittersweet, I was excited to hear good news and sad at the same time that I could not share the news with my mother.  I also regret that I never spoke to my mom about her experiences being pregnant with me, I would have loved to hear what she went thru to see if we had any similar stories. 
We told our family and friends the good news on Thanksgiving Day.  I was 9 weeks pregnant and we couldn't wait the 12 weeks to tell everyone.  Both of our families needed to hear some good news; I lost an uncle earlier that year, my mother, my husband  lost his step-father three months earlier and we also lost my husband's uncle in May of 2011.  So the birth of our son was a ray of light in what seemed like an cloud that was stuck over our family.
My due date was Wednesday June 29th, 2011.  I was three days late and did not go into labor until very late Friday evening.  Mason was born Saturday July 2nd, 2011 via emergency c-section.  Our lives have never been better!