Category Archives: Mishaps

Snotty Noses and Roses

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Yeah, everything is all hearts and candy this Valentine’s Day morning, but yesterday all I wanted to do was crawl up in a ball and eat everyone’s dang chocolates and call it a night at 7pm.

It all started when I left work.  I wanted to stop at the post office and send out Avery’s Valentine’s… to his grandparents, great grandparents, and family in California.  I had been meaning to get them out but every time I sat down to do them, Avery HAD to be in my lap, and chew on the glue, and steal the pen and I’d have to take it away and explain (in A Christmas Story fashion), “Avery, you’ll poke your eye out!”… so they took longer than expected, so yeah I was sending them out late.  But when I passed the post office, there was no parking… with all the darned snow piles from the blizzard, parking was impossible.   Luckily someone was leaving, so I sat in the handicap spot and was just gonna back into their spot after they left.  Perfect plan, til when I backed up and realized the darn snowbank was in the way!  At this point I was so frustrated, I just drove off.  Sorry everyone… you’ll get your Valentines a little late this year.

To add to my annoyance, when I got to daycare, the teachers told me they were having a Valentine’s Day Party tomorrow.  (Well thanks for the short notice).  Good thing I already bought gifts and labelled them and put them in a bag so they wouldn’t be forgotten.  However, the teachers had printed all the students names to label the gifts… well, had they been proactive like me and given these to me last week when I was addressing the gifts ‘From: Avery, To:Friend”, I could have put each kids real name.  I mean, what parent does all their holiday plan & prep the night before?!  With an unpredicatable toddler, I have to plan stuff a week in advance cuz I know it’ll take 3-4 sessions to actually get something done.  Ugh.  So too bad, the kids are getting the labels I made.

Now, when I got home I was excited to take some cutesy pictures of Avery with hearts and make a fun craft project with the hands we cut out last week with Daddy.  And Daddy wouldn’t be home until late, so we had the house to ourselves to make him something special too! Well, Avery had other plans.  As soon as I put him down when we walked in, he started screaming.  And crying.  And he wouldn’t stop unless he had his ‘bubba’ and I was carting him around.  His nose was stuffy and running was also making it hard to breath. Great.  Wonderful.  This teething thing with NEVER END.  OK, we can do this…  I thought as I coddled him and he cheered up.  I put him in a white dress shirt and had him sit with a paper heart in his hands… oh he is so cute.  Take the pacifier out… grab the camera… and all hell broke loose.

More crying.  Arms out asking to be picked up.  Drool ALL OVER the shirt.  And the screaming….makes nails on a chalkboard sound like a symphony.  Avery was not impressed with his paper heart.. which was madly thrown on the floor and when handed back to him, it became a nice pink ball of paper.  Great.  Wonderful.  Happy Friggen Valentines Day.

Well, there was no way in heck I was gonna put these pictures on any valentines… poor kid looks like I’m torturing him – which is probably how he felt… stupid teething.  So with that, I threw in the towel and called it quits.  I laid down on the floor and took some deep breaths.  Avery saw his opening and grabbed the camera and started playing with it (kid loves buttons) and man did he light up… giggles, smiles, laughs.  Where was this face two minutes ago!?!??! UGH.  So screw the cutesy valentines photos… I have been up since 530am, worked a full day, spent 2 hours commuting, and have a teething toddler at home…. my world isn’t perfect, but darned if this isn’t the best Valentine I’ve ever had…

VALENTINE

Yeah, I’d love some professional staged cute photos of the bugger, but this is our life… messy, loud, unpredictable, exhausting and full of drool and runny noses.  So that’s what you’ll see in our valentine this year!  So much has changed from the quiet and angelic baby he was last year….

baby valentine's card

After Avery went to bed I just wanted to screw my calorie counting and down some chocolate and sit on the couch all night.  I was exhausted.  Disappointed.  I wish I had the time and energy to do projects for holidays with Avery.  I get so mad when I can’t pull them off… it’s just impossible to do everything I want in a days time. (another reason I stay off Pinterest… too many ideas i want to do and don’t have the time, so i get all stressed out when i see things i want to do but dont’ have time to).  And although I felt like crap, I dragged myself to the gym…which did make me feel better.  And no, I didn’t eat any chocolate.  That craving passed.  And after a good night’s sleep, I hit the pavement with a new attitude this morning.

I’m not perfect.  My life is FAR from perfect.  I won’t have a flawless photo of Avery for every special event in his life, but what I will have, is memories.  Memories I can torment him with when he has his first child and I can laugh when he calls me stressed about a toddler that won’t cooperate, and I can say ‘pay back!’ (like my Mom does to me!).  And growing up, my parents didn’t take picture perfect photos of us every holiday… and I turned out OK, I think.  So, why not carry on  the tradition my Mom started when we were kids… every holiday when we woke up and went to the kitchen bar to eat, there was a card and gift.  Just for us.  Just because.  It wasn’t much… but the thought just made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  So, with that memory of my childhood, I decided to start that tradition at our home… because memories are worth much more than fancy photos.

