Let it be.

Several times I've started and abandoned a long, wordy post about all the turmoil in my life recently and just haven't had the heart to post it. I'm tired of dwelling on all of the negative things. In short, it was finals, we're trying to plan for the summer, we were all stressed, we were all sick, and we all survived. Now that it's Spring Break the world is a much sunnier place. So this one is mostly photos, fewer words, and lots of fun.

When you put Thomas in the high chair his chubby little legs sometimes get stuck and he looks like a little baby Buddha.   

Our Irish feast: bangers and mash, soda bread, roasted root veggies, and of course some Guinness. 

My two Irish babies: Lily helping make soda bread and Thomas desperately wanting to help.  

Cold weather cabin fever has led to some interesting imaginative play. 

Happy Birthday turtle cake for my father-in-law made entirely out of supplies I already had and Lily helped quite a bit.

It's a bit hard to see, but Lily has set Thomas up quite nicely. She wrapped him in her panda towel to keep him "nice warm", laid out a book for him to read, and positioned the mirror so he could see his face. She loves being a little mama.

We visited the Adler Planetarium and I was pleasantly surprised by the number and quality of little kid activities. I'd like to go back with just Joe to look at some of the more detailed exhibits and catch a show. 

This morning we went to the Chicago Easter Eggstravaganza at Soldier Field. Lily got some candy and climbed all the way through one of those inflatable obstacle courses. Joe got to stand on the grass on the field. And I got to take pictures. 

Lily got a haircut! She said she wanted short hair just before bath time so I grabbed the hair scissors and hacked off a hunk. I needed to trim it a little to even it out, and we'll see the final results in the morning after it dries. 

So that's some of the good in our lives of late. And the rest, well, we'll just let it be.

February Resolutions

1) Exercise 5 times a week. This was harder than I expected. I figured I set the bar so low (walking, dancing, home video) that it wouldn't be a problem at all. Then I quickly realized that a) it's winter and it's not all that pleasant to walk places, and b) babies get heavier and therefore harder to carry while dancing, walking, etc. Even so, I managed at least 4 days each week in February. (March, so far, is a different story.) And it's even harder to keep track of. Turns out chasing a toddler while trying not to drop your baby doesn't leave a lot of time for writing in my planner or even keeping track here. 

2) Keep up with the housework. This is still going ok. There's a little more clutter than I would like, and the dishes from dinner don't usually get done until the morning, but in general things are fairly tidy. 

3) Cook dinner once a week. Honestly, I don't remember how easy or hard this was. I kept track of a couple recipes along the way, so I obviously managed to do it a bit.  

One thing we've discovered that we absolutely love are slow cooker sauces and simmer sauces from Rick Bayless. You can get them at the grocery store and just follow the recipe on the pouch. They are really good, really easy, and really cheap. One of our favorites is the green chili enchilada sauce. I just pan seared a couple of pork chops with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and rolled up some shredded chihuahua cheese in tortillas, covered with the sauce, and baked it.

We've really liked using the slow cooker with scratch recipes as well. Cooks Illustrated has a really great chicken tikka masala recipe, but it's pretty complicated, takes forever, and uses a broiler (ours doesn't work great and is tiny). Recently I came across this slow cooker version, and it is incredible. 

I also made the Perfect Potato Soup from The Pioneer Woman. It really is perfect. We made a big batch and froze half of it to enjoy a couple of weeks later. I would highly recommend this soup. 

Adventures in Potty Training

At the risk of jinxing myself, I'm going to go ahead and say it: Lily is potty trained. I did a lot of internet reading about it before hand, and while a lot of people wrote something about it. they never really talked about how much it can suck.

Here are some of the details: we got Lily a potty chair almost a year ago, and for about two weeks she went every morning and before bed. Then she refused it completely. We never pushed it, and she would randomly ask to sit on it, but had very little success producing anything. My plan was to do the bare-bottom thing when she turned 2 in July, but then we had two big trips planned for August and September, so we decided to wait until those were done. 

