Category Archives: Parenting

Children Books suitable for Vegans and Vegetarians

February 11, 2019

Before going having kids, I didn’t think much about if a kids book is “vegan” or not. It seemed like it wouldn’t be much of an issue. But it quickly became obvious that children’s books aren’t very vegan friendly. So many are centered around farms, zoos, and circuses. Then you have the problem of what the characters are eating. Guys it can be exhausting to say that the hungry caterpillar is eating a slice of daiya cheese.

So, I have a very small collection of books that I read and have a vegan/vegetarian message. I will keep on posting as I read books that I think fit the category, but for now I have a short list. Starting with Ruby Roth.

V is for Vegan by Ruby Roth

Go to any vegan parenting board and ask for a book suggestion and you will be flooded with recommendations for Ruby Roth. It is easy to see why, most vegan books just can’t compare. There are lots of self published books on the market, but they aren’t that great. Ruby really has a talent for writing easy to read text that has rhythm and flow, and the illustrations are beautiful. Roth has released more books, but this is the only one we currently own and is a great books for little ones as it helps teach the ABCs, and the text is pretty short for each page. We started reading this to Wolfie before he turned 1!

T. Veg: The Story of a Carrot-Crunching Dinosaur

This is a book I saw at the library and knew I would have to check it out. It might not be the best first book, it has a fair amount of words, and a considerable amount of pages, but makes a great edition for toddlers who notice they are eating different food from other kids. T.Veg tells a story about a T.Rex who loves veggies, but all the other dinosaurs think he is weird. The story telling has some great rhythm and the illustrations are bright and colorful.

Bear and Chicken by Jannie Ho

I love this story, though I don’t like some of the descriptions that I’ve read online. Many summaries put as a humorous tale, but it comes off much more heart warming. The story is about bear, who comes across a chicken who is frozen in the snow. He brings chicken back into his home and takes care of him. But when chicken wakes up, all he is worried about is being eaten by a big scary bear. It is cute and adorable, and I love the illustrations. Just like Ruby Roth, Jannie Ho has a great talent for both writing and creating art. And I would even say it is a great read for little kids, if they can sit down for a longer story.

There are more stories to share, and I will be sharing a list of great franchises that are vegan friendly as well. So take a look.

Do you have any favorite story that talks about compassion with animals?

Posted by Jennifer in Book Review, Parenting, Reviews Tags: bear and chicken, book review, book reviews, books, jannie ho, Katherina Manolessou, kids, parenting, ruby roth, Smriti Prasadam-Halls, T.veg, v is for vegan, vegan, vegan books

7 comments

Wolfie: Month Eleven & Twelve

January 29, 2018

Things have been so busy that I couldn’t write the Month Eleven post. Heck I didn’t even have time to write the Month Twelve post! This kiddo is over 13 months old at the point. All I can say is thank god there are no more of those stickers left. I carefully saved all the stickers when he was little, but quickly it became obvious that he rips them off and makes them all crinkley. There is no month 12 photo because we took the photo, and when I tried to transfer the images from the camera to the computer I realized I didn’t have the memory card in the camera. By that point I was done with those photos. He just squirms around too much. Next time, I probably won’t do the whole laying on their back thing.

FOOD: We are pretty much living off of solid foods. I keep being told he eats a lot- but does he? I think it might be an illusion? People are surprised when I say he eats a whole banana for breakfast, an oat cake, and milk from nursing) but it makes sense because it ends up being 260 calories (minus the breast milk). Some sources say toddlers need 900 calories a day- and if he eats that much every meal, that comes to 780 calories, leaving 220 calories for snacks. Okay maybe it is a lot because I am still nursing. Whatever. He seems healthy.

DEVELOPMENT: Last time I posted Wolfie was walking but couldn’t get to a standing position by himself. He was able to do this month 11, and now is running with confidence. Recently I saw my cousin who is 9 months old, and it was funny seeing him crawl and how “floppy” he still looked. I don’t remember Wolfie looking this way when he crawled, but he probably did.

PLAY: Suddenly Wolfie is getting how to “play” with his toys. There are so many toys that would have an actual goal but he would just take them and suck on them or clang it together with something else. Now he seems to try and actually interact with the toys. He goes over to his toys and makes them play music so he can jam out (even if the tunes are weak.) He is starting to mirror things I do. Like I was playing with his new barn toy putting the animals into their stalls. He then started to grab anything he could and shove the animals in the stalls. Nice try but I don’t think the horse, chicken, and 2 pigs can fit in one spot.

GROWTH: So we went for his 12 month visit and Wolfie is now big enough that he stands on the scale! Whoo! And he now keeps his clothes on- meaning he is now getting big enough that ounces don’t make that much of a difference. So he weighed at 22 lbs 14oz (getting close to 23!) in the 75th percentile. His height keeps going up at 2ft 7inches in the 89th percentile. But his head is super tiny- 22nd percentile.

