All you need is Love

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love

We expect to be invited to some beautiful weddings in the future :)

We're even accessorized for the occasion.

Circle of Neglect

A friend of mine termed her baby's jumparoo "the circle of neglect". It's a name that's stuck with us. Yes, it's giant. Yes, it's plastic. Yes, it's made in China and I bet he's sucking down chemicals every time he sucks on that giraffe. But he loves it. It keeps him off his head. And it allows me to make my morning martini cup of coffee.

behold my horribly neglected son!

clearly, I'm damaging him.

I don't know how he'll ever recover from the trauma

eh, he can take it up with his therapist

7 Months & Deciding To Let Nature Take It's Course

First I want to thank everyone who responded to my post about Bucket's head for all of the love and support. Since my last post I've had the opportunity to talk to a few moms whose babies had similar heads and who decided not to helmet. They generously sent me photos of their children as they grew up. By 2 years, you could barely tell that the child's head was anything other than "normal", and by 5 years there was no difference at all. Between the support from our friends and family, these mom's experiences, and the lack of any real evidence that the helmets make a difference at the age of 2 we decided to forgo the helmet and let Bucket's head develop as it will.

That being said, "develop as it will" is coupled with mission "Keep Bucket off his head whenever he is not sleeping". I may not be getting paid, but I suddenly have a new full time job. We decided to invest in a jumparoo a.k.a. "the circle of neglect":

Fortunately, Bucket loves it. He has a good position for prime Kitty-watching, lots of things to chew on (that the cat can't reach and eat), and has a great time bouncing up and down.

Also fortunately, Bucket is a great sitter. He still sucks on his stomach, but kid's got some wicked core strength. He still topples backwards when excited so I need to keep an eye on him, but it's a huge advantage.

We also spend much more time in the ergo. This keeps him off his head and allows him to nap (meaning a full 45-90 min of sleep also off of his head. He's comfy in the front carry, but he gets in the way. The back carry is more convenient, but both he and I are too short for the carrier so I'm looking for alternatives.

Hikin' with L on Baba's Day

Luxuriating post-back carry with me.

The rest of the time, I'm holding, bouncing, or playing with him. We also try to time all car rides with naps so we bang out car seat time and nap time into one on-his-head time.

Its a lot of work, but every day actually gets easier. Even more encouraging, we're already seeing a difference in his head shape. Compare:

to:

I'm amazed at what a difference this sort of repositional work makes. The rate of improvement is also very encouraging to keep going, even when it's a real pain in the ass. It has also occurred to me that the entire keep-Bucket-off-his-head mission is possible because I don't work outside of the home. If he were in daycare, he'd be in a helmet. Both because the $3,000 price tag would be more affordable with two incomes, but also because we could not ask a daycare provider to keep him off his head in the same way I am able to. So, I guess you could say I'm earning us $3,000 by being home so we don't have to put him in a helmet (or something like that).

This was a hard choice for me to make (easier for L for a variety of reasons), but I now feel strongly that we made the right choice by our kid.

Yes, yes she does.

I haz a friend

I may only be 7 months old but I has a friend BEST FRIEND in the whole world.

She's grey and furry and we're about the same size.

Oona - ugh, the creature is back

She makes noise and moves really quickly and I love to pet her and pull on her fur. She loves me too. 

She wants to play with me all day long.

Oona: Seriously, does it every shut up? This thing talks more than I do

 And soon I'm going to be able to chase after her and eat her food and play with her toys and pull on her tail...

Oona; That's it. I'm done. time to go sit by the feeder

Evil Brownies of Doom

I've probably posted these before because they are my favorite brownies, but here we go again.

These brownies are fudgy and decadent. Nothing even close to resembling "cakey" here. The milk and the dark chocolate bits really help to set off the 71% chocolate I used in the body of the brownies. I think they would also be fantastic with a splash of rum or bourbon, 1-2 tsp instant espresso, or some orange zest.

Ingredients:

185 grams of bittersweet chocolate, chopped

185 grams of butter

3 eggs

250 grams of sugar

70 grams good cocoa powder

90 grams flour

100 grams of white chocolate, chopped into cubes

100 grams of milk chocolate, also chopped

(You can also add some chopped pecans but I honestly think that nuts don’t belong in these brownies)

Preparation:

Heat the oven to medium-high heat (180 celsius/ 350F)

Melt the butter and bittersweet chocolate together in the microwave or on the stove

Beat the eggs and sugar together in a mixer until they become creamy. Fold the chocolate in gently until the mixture is evenly brown.

Fold in the flour and cocoa (preferably sifted).

