Hellobee

It’s been a crazy series of weeks for The Popcorns. In addition to working full time, I organized an exhibition while Mr. Popcorn has been working around the clock. He recently received a promotion so at least his work is paying off, but our schedules have left us feeling pretty pooped.

Balancing all of these moving parts has been especially trying for me as Baby Popcorn is an EBF baby. In the middle of organizing the exhibition, I noticed that my supply had really taken a hit. This was due to a couple of reasons:

• I wasn’t pumping nearly as much as I had in the past. Part of this was because I wasn’t getting up to pump as much as I should while at work, and the other part was due to the fact that I was running around the city from meeting to meeting with my big ole pump and nowhere to pump in dignity.
• I was feeling very anxious about not being able to provide enough milk. At her last check up Baby Popcorn fell in the 19% weight class for her age, which prompted more panic.

Here is some advice that I received from a colleague who had been a nursing mom to two kids while running an organization:

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We love our Ikea Antilop Chair, but it does lack the plush padding present on more expensive highchairs. We prefer this because it makes the Antilop ultra-easy to clean. Still, when Scribble first started solids he was not a professional sitter, so we thought a supportive pillow might be a good idea. I happened upon an old airline pillow we had laying around.  We used that for a while, but I got tired of washing the tiny pillowcase all the time.  I thought it would be a good idea to cover the pillow in oilcloth, but oilcloth is awfully expensive! I remembered that I had an extra flannel-backed vinyl tablecloth sitting unused in our pantry. It was red gingham — a perfect match for our Antilop!

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The baby’s arrival is imminent–my due date is less than two weeks away. Everyone keeps telling me Baby Owl could arrive at any time, but I’m trying to convince her to stay right where she is until at least the 25th, since my mom is scheduled to arrive in Riyadh on the 24th, and I very much want her to be here for the birth.

We’re making weekly visits to the doctor now. The last time we saw the doctor, she said, “I spoke to Iman”–our midwife–” today about you. We’re expecting to see you in the delivery room any day now!”

This proclamation has made Mr. Owl especially nervous, because he has two major work-related exams coming up in the next few days, and he has to leave his cell phone at the entrance of the testing center. So he’s worried about the tests themselves, as well as the possibility of me going into labor while he’s taking them. (When he expressed his nervousness about the tests, I patted my tummy and said to him, “Well, think of it this way–at least you’re not me. You know exactly what’s going to be on your test. You know what day it will happen. You know what time it starts, when you’ll have a break, and what time it will end. But me, it’s like for nine months, I’ve been preparing for this huge test. I don’t know exactly when it will start; I just have to wait and see. I don’t know how long it will last; it could be hours or days. And no matter how much I study for it, I don’t really have any clue what it’s going to be like. I don’t know how bad it’s going to be, or how much it’s going to hurt. Does that make you feel better?” Somehow, this did not soothe him. I can’t imagine why. The eighth month of pregnancy has turned me into a pretty unsympathetic confidante.)

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Mr. Bee and I have blogged about pretty extensively about childhood constipation because it’s such a common problem, and one that’s affected Charlie, Olive, and me since I was a child. When Charlie was a toddler, we tried all the typical constipation remedies like prunes, exercise, removing dairy, increasing water intake, etc. But his constipation had gone on for so long, we weren’t able to treat it with diet alone because the problem was more psychological rather than physical. Miralax has been a miracle worker for him.

When Olive started getting severely constipated after transitioning to 3 solid meals a day, I was determined to try to address the issue through diet and without the use of Miralax. She had painful Type 1 poops and was only going 2-3 times a week (while that’s fine for breastfed babies, she should ideally have been going every day). I worked closely with Caroll Lee, and each of her suggestions improved Olive’s constipation little by little. It’s taken months of hard work, but I’m happy to report that Olive is no longer constipated!

Please note that you should always consult your doctor before making any big changes to your child’s diet. This post is not intended as medical advice and what worked for us may not work for you. That said, I really wanted to share our experience in the hopes that it might help some of you out there going through this same issue.

Caroll’s plan consisted of the 4 R’s: remove, replace, reinnoculate, and repair.

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There were several reasons we chose Tae Kwon Do as Spencer’s first “group participation sport.” Some of the reasons were cultural, some of them behavioral, and some of them were of what I consider the “mama’s prerogative” nature. Two of these more “mama’s prerogative” reasons included “no weekend commitments” (what can I say… weekend time is too precious around here!) and “no competition.” Don’t get me wrong… I think that competition is good for your soul, spirit, and confidence. But, I wasn’t on board for that at age four. Tae Kwon Do offered the perfect solution… lots of focus on team work, but no competition… except for that of the self-competition/strive for improvement/belt testing variety. Now, I’m not living with my head in the sand. I know there are competitions in Tae Kwon Do, it’s an Olympic sport even! But that was for when he was older.

Or so I thought.

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Meal time can often be a bit disastrous for our family.  What can I say — it’s a work in progress.  I have tried many different tricks to get them to behave at the table.  One of our most successful tricks has been to get them excited about the meal.  Sometimes I give them the choice of two meals that I make or ask them what sides they want. But one of their favorite things is to make their own pizza.  They love helping me in the kitchen and they get so excited when they get to help make a meal. Plus at the end they get to eat pizza, which they love.

The most important thing for a great pizza is a good crust recipe.  I tried a few out from Pinterest, but I have stuck with this one from The Happy Housewife blog the last few times.

Ingredients:

- 1.5 cups hot water
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 tsp salt
- 4.5 cups flour (I used all whole wheat)
- 1 tbs yeast
- 2 tbs Italian seasoning (when I didn’t have this I used oregano and it still tasted great)
- 1 tbs garlic powder

I put everything in my bread maker and hit the dough button, which is fabulous because an hour and a half later I come back and its ready to go.  This recipe can also be used without a machine — you just have to mix and knead everything together.  Let it rise for about 30-60 minutes.  Knead it again. Then let it rise and it should be ready to go.  This recipe is enough dough for me to make four little pizzas and one large rectangle pizza the size of a cookie sheet for the grown ups.

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Little Jacks just turned 3 and we wanted to make it special.  During the whole months of March and April, I agonized about how to accomplish that.  Everything felt either overdone or was expensive (and I had no interest in spending a lot of money to make it happen).

We asked LJ what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said, “I want to do it at Montessori School.”  That would be fun and easy, but obviously not allowed by school policy.  When we asked a second time, she decided that she wanted to “go to the fire station.”  I didn’t even know if doing something like that would be possible, but we decided to explore it.  What do you know?  Fire station tours are a “thing,” and we were allowed to set one up for her party!

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