TALKING: We got Mama and Dada down. And I think he is saying more, but it is hard to understand when you intuitively know what your kid is trying to say (combined with his inability to properly say the word.) But we have had some glimmer of talking. Somedays I can see him try hard to say words, and some days out of the blue he will say a word, then never again. For example one morning he said “brown bear” and handed me the Brown Bear Brown Bear book. Jon thought I was crazy until Wolfie said it again. We haven’t heard him say it ever since. My Mom claims she heard him muttering it to himself the other day…

SOCIALIZING: Now that Wolfie is interacting with other people more, it makes him seem like a “real kid.” I am guessing that he will be very outgoing since he never really seems to be going through a “mommy phase.” I think there was one week where he didn’t want to be left alone with anyone else (poor Justine got stuck with a screaming babe for 2 hours SORRY!) but aside from that he is doing well. He was very interested in everyone at my family get together for Christmas, and wanted almost nothing to do with me during his birthday.

He is now also playing with other kids. I’ve been taking him to the library since they have a big interactive kids section. If possible I try and take him to story time, which pretty much means kids play afterwards. It makes me nervous, I have kind-of no problem letting him play and learn his own boundaries, but then I feel like I am doing a bad job. Plus, I can already see that Wolfie is fairly assertive, and I am more afraid of him pushing someone down or pulling a stranger’s hair.

SLEEP: I didn’t really think there would be much else to say but his naps are FINALLY coming into place. Oddly I think it is because of consistency. We finished up our share at our CSA so the morning nap didn’t get disrupted. And my Mother got knee surgery done so she hasn’t been able to watch him. As a result I was able to get a schedule going for him. It has been the best. There has been ups and downs with the naps, and there was one day he woke up at 5 (what the heck!?) but he has been pretty awesome. I am constantly watching out for when he is growing out the morning nap, but that isn’t happening anytime soon.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting Tags: baby, baby led weaning, bbcakes, birthday, month eleven, month twelve, one year, parenting, wolfie

6 comments

One Small Update- Where fudge have I’ve been!?

December 29, 2017

Gosh talk about Vegan MOFO drop off! Okay so I posted quite a bit RIGHT after Vegan MOFO, but only posted ONCE in December. Yikes. I mean, it was about tacos, everyone loves tacos right? But I figured I would keep people in the loop about what the heck has been going on.

For starters it goes without saying that I’ve been busy this holiday season. Thanksgiving, Wolfie’s Birthday, and a Christmas marathon. And I am sure every parent know this- but once kids in the mix, Christmas ramps up to new levels of crazy. On top of the expected craziness we had two major life blips. Let’s start with the less sad-

THE CAR: We had two cars, one is nice and decent, the other is a disaster. It was never a nice car, it accelerated slowly, braked slowly, and had lots poor design feature. Mainly that when it rained sometimes the water would leak through the inside. We had a bucket to catch said rain water. It was 14 years old, and we were reaching that point of should we or shouldn’t we pay for any sort of repair. Sadly we reached a point where the most recent repair didn’t work, and the check engine light wouldn’t go off. It ran, but there was a scheduled state inspection and if the check engine light is on you don’t pass. This happened two weeks before the deadline. We had no choice but to get a new car.

This cut into our time and finances as we were not ready to buy a new car. Which sucks. And this has been all watered down from all the little details of suckatude. The summary is that we ALMOST could of gotten away with driving our crummy Dodge Neon for a little longer. But we didn’t.

Toulouse sitting on wrapping paper like the good old days- and sporting her new hair cut

TOULOUSE: I don’t post as much about her, but Toulouse is an important member of our family. Like parents do with their children- Jon mixes up Toulouse’s name with Wolfie’s all the time. Instagram followers may have noticed that I posted recently about my cat. She wasn’t eating which is rare because she is normally meowing up a storm and begging non-stop.

We went to the vet and got blood work done. She had INSANELY high levels of a toxins in her body. I can’t remember the specifics but when I first wrote the numbers down they were so far fetched I thought I misheard him. The vet even said he has never seen numbers so high. After much crying and freaking out, we came to the conclusion that we should treat her for kidney inflammation before getting the biopsy results back. We were mentally prepared to put her to sleep.

She almost immediately started to improve. She became a lot more sociable, and slowly gained more and more of her appetite. I didn’t give a big ol’ thumbs up on instagram because I wanted to wait until we got the biopsy to make sure she would be ok. She is. She got pretty much all her blood levels under control. The vet was pretty shocked.

Now, here is the downside. She took a really long time to eat her food last night. We are fearing that her kidney is flaring up again, and that isn’t too far fetched. The vet asked if we had certain medications that she might of eaten that would cause the kidney inflammation. We couldn’t think of a cause, so that left the lingering thought that the trigger would still be around the house. I have a sneaking suspicion it might her Greenies treats. I knew they had recalls in the past, but seeing all the complaints on consumer affairs, it is a little sobering. We always gave her some treats before bed, and didn’t have any troubles. ONCE she vomited from them, we threw the bags out assuming it was a bad batch. I recently got a HUGE tub of them, and I think we got it right when she started to get sick. We just stopped giving them to her. The lack of appetite could just be holiday stress, but we will keep a close eye on her.