Save a little bit of the white and milk chocolate for decoration and mix the rest into the batter.

Put in a brownie pan lined with baking paper and bake for about 40 minutes.

Allow to cool to room temperature and if there’s time, freeze for 30 minutes to make slicing easier.

Bon appétit! 

A place for everything: White Chocolate

Ok, I know half the chocoloholic readers have already tuned out because white chocolate gets a bad rap. It's too sweet! It's gritty and pasty! It's not really chocolate! Au contraire mes amis. Shitty white chocolate is well... shitty. Just like cheap, crappy chocolate is, well... crappy. But good white chocolate, real white chocolate adds a rich creaminess from coco butter that can really set off other flavors in baking.  You see, real white chocolate IS chocolate. It's made from sugar and coco butter (the fat solids derived from cocoa production). Crap white chocolate is sugar and emulsifiers such as wax, mixed with fats like palm kernel oil. (side note: those are also the main ingredients in nutella).

Example. Ingredients for Ghiradelli Premium White Chocolate Chips:
"Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Palm Kernel, Coconut, Palm Oil), Whole Milk Powder, Nonfat Milk Powder, Whey, Cream Powder, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin (an Emulsifier), Vanilla. May contain trace amounts of peanuts, nuts and flour gluten."

Um, ew? That's as close to white chocolate as regular yogurt that's been stuffed full of corn starch to make it thick is to greek yogurt.

Ingredients for the Ghiradelli White Chocolate Baking Bar:
"White Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Nonfat Dry Milk,Milk Fat, Soy Lecithin - An Emulsifier, Vanilla)."

You've got soy lecithin for stability, but otherwise you're getting cocoa butter and sugar - "real" white chocolate. Hell, do a taste test between the two and you can tell the difference instantly.

So if you're baking with white chocolate, be sure to read the ingredients of the package and please, buy the real thing.

That being said, here is a preview of my favorite use for white chocolate, to set off 70% dark chocolate in cookies and brownies. These are my good friend Daphne's Evil Brownies of Doom (b/c they doom your best attempts to diet any day!). I'm a sucker for good, rich brownies and these are my hands down favorite any day. Picture today, recipe tomorrow.


Just a further side note on chocolate. You'll see Hershey's unsweetened in the background. Unsweatened, natural cocoa (not dutch processed) actually gives a stronger, richer, more acidic chocolate flavor in recipes. Dutch processed provides a smoother flavor, but I prefer the more upfront notes of naturally processed. 
Also, if you can, don't buy generic chocolate. Hell, don't buy most (American) Nestle, Hershey, or Ghiradelli chocolate chips. With the exception of Hershey's milk and Ghiradelli 60%, they are for the most part crappy chocolate stuffed full of fillers so the chips retain their chip-shape when baking. The best easily available chocolate chips in the US is hands down Guittard (also less than Ghiradelli, which is over priced for being mediocre chocolate). Guittard also makes a range of Akroma free-trade chocolate that is amazing.
When I'm baking I only use Guittard, Lindt, the occasional bag of Hersheys or Ghiradelli if I can't find the others, or Trader Joes Chocolates (which are very good, very affordable, and superior to Ghiradelli, Nestle, or Hershey). Most of the time I don't use chips, but just buy bars and chop it as needed.

The shape of a head

Bucket has a flat head. It started when he was engaged in my pelvis, but it got much worse around 8 weeks when his head grew much faster than the rest of himself. Knowing that we had to keep him off of his head and that tummy time was excruciating, we went to a bunch of extra measures to keep him off of his head. Then, at the 4 month dr apt, our pediatrician mentioned that he had a flat head, but that it would round as he got older. A bigger concern was teaching him how to roll and we were encouraged to leave him on the floor (tummy or back) to encourage movement he could not do when in arms.The added floor time did help him learn to move, but made the head issues worse. Again, the pediatrician advised us to work on tummy time and reassured us it would round as he got older. 

Visiting my aunt, a pediatrician, this past week produced a very different response. She said she would have recommended aggressive positioning and PT at 4 months and would have him evaluated for a helmet to correct the deformity immediately. 

Cue: Kelly freaking out.

Well, not entirely. I'm totally aware of his head. We've been trying to work on it, but it's not working. I've looked into helmets and know they would round his head out after a few weeks. Caught between the two extremes of it'll-work-itself-out and helmet-now! we decided to see a pediatric neurologist.

