Gloom, Gray and Grump.

If you ever want to feel the sensation that your skills have been devalued with a single comment, ask an mother of several kids their advice on your own kid. Not only will they give you ten times more advice than you actually wanted, but they'll make you feel like a bad mom while you do it.

What do you mean you aren't stewing and smushing all of your own fruit and steaming your own veggies? How could you POSSIBLY consider giving them something pre-prepared from a jar, regardless of the ingredient list! You should be eating only microwave tv-meals, and spending all your time and energy preparing an illustrious list of the most exclusive ingredients for your tot. After all, the floor and cabinets will appreciate the increased quality of everything they get smeared with.

While I can definitely see the value of prepare your own stuff, for someone who's only really broken away from using the microwave (at all) around a year ago, the idea of constantly being at the stove for ANY reason is, quite frankly, daunting. And goddamn it, after spending all day working, my husband and I deserve a good home cooked meal just as much as the Mini monster does. It's not my fault we can't eat all the same dishes yet, and it's not his either.

My husband especially works some pretty insane hours, and he definitely deserves to get something that didn't come out of a take out box once in a while, which is why I made us Soup last night instead of juggling soup and trying to cook rice and beans, in which case I definitely would have burned something. Mini was just fine with his jarred sweet potatoes and cereal.

That being said I did make my first attempt to Stew some fruit today. I chopped up a peach and a nectarine into tiny chunks and cooked them on the stove, after first starting the wrong burner. ((I'm a genius when I'm sick.))

Mini definietly didn't want to wait, so he had his normal favorite, Yogurt. ((I'm also gonna try and mix some of the stewed fruit, blended, with plain yogurt.))

I guess I'm just being tired and pissy because I know Mini Monster is a really happy, healthy baby, but I'm out there working under the knowledge that no matter what, someone's not going to be happy. There are people who won't like me because I'm a stay at home mom, there are people who won't like me for using formula, for using disposable diapers, you name it. Someone out there WON'T like me for it.

But I don't, really don't think any of it makes me a bad mom because I've got damn good reasons for all of it. ((And if you are one of those people who starts screaming that I shouldn't use formula because it's somehow evil, come visit. I'll bop you upside the head a few times with a bottle of Simulac while I explain my choices.))

Weather wise it's sorta gray and blah, mixed with bursts of sunshine. Could be better, could be worse. Definitely starting to really 'feel' like fall though. I'm looking forward to taking a weekend and getting a pumpkin (or two) to decorate the steps/lawn. It'll also be an enlightening experience to see if it survives. I don't know the pumpkin survival rating for this neighborhood.

Baby it's Cold Inside: pt 2

Well it was actually fairly chilly indoors last night, more so if you're eight months old and have a mile wide stubborn streak, and a tendency to go wandering out from under your blankets the second Mommy and Daddy aren't looking, so the two champions of sniffles ((Me and Mini Monster)) ended up snuggled up together for the night, because that's the only way he stays under the blankets.

I could have lived without the ice cold fingers grabbing my nose and lips... or the ice cold feet jammed into my chest area, seeking warmth. ((He has Mommy's tendency to shed heat from his hands and feet, even when he's bundled up in his fluffy warm footies, he's been known to make Tilmani fly into the air by wrapping chilly little fingers around his toes.))

Anyway it worked out fairly well, he got bored investigating my nose eventually and went to sleep, and everyone was warmer and happier for it. We conceded to cranking up the heat a bit this morning.

It was however awesome weather to be trying out some nice rich soups though, so yesterday, well before Mini demonstrated that he had inherited Mom's "Toes from The Crypt", we made Hungarian Goulash Soup.

I found the recipe in this months "Taste of Home" magazine, and decided to try it. I don't have a subscription to the magazine, but I got their fall baking collection and there was pretty much nothing in there that we -wouldn't- try, so I figured it was a safe gamble.

The soup collection wasn't quite as much of a bonanza but we found five our six recipes we think we'd like to try, and to be adventuresome, we went with the Goulash first.

Aside from me accidentally blackening the bacon, ((I replaced it)) it came out pretty damn good! Next time I'll actually let the potatoes cook a little longer than recommended, because they weren't tenderized to our taste in the recommended time, but otherwise I had no complaints at all, not even about the green peppers, and, well. I'm not exactly first in line as a Green Pepper supporter.

Otherwise Mini's Christmas Stocking is going fine, although it's been put on hold temporarily to make a Panda for a Baby Shower gift. Unfortunately I didn't have the copy with the Intarsia face, so I stitched it from yarn instead. I'll get the Intarsia version ASAP though I think. Having the extra layer of knitting makes the poor panda's face look slightly... alien. I would have gone with the recommended felt, but it's for a newborn, and I wanted to make sure it was good and solid.

Baby it's Cold Inside

So Cold season has hit the household. MiniMonster came down with a cold, complete with stuffy/drippy nose, cough, and general grumpies, though he's on the mend now, and is back to his cheerful nut ball self. I'm coming down with the damn cold in the mean time, so as of yesterday, the scratchy throat and stuffy nose hit. It didn't make for a very fun night, and I still feel pretty ick.

Fortunately Tilmani hasn't caught it yet, but it could yet happen, and wouldn't entirely surprise me if it did.

Stocking

Told ya I'd take a picture!
Holly got added, my hands are exhausted.

I think it looks pretty good though, all things considered.

NightgauntMon Has Knitevolved

Well those of you who checked out my purple bunny will notice that I started working with knitted patterns, albeit in an extremely limited way.

I've been expounding on that the last couple days since I've been trying to make a Christmas Stocking for the Mini-Monster. I bought "Knit Christmas Stockings" at the local knitting store ((Mini and I finally got around to walking up the hill and into town, which won't happen again for a few days. PHEW! Big workout. Lots of fun though. I also bought some nice Berocco 'Vintage' yarn in Christmas-y colors, and I'm working on making a stocking.

And my big triumph of the day was successfully knitting a Snowflake pattern around the top of the sock. It was a big step up in my pattern knitting, and using my new stitch markers was a godsend, since I was able to block out the area in which each flake would fall instead of trying to tally it in my head.

My knitting teacher usually uses yarn strands but using the metal markers worked well too, and I didn't accidentally knit any of them in, in spite of working on very little sleep. ((Curse of Mommyhood.))

I'll take some pictures later to show off, but for now you'll have to trust me.

I'd 've baked a cake...

Oh wait I did. ;)
Yeah we went blueberry picking a couple days ago, and I came home with a few thorn scratches and a big bucket of fresh blueberries. Some of them went into this cake.

Lemon cake with cream-cheese frosting and blueberries. I'm quite proud of it. I never used to be able to ice a cake without the whole thing trying to come apart.

Tilmani had some for breakfast.

Who are Toys For These Days

Everyone probably remembers my major gripe about trying to find kids toys that don't require a small forest of batteries these days, or that actually require some degree of imagination.

I admit my frustration has been reawakened by surfing ETSY. I found a gorgeous toy maker via Deviant Art (They got a Daily Deviation) and they make incredible little stuffed toys...

...Which are all designed to go in a display case and 'aren't for anyone under thirteen'.

Also they're all at least a hundred dollars.


...Why the HELL is it so hard these days to find stuffed toys that don't move or have batteries and are ACTUALLY FOR CHILDREN? It seems like toys which require imagination are an endangered species, and I find that really upsetting. I mean if someone wanted to use one of the toys I made as a display item, sure, cool, that's their prerogative, but unless I'm knitting it out of Silk Yarn, I kind of design my toys with the idea of appealing to children and the young at heart. Is that so wrong?