THANKSGIVING: I didn’t really talk about Thanksgiving so I will keep a small summary of what we made. We had a low key Thanksgiving at our house with my Mother and Father in Law. We made:

Green Bean Casserole from Vegan Casseroles.
Cosmos Apple Pie from Vegan Pie in the Sky
Chickpea Cutlets via slower cooker roast from Veganomicon
Miso Mushroom Gravy modified from How It All Vegan
Fingerling Potatoes with Creamy Worcestershire Sauce from Vedge
Roasted Miso Brussel Sprout from Gimme Some Oven
Mother in Law: Cranberry Sauce
Mother in Law: Stuffing (no particular recipe)
Mother in Law: Stuffed Onions
Mother in Law: Turkey and Gravy for themselves

Thanksgiving went well. Wolfie seemed to like all the different Thanksgiving foods, until we gave him the cranberry sauce. Oh boy. I regret that. Afterwards that is all he wanted. He was not happy, and at one point we had to mix the sauce with all the other food and spoon feed it to him. I also remember him going to bed pretty early, and we showed off his sleeping skills to his Grandma and Grandpa by falling asleep on his own in the crib.

Walking between apartments in the snow

CHRISTMAS IN BROOKLYN: This is the second longest trip Wolfie has taken. Much shorter than traveling deep into Long Island to Amityville, but still pretty long. We went into my parent’s car again, and drove through the snow. We had SOOOO much packed! Much more than what I would normally bring. We had lots of food, gifts, but the biggest thing was the stroller. We were going to stop by my sister’s new apartment (which is cute as a fuckin button) for appetizers then walk to my Aunt’s for the main course. That meant walking in the snow with Wolfie. It was both a pain and a little magical. Hopefully in a year or two he will be making a trip up to Brooklyn to visit his Aunt to check out all the fun Christmas stuff in NYC, the mainstream Rockefeller Center and the lesser known Dyker Heights.

It turned out to be a pretty nice trip. It was a nice practice run to see how Wolfie would react to bigger crowds. He was going to have lots of family at his birthday party, on Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. He seemed pretty chill with everyone, and I think there were enough people he knew that he felt comfortable. The downside was that on the ride home it took him awhile to fall asleep. My Father is a little foot heavy on the gas and breaks so he would periodically wake up on the ride home- plus the salting vehicles are clearly being driven by mad men.

Early Christmas presents

But let’s be real- what did we eat?! Well I made the Welsh Rarebit casserole from Vegan Casseroles. I have to say I was really surprised by how good it turned out! I was scared it would be terrible because the bread went stale- yikes, and I made the sauce ahead of time and it was super solid. But it all worked out. Some people didn’t like it though, the beer I picked out was VERY hoppy and bitter. I made the Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, and Grape Quinoa Salad from The Full Helping. If you are going to make a salad for a big party- this is a great one! I can’t remember if I doubled the recipe or not, but we had leftovers. I probably would of spent more time roasting the veggies, they were a little underdone. But the leftovers kept well, and it was easy to mix together the day of to bring up. Then for dessert I slaved away making the Beer Caramel Chocolate Pretzel Tart from Vegan Pie in the Sky. If you are thinking that you’ve never heard of that recipe that is because it is a modified recipe from the Salted Chocolate Caramel Tart. I don’t like to toot my own horn but I think this was the star of the party. Though I am not sure if I’ll be making it again anytime soon. It took a lot of time to make the crust and caramel. Lots of time spent on setting and waiting.

WOLFIE’S BIRTHDAY: I am hoping to write up a long post about the party for the blog. I think it was fun, and it would be nice to talk about hosting an all vegan party with people who might not dig all vegan food. What I can say is that everyone loved the cake! And I am waiting for my Father in Law to go through the photos on his camera. I forgot to put my memory card into mine. Yikes!

ILLNESS: Oh boy. There were a few people who came to Wolfie’s party who were almost over a cold. It wasn’t that big of a deal really. But then Jon got sick. It was a pretty mild cold. No big deal. Then I got sick. Still, no biggie, mild cold right? Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I got so sick. I later found out that my Mother in Law got the same bad cold as well. And since it was the holiday season it just lingered. I was sick, and so anxious about all the things I had to do, cooking, wrapping, etc that I spent three nights in a row tossing and turning until 2-3 in the morning, and waking up between 5-6 for Wolfie. It was awful. I am just getting over it, so it has been over a week. Now my husband has the cold so, you know. Not fun.

Wolfie gets some cousin time on Christmas Eve. Take note of his hands- he is signing more… I guess more xylophone time plz

CHRISTMAS EVE & DAY: Well, since I was sick I skipped out Christmas Eve get together. Bummer. But I still spent the morning cooking, oddly. I kept it simple and made a Martha Washington Great Cake from American Cakes, but it crumbled out of the cake tin. It tasted awesome, but I need to tweak the recipe I guess. So I scrambled to make a Derby Pie from La Dolce Vegan! Let me tell you- it is a very ugly pie but soooo yummy! I also made the Tempeh Sweet Potato Shepards Pie from Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook. I didn’t try the pies until the next day, but both were amazing. Since I wasn’t there I only heard stories about what went on including a giant cousin bath tub session, Wolfie stealing a pacifier out of someone’s mouth, and kids dropping the f-bomb.

Christmas Morning my Mother and Father in Law came over. We ended up having a bunch with leftover Tempeh Sweet Potato Pie and Tofu Scramble from Oh She Glows. I made Norske Kanelsnurrer (Norwegian Cinnamon Buns) from Seitan is my Motar. I liked how they weren’t as sweet and sticky as tradional buns, but I didn’t like how I couldn’t let it rise overnight. I can tweak the recipe, I am sure, but otherwise we didn’t get to eat these until past noon, past brunching time.