Then on Friday, September 28th I just took her diaper off and said, ok, we're going to use the potty today. That day was absolute hell, for a number of reasons. First, I barely slept the night before. Next, I cut my foot on a piece of glass from a hot sauce bottle I broke. And I wasn't prepared for how intense it was going to be. We removed all the carpet from our bedroom, because it has tile floor and is easy to clean. We put a bunch of toys in there, and turned on the TV with the plan of staying in there most of the day to contain the carnage. I get cabin fever pretty quickly, so staying inside, in one room all day was torturous. If I were to do it again, I would pick a day that both me and Joe were home so we could have taken shifts. You literally just have to watch them all day, and as soon as they start to do anything move them to the potty. All morning I was cleaning up messes. Then we took a much needed break for a nap, so a diaper went on. When we woke up, I took it off, and Lily just wanted to sit in my lap and cry. She kept saying "No big girl, baby!" I just about gave up then. But I told myself I had to stick with it for 3 days and then we would re-evaluate. As the afternoon went on, she would pee a little and say "Oh! Pee!" and then when I said stop she would and I could get her to the potty. So, a tiny bit of progress. But still, it was a LOOOONNNNGGGGG day. 

Then through the magic of sleeping brain development she woke up the next morning, I took off her diaper, she peed in the potty, and things were pretty much good to go. After we finished breakfast, she said "Oh pee!" and ran to the potty, made it all the way there and went. From then on she just wore a skirt around the house and pull-ups for going out and sleeping. The pull-up worked pretty well in that it didn't leak, but it felt just like a diaper so about half of the time she would just go in it. But, I was eight months pregnant and not willing to deal with accidents in public so we decided to wait until after Thomas came to progress any further. At the beginning of February she started wearing pants around the house and a week later we got her some little girl underwear. She gets really excited to pick out a new pair each morning. 

I was originally against incentivizing it at all, but we ended up doing it anyway. She got 2 M&M's every time she actually went in the potty and then washed her hands. We've since switched to animal crackers and at this point it's mostly a bribe to get her to wash her hands. But it works. And it comes in handy when I know she has to go when we're out somewhere. Usually as soon as I say 'do you want an animal cracker' she's more than willing to try, and half the time goes. We're not even going to attempt bedtime until we move in the summer because even though she stays dry all night, we're still sharing a bed and I'm just not ready to deal with that in the middle of the night. 

Now that we're on the other side of it, I totally wish we had just done it in the summer. It was beastly hot here and we were trapped inside anyway, not looking out at the pretty fall weather for three days. That's not a problem now, but I struggled with it that weekend.

So that's the nitty-gritty of it. Now that's done, it's totally amazing. Except now I have to carry a pink princess potty seat with me everywhere because regular sized toilets are way too big for her to sit on without falling through.   

Easy as Pie

We made pie! I know I haven't written lately, that's because there's a lot on my mind and I'm still working out how to write about it all. So there will be a glut of interesting posts coming in the near future, but today is pi day. So we have pie!

I actually don't like pie all that much. I mean sure, I like a slice of fruit pie with ice cream now and then, but I don't dream about it. And I HATE HATE HATE making pie crust, so this was a pretty unlikely activity for us. But it's pi day, and as a math major I feel obligated to acknowledge this. So we made pudding pie! It doesn't get any easier (or tastier) than pudding pie. I got the recipe (if you can call it that) from here.  

Lily loves to measure, pour, and mix things so this was really the perfect activity this morning. She's being surly in this picture and refusing to look at the camera. And in other news, Thomas is big enough for the high chair! He is so desperate to try food it's hilarious. I am thankful for having two hands while eating again. 

I made the pie exactly like the recipe said to, but I added a thin layer of Heath bits between the pudding and the pudding/cool-whip layers. It is REALLY delicious. I know it's made with absolutely nothing real, but for an easy, fun, half-hour activity that tastes good and requires no baking and can be done with a baby, this was perfect. (My favorite part of the recipe is the 'Healthy Living' tips. I didn't think this pie could get any more artificial, but it apparently can.) 

We had some after lunch, and then put it in the freezer for a bit before having some after dinner as well. Freezing it makes it a bit firmer and gives it a better texture, in my opinion. But it is so tasty. I could eat the whole thing right now. 

Cheers!