Bucket has a "moderate" head deformity. It is symmetrically flat in the back and causes no misshaping in the face. The skull is wider above the ears than a "normal" head, but not too bad, especially considering he seems to have inherited the round face from his dad's Swedish side of the family. The neuro said that a helmet would correct the flatness, but wasn't "necessary" and that it would round out and be covered with hair, over time. It will not round to "normal", but it won't be particularly noticeable. Most importantly, the flatness won't cause any developmental problems, it's simply the way his head is growing. That being said, a helmet would correct the problem and he gave us a prescription in case we want to go that route. 

As a parent, I'm really torn. On the one hand, Bucket has a round face inherited from his father's side, and my mom has a flat patch on her head. Not to mention that I have random strangers come up to me to tell me how beautiful my child is. Hell, even the neurologist said, "you should have more kids, you and your husband make beautiful babies". It's not like I hear a lot of "tsk, he'd be adorable if only it weren't for his head..." Plus, since the back-to-sleep campaign, flat heads have been on the rise and are much more common these days. On the other hand, I wonder if this is something 30- year old Bucket would want us to correct when we can. What if it does't round or he goes bald? Is it worth putting him in an orthotic for 8-12 weeks when he won't even know its on his head so that his head will look more "normal"?

To be honest, we wouldn't even be having a debate if his palgiocephaly was asymmetrical (on the side, or distorting his facial features). But because it's even across the back, it just makes his already large head perhaps slightly more prominent. (body is 22% for age, head is 87% for age).

We still have to talk to the insurance company and see what/if a helmet would be covered. Because it is considered a "cosmetic" deformity, many insurance companies don't cover the costs. At about $3,000, they aren't cheap. How much is the shape of his head worth? Then again, what about just accepting him for how he develops? Who is to say that his head won't look basically normal in 2 years time?

At the end of the day, I'm most relieved that we have a beautiful, happy, healthy baby who will not face any neurological or developmental repercussions from having a flat head. I'm blogging about this, and will continue to do so, no matter what we decide. If we decide to helmet, I hope this will be a resource for parents who may face the same dilemma. If we decide not to helmet, I hope to chronicle how Bucket's head develops independent of an orthotic - and maybe give more confidence to others that the body can indeed work itself out.

Cheap Wine - Wine Cube

This month Consumer's Report has an article on inexpensive chardonnays. The claim that several very cheap wines make the "very good" category, beating out the $35 Rombauer. 

These include:

Trackers Crossing 365 (Whole Foods)

Bogle (love their pinot)

Shaw (!!)

Kirkland Signature Sonoma

and

Wine Cube

In the interest of science (ok, finding drinkable cheap wine), L and I are going to put these to the test. 

Tonight's trial is Target's Wine Cube. CR "Full flavored with complex wood and butter notes balanced by clean fruit flavors"

Wine in a box, $11 for 1.5 L, and it has a dispenser and fits in the fridge!

Color - looks like wine.

Nose - generic white wine, nothing particularly offensive or interesting

Taste:

L - It's good, fine, inoffensive. Not very complex, but no off flavors. It's good.

K- It's light for a chardonnay (IMO). Buttery, but not overly so. Woody, but not overly so. Light fruit, but not overly so. I get apricot. I guess that means well balanced. I like it and would happily drink more.

Would you drink it again?

L - At $11 for 1.5L, it's comparable to a $6-7 bottle. It's good and I'd definitely drink it again.

K- Absolutely. Good price point, doesn't go bad in the fridge and it has a freakin' dispenser. 

Making the desert bloom

I can't grow plants for shit. I have a black thumb. My previous attempt to grow plants in the desert yielded 2 cherry tomatoes and a few puny peppers.


Our new house has two giant gardening beds with sprinkler irrigation. We decided to give gardening one more try.

We loaded up the soil with soil conditioner and planted 4 cucumber (which were labeled peppers... oh well), 2 oregano, 2 squash, 2 eggplant (one bianca, one Japanese eggplant), 2 actual peppers, one cherry tomato and 2 basil plants.

BEFORE: cucumber and oregano

After I turned on, but not off, the irrigation system over night... three times... we decided that Luke should be in charge of watering lest I drown the plants.

We planted in April and I'd say things are looking pretty damn good:

AFTER: cucumber and oregano

The cucumber are doing tremendously well. After a few weeks I decided to pull a plant that looked small and I'm glad I did, we'll be swimming in cucumber soon enough.

Although birds have been eating the blossoms off of one of the plants, we do have 2 large squash plants.

L is staking one of our peppers and one of the eggplant.

We also ended up with the largest tomato bush I've ever seen, much less grown:

 It's staked in 3 separate places and wasn't even wilting in todays 106F temps.

Even Bucket got in on the gardening fun (mainly by chewing on his hat):