This was the first year I hosted Christmas dinner with MY side of the family. Usually we would spend Christmas morning with at my sister’s with my immediate family, then dinner with Jon’s parents. But we switched it around this year now that we have lil Wolfie. It occurred to me that Jon’s parents could stay for dinner, so they left so my family can exchange gifts, then came back for the dinner. So, I think we can say my family isn’t too keen on holiday foods. Like we have nothing against it, but we aren’t against straying away from it. So we ended up doing Indian food for dinner. My sister made some chicken dish (like a butter chicken), brought some frozen naan and samosas. My mother made the Makhani cauliflower dish from Vegan Richa and a spiced rice dish with peas. While I made masoor dal tadka via slow cooker and the famous Mango Tofu Curry. We were going to make more but forgot- got lazy- dunno. But we had plenty for 9 adults, and 3 children. It was pretty yummy. Dessert was pretty laid back, just cookies from my sister, and leftover derby pie.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting, Pets, The Girls Tags: car, christmas, christmas eve, life update, thanksgiving, toulouse, wolfie

8 comments

Wolfie: Month Ten

October 16, 2017

Holy Cow! I am on time for once with these monthly baby updates! Wow! Just a few days off of the 13th, which is perfectly acceptable to me. So let’s start with the most obvious part- since it is Vegan Mofo- THE FOOD.

FOOD Little Wolfie keeps gobbling up food. I finally joined a Vegan BLW facebook group. And you might see some BLW recipes in the future… maybe. Try and post some baby dishes, and meals that are easy to eat with a baby (the whole point of BLW is that you are eating the same stuff as each other) Sadly, the last week Jon has been working late, so little Wolfie has been eating separate dinners from us. Hopefully we will get back on track this week.

The cost of avocados went down, so I got these small size avocados in bulk from Trader Joe’s. Wolfie wasn’t sure what to make of them at first. He ate one half, and when I gave the other half he threw it on the floor. WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH HIM?! Just kidding, he EVENTUALLY ate the other half later that night.

MOVEMENT This kid is walking. Pretty well too. It started with him “crying” while walking. This baffles me. If you hate it- why do the walking? He then decided it was better to hold my hand while walking back and forth. Then once he felt more confident, he has been walking back and forth all on his own. It is pretty crazy. He still hasn’t figured out how to stand up without using something to pull himself up, so I guess that is the next big thing.

GROWTH Clearly he is growing more than last time, I don’t have any actual numbers. But scarily he is already grown out of his infant seat! If you don’t have a kid, and don’t live in the USA, here is a quick baby seat breakdown. They first start in a infant seat, they usually pop in and out of a base. Then after a year they move to a convertible seat that shifts from rear face to front facing. Then after two years you move the baby to face the front. Then after a certain point they move to “booster” seats. Wolfie will be moving to convertible seat, facing rear. So crazy.

TALKING He is starting to be a little motarmouth. I think overall he still talks less than other babies, but he is learning lots of pointless fun stuff. He has learned how to smack his lips and buzz them together.

Wolfie- luckily- is able to understand words. He has said “all done” a few times and I am pretty sure has said Dada and Baba for Dad and bottle. He also knows the word/phrase “change you diaper,” breakfast, eat, nurse, and banana. Hmm… I guess we know what his world revolves around.

TRAVELING My husband and I don’t travel much. I read blogs about how parents take their first vacation with their baby. I think the last time Jon and I took a “vacation” was for a wedding… and vegan doughnuts. So traveling with a baby isn’t likely. Except- for my mother. She had her knee replaced and needed some help while my Dad was working. So we stayed overnight and it was annoying. The sleeping overnight wasn’t so bad, it was just having to change diapers on the floor, bathing in a new area, nursing was a struggle, naps weren’t likely, etc. In fact I left earlier than expected because he was so cranky.

We also took a trip to my Grandmother’s house on Long Island. This was a big trip- taking several hours to drive up. To make things worse- I forgot the pack and play, so we had to skip the afternoon nap. oops. My Grandmother also didn’t do any form of baby proofing, not even taking some hornet/bee spray off the floor. It was pretty exhausting keeping a constant eye on him. But we got through it. And we get to do it again probably for Easter.

TEETH Oh gawd it was bad. The first two teeth weren’t so bad. I thought if all the teething would be like this- no big deal. But the top teeth were a nightmare. They all kind-of came in at once, and Wolfie was a wreck. The bottom two kind-of had holes appear for the teeth to fit through. The top teeth looked like they “ripped” through the gums.

Nor have they come in the right “order.” They sort of skipped around, but it looks like pretty soon- by next month maybe- he’ll have four teeth on the top. Very weird.

SLEEP Maybe I should just stop talking about his sleep? Or maybe I shouldn’t. I mean my life REVOLVES around his sleep right now. AND IT IS AMAZZZZING right now. Sure I complain a lot, but hey I know I have a good thing going on right now. Wolfie is now sleep almost 12 hours! Goes to bed at 7, wakes up around 6:30! I am now setting an alarm to wake up at 6. Amazing. He is even taking really long naps right now. Total difference from when he was an infant.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2017 Tags: blw, month ten, parenting, teething, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2017, wolfie

4 comments

Wolfie: Month Nine

September 19, 2017

I know what you are all thinking- didn’t she just post one of these things? Yup- but it was practically a month late. *ugh* I know I am just terrible at this right? Well, if all goes according to plan, this will FINALLY be done relatively on time… *crosses fingers*

Let’s start with this photo- terrible right? He just won’t stay still. How do people do it?! I see all those trendy milestone blankets, but this kid will not stay on his back. I think the last photo involved Jon standing by holding Wolfie down till I started to hit the shutter. Oh well. You get the point. The kid is screaming and large. Moving on.

FOOD: Eating like a horse still. But we had some major break throughs! One being that HE ATE A LIL BB BURRITO! Yey! It was the cutest thing ever and it actually made some foods easier for him to eat (aka rice)

Wolfie is largely disinterested in my boobs. I mean he still likes to nurse, but I think sometimes he likes formula better simply because he can feed himself. He at one point was trying to figure out how to feed himself with my boobs. See I use a shield which is a small piece of silicon that makes it a fool proof latch for babies. He has ripped it off my boob, and tried sucking on it. Eventually he has figured out that there is something with the combination of the two, then he tends to stare at my nipples and pinch them. Baby. Listen. Stop it. It is weird.

MOVING: Oh man is Wolfie into walking… well at best as he can. He has been mostly “cruising.” No, he isn’t picking up men for casual sex, as my husband jokes, he is using tables and chairs to hold himself for walking. If he isn’t holding onto the couch or coffee table, it is usually the alligator walker we got as a hand me down. Seriously that kid just goes back and forth and back forth of the living room.

Naturally all this movement means there is a lot more thuds. I can now tell when he wakes up not because of screaming but because I hear the back of crib banging on the wall. He also has lots of little dings and bruises from trying to walk when he is exhausted.

GROWTH: Still tall and skinny. The most recent visit to the Pediatrician came with these stats-

Weight: 19lb 7oz (48%)
Length: 2ft 5in (80%)
Head: 17.52in (34%)

Not too different percentage wise from the last visit. And the scary thing is that I was looking at his numbers to clothing sizes and pretty much his weight is in 6-9 month clothing and his height is clipping towards the 12-18 month clothes. Huh?!

The visit also showed that he has a slightly low iron count. The doctor said that he thinks there was a mess up with the tests since Wolfie doesn’t SEEM anemic. So that means I have to get back into the habit of giving him his vitamins again. Just incase.

And that’s more or less it. I am only covering about 2 weeks worth of life for Wolfie, so you know, not much to say.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting Tags: blw, month nine, nipples, parenting, wolfie

3 comments

Wolfie: Month Eight

September 13, 2017

What a month. Wolfie is becoming a little person instead of a screaming lump. And in usual fashion I am very late with this post. Instead of pretending like I am going to just talk about the past month- I will be talking about the past month and a half because HE IS JUST DOING SO DARN MUCH!

SITTING
This is probably one of the first things Wolfie learned how to do this month. It has been a frustrating struggle. He can sit up and that was good enough for awhile. Then he was getting frustrated that he would get stuck either sitting up or laying down.

Well, one day Wolfie was napping while Jon and I were trying to get some things done around the house. The monitor went off, and Jon questioned as to whether or not he should get him. I made an off-the-cuff comment

“meh, he sounds fine, let him play a little by himself.”
Jon replied with “okay…. oh….”
He got up and showed me the monitor. My response?
“Oh… yeah… you should get him”

All you could see on the monitor was Wolfie’s big bald-ish noggin because he’s figured out how to hoist himself up!

CRAWLING
My last note was “just about to crawl”… mark that down to “nailed it”! It has been so nice to have him be able to move around and gain some independence. Here is how his evolution in crawling has progressed:

Butt scooting, pretty much moving around in a big circle, confined to a 2 foot radius
Sort of crawling- getting about 2 “steps” in before throwing in the towel
One day you realize you didn’t have to pick up Wolfie for the last 30 minutes. OH SHIT! he’s crawling!
Crawling starts out with dragging one leg behind, kind-of looking like a bug with a leg torn off.
He figures out how to keep his knees in contact with the floor, now can crawl long distances
Screw knees, let’s use our feet! now his butt is high in the air as he crawls
Stairs! Yup, this little munchkin climbed up a small step at Grandma and Grandpa’s house…Eep!

Wolfie is now so excited that he is able to crawl towards Toulouse. It’s really funny because he crawls all the way across the room, exhausting himself, then when he starts to get close to her, Toulouse just casually and calmly gets up and just walks away. Better up your crawling game Wolfiecakez.

TALKING
After so many months of being really quiet, Wolfie is starting to babble with intent again. For a long time we thought his first word would be “hi” since he kept making an “H” sound with various words. But, now I think “UP” may end up being his first word. He often says something sounding very close to “up” with his hands up in the air, looking to get held. It is hard to say since he will randomly say it totally out of context though.

He has also learned how to blow out air so we can move our hands over his mouth. You know, like that racist Native American stereotype? It’s only cute because there aren’t any racist undertones when Wolfie does it. It is pretty darn cute when he grabs your hand to make the noise. But he has moved on to making the noise himself with a balled up fist and (on rare occasions) his foot when in the car.

STANDING
This kiddo just wants to walk. The first comments I got when I posted a video of Wolfie crawling were ones about how he just wants to stand. I am pretty sure he has been wanting to stand since he was in the womb (so much kicking!) He is getting increasingly better at standing. He started holding himself up by playing with his jungle toy, but had a hard time grasping the idea of how to accomplish that without any toys around him. Then he started to understand that he could use tables and chairs to stand up too.

The next step (clearly) is pulling himself up. He has no problem using me as his own personal ladder. He’s really started to nail it, to the point that it’s never phased me. Almost everyone excitedly asks if I knew he could pull himself up, and I just shrug my shoulders. Meh. Not impressed. Sure you can use my squishy body to pull yourself up. Until… yesterday morning he started to try and pull himself up from sitting to his knees. After some major encouragement from me, I motivated him to pull himself to a standing position! WHOOO! This morning I even caught him using the glider. So now his crib has been lowered again to the absolute lowest setting, and his video monitor has been moved very far away to keep the cord out of reach.

HAND-EYE-COORDINATION
For awhile Wolfie was clapping but with one palm open and the other in a tight fist. Now he totally has the whole clapping with both palms opened. In fact, the other day I heard a solid “clap” sound.

He is also starting to understand the whole waving thing. But I think it is mostly for himself. Rarely he will wave hello or goodbye. But he has learned to let his arm go limp to make me shake it when out and about.

His little pincher grip is getting better. If you hand him a small piece of food, he will clamp it with his pointer finger and thumb. It’s adorable! Oddly enough any advancement with his hand-eye-coordination seems to revolve around food. When he plays he seems most interested in trying to stand, crawl, walk, etc. Not play with toys.

EATING
I think awhile ago I made some joke about ways Wolfie is like an ACTUAL dog. Add this to the list- he has been trying to pick up and eat his spit up. OMFGFDHJ*@#UEJ@## SO GROSS! Spit up is already bad, but he just finds way to make it EVEN WORSE by going for it. You know, like spreading it around with his feet, or chunks of his food. STOP IT! I know you are reading this blog, baby!

So far the only food he hasn’t really been diggin’ has been chickpea-egg-like things. I made vegan omelets and little savory bean muffins. Both he happily ate the first day, but then didn’t care after a day or two.

Just eating peaches with Aunt Alexa… naked… on the kitchen floor

Otherwise he has been LOVING peaches, but sadly, I think we are going to be done with them soon. By the time we go to the orchard again they will probably be all gone. This kiddo could probably eat two whole peaches in a day if I let him. Bananas are another favorite. I think my favorite part of BLW is making lil bb versions of normal food. I got to make ADORABLE little naans. And after going to Vedge, Jon wanted to have some recipes from the Vedge cookbook for his birthday dinner. It was so stinkin cute plating fancy food onto a small baby plate.

HEALTH
It finally happened- Wolfie caught a cold. Back in the day, I am thinking around 6 weeks, Jon got a cold, then I got a cold. IT WAS AWFUL! But somehow Wolfie didn’t get sick, but I remember it was really rough trying to get through the day.

I remember taking Wolfie to the library and him touching all the toys and putting things in his mouth. I was nervous but I didn’t want to be that paranoid parent. Sure enough- he got sick… and so did I… and so did Jon. I woke him up and thought

“your nose is really runny… is this a cold?”.
Answer: yes.

It mostly sucked because it messed up his sleep schedule (which means it messed up our sleeping). He would either nap for 2-3 hours, or only 10-30 minutes. One night he woke up 3 times during the night, bringing back horrible memories of the really early baby days.

I also got flashbacks of the sneaky snot swipes from watching my niece Morgan. She got sick much more often from being in daycare and having allergies. Oh did I mention Wolfie was teething while sick? So there were just constant waterfalls of snot and spit. Have I mentioned how disgusting children are?

TEETH
HE HAS TWO NOW!

The bottom two teeth came in about the week of turning 8 months. Not much else to say other than read the previous paragraph.

SLEEP

I remember being so nervous that Wolfie would never nap longer than 30 minutes. Gosh it has been such a crummy experience when he was young with napping. Sleep at night- thumbs up. Sleeping during the day, tears.

Aside from him getting sick, naps are getting so much more regular. It started with secured morning naps. Then after getting sick, it seemed like something switched, and he decided “yes, these naps rock” Now I know that I can get two naps in, the morning being much longer than the one in the afternoon. This is the only reason why this post finally getting up …*sigh*. It is nice to have some peace and quiet during the day.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting Tags: baby, baby led weaning, crawling, month eight, parenting, pulling up, sitting, standing, talking, wolfie

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Wolfie: Month Seven

July 27, 2017

Holy cow! This month has flown by. It really has me reflecting on how much has changed in the past 6 months. I remember dreading breastfeeding. I am glad I stuck it out, although I don’t love it, it is much cheaper and simpler than formula. I remember feeling such disconnect with little Wolfie when he was a floppy, wrinkly, newborn, and the days when I was so desperate to get out of the house.

Now I am always amazed by how much Wolfie moves around. I love it when he rubs his face into my shoulder, even though that pretty much means he is toast and needs a nap. He smiles so much more, drools less, burps on his own, and most importantly poop a lot less often. He sleeps through the night, naps twice a day, and I get some time to myself. I don’t think I will look back at month one to four with too much nostalgia. But I think I will be thinking of the “good ol’ days” when looking back on these months.

So let’s talk about what the heck Wolfie has been up to. Well, he is becoming a serious foodie. He is getting the whole bite-chew-swallow thing. Before there was a lot of biting off food, then spitting it out for the next bite. Some were swallowed, but I mostly ended up with little bits of kohlrabi and apple all over the high chair. It wasn’t until the one day when Wolfie was eating half a banana and half a pancake that I noticed a shift in his eating. When I cleaned up, I didn’t find a million chunks all over the place. Meaning he ATE MOST OF THE MEAL! Crazy! He hasn’t complained at all with any of the food I’ve given him. Curry, rice, veggies, fruit, pickles, all good. I love how a lot of what he eats depends on what we get from our CSA. It automatically will switch things up for him. Pretty soon we will take him to the orchard and he can start trying out stone fruit. And he can finally find out what Peaches are since I sang that song to him so often as a newborn.

Photo by Wendy Ringel

Making it out to our CSA has been something of a challenge. As Wolfie has gotten older he has gotten into the habit of napping at 8 in the morning. Our CSA opens up at 8, which causes us to bring a cranky baby to pick up our produce. Ouch. We would let him nap, but with the summer we like to go as early as we can before it gets hot. Next year should be much easier since he will most likely be taking naps in the afternoon. It’ll be more fun for him then, he’ll be able to “pick” produce, and walk around. Right now he is just carried around by me, or his grandparents. But he sure loves looking at the piggies. I am sure there will be tears in the future about what happens to the pigs.

Last time I didn’t include Wolfie’s stats from the doctor’s visit. Well, he is now 17lbs and 1oz- in the 68th percentile. His head is 43 centimeters, in the 72nd percentile. And finally his height is 2 feet and 3 inches- making his height in the 93rd percentile. So I apparently have a very long and skinny baby. In fact I did some searching to get an idea what size clothing he should be wearing and found that his weight is in the 6-9 month clothing but his height is in the 9-12 month clothing. His feet are just much too long for his footed jammies.

I will have to say everything is starting to feel like those ooey-gooey “he’s growing so fast” moments. He is sitting by himself without my help though I need to prop him up still. He is now itching to start moving around, and I am seeing the end soon to being able to walk away from him and knowing he will “stay put.”

*sigh* But that is why I started to make these monthly posts. I knew everything would be moving fast. So I am glad I trying to stick with this.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting Tags: baby, baby led weaning, month seven, parenting, wolfie

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Wolfie: Month Six

July 2, 2017

I swear everything is moving super fast. Wolfie is on the edge of moving around. He is starting to roll around more- but mostly when I walk out of the room or when he is alone in the crib. My guess is that he knows I’ll hand him some of his toys? But then again he isn’t very good at rolling off his tummy, so there were a few times he woke up in the middle of the night and I had to roll him on his back again.

Wolfie can now sit up by himself (once you prop him up). He loves sitting up while playing. I no longer need to be right behind him – though sometimes he wobbles too much and falls down. Thank goodness for the sitting because he now wants to stand up less. Yey! Less work for me.

The other day we went to a friend’s 30th Birthday Party and there were lots of babies. I was a little surprised how much Wolfie just wanted to hang around the other babies. He was clearly taking notes because the two older babies were crawling. At the party he kept trying to get on all fours but wasn’t sure how to move. In fact he still was trying it at home, and actually keeping his tummy off the floor. So who know, maybe crawling will happen in the near future?

Sleeping is getting better. He still cries when we put him down for the night but it is immediately stops when I leave the room. Maybe I’ll start reading a book before leaving for the night to try and soften the transition. Sadly, we had to do sleep training for naps. I put it off and put it off and kept Wolfie in his small rocker instead of the crib for naps. Then a heatwave hit right as I was trying transition. I didn’t want to use the rocker since it wouldn’t help in the heat. He also wasn’t falling asleep in my arms because he was too hot, not that it mattered because he almost always woke up when I placed him in the crib. It was sooooo terrible. But once the heatwave went away, he fell asleep in the crib by himself. Now he has similar reactions as going to bed- crying when I am in the room, but starts putting himself to sleep when I leave.

And now the sleeping is a LOT more consistent. It has been a sigh of relief for us, since we know he will STAY asleep at night. I remember for the first 2-3 months having to swap baby duty so I could try and get enough sleep. Now if I am getting up in the middle of the night it is at 4 in the morning. And I am not pretty much always getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep.

Loving solids! I was a little worried about starting him on solids since the recommendations are now to wait until they a six months old, but I figured why not. If it seemed to be a bad idea I would take a step back and wait. So far no digestion issues and he seems eager to eat the purees. I made some awhile ago from produce from last years CSA crops- butternut squash, turnips, and parsnips. All are getting the baby seal of approval.

Then I flip flopped and read Baby Led Weaning. So I ditched the purees and went for “adult” foods. It has been interesting since 95% of the food rarely gets into his mouth. So maybe there will be a what we ate coming up soon.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting Tags: baby, baby led weaning, blw, month six, parenting, wolfie

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Wolfie: Month Five

May 29, 2017

What a crummy start to this new chapter of Wolfie’s life. The Monday after turning four months there was a gloriously perfect day! Wolfie slept for an hour and half in the morning and in the afternoon, and slept through the night. The next morning I woke up to people working my roof. The guys start from 8 in the morning to 7 at night. It was AWFUL! I was starting to get into a groove with Wolfie, wake up at 7, eat, play, eat, sleep after 2 hours. But it was more like eat, rush around packing things, eat, run to my in-laws, unpack, eat, try to sleep, fail, eat, play, eat, try to sleep, fail, eat, get fed up, go for a ride, well you get the idea. And getting home wasn’t so great. Wolfie wasn’t bothered by the banging, but they were working on the roof while I was rocking him to sleep! They are done and we have a nice new roof so I am happy.

Wolfie celebrated his first Easter. We aren’t very religious and Jon and I have a particular irk about Easter. So we had a low key Easter dinner with his parents. We tried to dress him up a little but he spit up on his clothes right as I took out the camera. haha. It should be interesting how we handle the whole Easter thing next year when he is a little older.

Wolfie’s sleep as always is all over the place. At one point he was falling asleep all by himself at night and IT WAS AWESOME! He was even sleeping through the night. Then he randomly decided he wanted someone to walk him to sleep, and he would wake up in the middle of the night. I eventually told my husband that something had to give. I couldn’t be up at night AND struggle to get him to nap during the day. He also getting better as staying awake in the car and the stroller. Eek!

So we had him cry it out. It sucked the first night. It took an hour and ten minutes of crying before he fell asleep. The only good thing was that unlike most babies, he cried a lot less the second night. Now he mostly does a protest squawk then starts dozing off. We also had to do this since he wasn’t a fan of the crib. We are still working on the transition as we try and get him to sleep in the crib for naps. Ugh.

The worst was the heat waves. His head would sweat while I rocked him to sleep then stick to my arm when I put him in his bed. This caused him to wake up and then get no sleep. AWFUL! Since we are trying to get him to sleep on his own, one night he cried for 45 minute which was odd since he was starting to just sleep without any crying. We had to feed him some cold formula and bring in the BIG fan in his room. Instantly fell asleep after we did that.

And since the heatwave was so bad we started him on solids. Pretty much he didn’t want to breastfeed because it was way too hot to be held. When I would go into cooler rooms he just wanted to look around. It was so frustrating. At that point it JUST hit 5 months so I thought- why the hell not? And you know he really liked it.

In my usual fashion I forgot to keep working on this post as the month went by. Ack! So the past few weeks are much fresher in my memory. The food- the sleep- mother’s day- first CSA visit! So I will let this post be insanely short.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting, The Girls Tags: baby, month five, parenting, wolfie

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Wolfie: Month Four

April 24, 2017

Ways Wolfies is Really A Wolfie

He drools all over the place
Sometimes he spits up on his toys then sucks off the spit up. Gross
The cat is kind-of scared of him
People tell him he is “such a good boy”
We are teaching him how to roll over

Oh boy. Things are moving fast. Wolfi is starting to be a little more FUN. Less dangling of toys and more efforts from his part. He was trying really hard to grab things and put them in his mouth, but his eye hand coordination wasn’t the greatest. But my sister suggested I buy a play mat at a second hand consignment shop. Luckily I found this cute space themed one, and after setting it up, almost immediately Wolfie started to reach for the dangling toys.

Most of his time is spent trying to shove things in his mouth. Yup, we are in the early stages of teething. There are rings of spit around his neck, and his gums were red and sore. He didn’t want to eat and could barely sleep. It was sooo awful. One night I didn’t sleep longer than 2 hours at a time. The pressure on his teeth has curbed a little, but we still don’t see any teeth yet.

Aunt Justine watched Gavin one night so Jon and I could have a “date night.” He slept like a lil angel for her.

Even though he was having a hard time sleeping, he is now sleeps for most of the night. We are ranging from seven hours all the way to eleven and half hours! Whoo! Mama’s getting almost eight hours of a sleep consistently. Hell, one night I got NINE hours of sleep. It was glorious. Even his daytime naps have been better as well. Most of the time little Wolfie is sleeping 30 minutes, but one week he consistently slept 30 minutes then a longer nap later. Do we have days where he gets no sleep? You bet.

Some good news for my buff new mom arms- Wolfie weighted 15lbs, 10oz, putting him in the 50th percentile. Which means his growth is overall slowing down! Horray! He was starting to get a little hard to manage, but if he growing slower I am sure it will be easier over time.

This month has been both exciting and uneventful all at the same time. Although Wolfie is growing and learning, it is hard to pin-point his skills outside of “better.” He can grab things more tactfully, he can babbles more frequently, etc. But I do have one very interesting story.

See my husband almost always had a little help from me in the mornings. So when Wolfie was first born he had to do everything himself so I could feed him or sleep. He got the hang of it all but still couldn’t make the time for shaving. So he just grew a beard. No biggie. It was winter and it was cold. Now he thought that spring is coming and we have a better handle on things- it was time to shave.

In the middle of his shave job I had to do something (use the bathroom? eat? I don’t know anymore) so I asked if he could hold the lil Wolf for a second. Next thing I know he comes out of the bathroom with a 70’s stache. Holy cow did Wolfie hate it! He gave his Daddy a look and burst into tears. Clearly were were evil parents and torchered him long enough to capture the moment. Don’t worry, Jon shaved the rest of the hair and Wolfie recognized his Daddy again.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting, The Girls Tags: baby, month four, parenting, wolfie

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