I took the remnants from our failed craft project, and the small gifts I had for Avery and Vinay and left the house this morning with this waiting for them…

IMG_0412

A little doggie for Avery that says “I woof you!” (Which Vinays tells me, Avery played with all morning) from Vinay and I.  Avery picked out a valentines box of Reeses Cups for Daddy.  And from me to Daddy, a container of Tabasco jelly beans that say ‘you’re hot!’

And what did I just get delivered to me at work?

IMG_0413[1]

Awweee!  I guess this Valentines isn’t that bad….snotty noses and roses :) Just what I wanted!

How do you celebrate V-Day?

Blogiversary I: Top 10 Reasons I Love to Blog

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This month marks ONE YEAR since our first blog post. I’m psyched that I kept up with this for a whole year.  It’s been fun keeping in touch with family and friends around the world, sharing tips, tricks, triumphs, and mishaps with other bloggers, and inspiring friends to blog.  To kickoff our First Blogiversary celebration, here’s my Top 10 Reasons I Love to Blog:

1. Keep in Touch with Family & Friends

Although I grew up in a close-knit community of friends and family, we’re now all scattered across the world.  We’re all busy with family, careers, school, etc. so it’s difficult to keep in touch.  A sparatic phone call or email helps, but when you have a new house, husband, and baby, everyone wants to know AND SEE how things are going.  This blog allows me to share pictures and even videos of our renovation projects of the house, and of Avery as he grows.

2. Mommy Outlet

While the initial intent of this blog was to keep in touch with family and friends, it quickly turned into a perfect outlet for my mommy thoughts, questions, triumphs, and rants.  As a working mommy, I don’t have much ‘me time‘ and as much as I love my hubby and son, I need some time for me.  Some time to relax and get out my thoughts, a hobby that I enjoy outside of the everyday things I NEED to do.  This blog allows me to do that, and I can squeeze it in at lunch during the week and some nights after Avery has gone to bed.

3. It’s A Virtual ‘Baby Book’

Blogging about everything under our roof, especially what Avery is up to is a great way to document Avery’s first year with photos and videos.  I still keep the traditional ‘baby book’ but instead of printing photos and pasting them in the book – this is a much easier way to document Avery’s first year.

4. New Friends

I knew NOTHING about blogging and the world of bloggers when I started this adventure… I had no idea how much I would connect with other bloggers out there and how close we would become popping into each others lives via the internet.  It’s refreshing reading stories from other mommies, commenting on other home renovation projects, getting great DIY ideas from others, and especially getting feedback from them when I post something.

5. Comments  I heart the feedback when I post something.  Sometimes I’m excited to share what Avery’s doing, or stressed about him STILL not sleeping through the night, or sometime we need help picking a paint color. Whatever the post is about, I love getting an email telling me we have a new comment!  I’m always excited to see who it is and what they have to contribute to the discussion.  Sometimes its another blogger, and other times it’s a dear old friend from college, or a distant relative in India!

6. It’s Cheap! And for anyone, it can be free.  I spend $18 a year on our domain name “www.RatnamResidence.com” because I’m anal like that and had to have a theme and name for our blog so I had a direction for what I was blogging about.  What other hobbies cost less than $20 a year!?

7. Inspiring Others  I don’t blog to make an influence on the world, or on anyone in particular – but apparently I have.  I had one woman respond to my health kick this past spring that I inspired her to start working out.  How cool is that?!  And I’ve won a few awards in the blogging world, all nominations by other bloggers – pretty cool.  Oh, and did I mention, two friends of mine have started blogging – not solely because of me, but because our blog made an influence on them?  Sharing the blog love… www.DaretoDesert.com & www.Kouzmitch.com

8. Ideas Ideas Ideas Have I mentioned how much I hate love Pinterest?  That site is amazing.  So many ideas – but they overwhelm me and I get frustrated because I want to try to make this and buy that and do a project like that…  because of that, I have to limit my Pinterest browsing.  Reading other blogs (when I have a spare minute) gives me some great ideas…whether they are recipes, or quick and easy DIY projects.  It’s a lot less overwhelming than the smorgasbord over at Pin-sanity.

9. I am an Expert well, maybe not an expert, but I get to share my opinions, tips, tricks, and knowledge I’ve learned with others.  Other mommy questions I can help with, I give my two cents.  Someone wants an opinion on the room they are redesigning, I pipe in.  I may not have the ‘right’ answer, but I might be able to help someone.

10. It’s FUN! Many things in day-to-day life are monotonous, especially when you have a house and family.  There’s dishes to wash, bags to pack for daycare, laundry to fold, the sump pump died again, there’s a leak in the ceiling, oh crap we ran out of formula gotta run to the store…. every day is a dance to get as much as possible done so tomorrow things aren’t piled up and most of it isn’t exactly ‘fun’ although we try to make them best of them.  Blogging is always fun :)

How long have you been blogging?  What do you love about it?

baby walking  kabobs on the grill baby helping with laundry

We’ll continue the celebration later this month with:

Homemade Baby Food

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Homemade Baby food.  What’s not to love?  It’s easy to make, healthier, and less expensive than the store-bought stuff. So, with that, we gave it a shot!

Supplies:

  • empty Gerber containers
  • canned carrots (you can use any cooked veggie or fruit)
  • Cuisinart Smart Stick
  • spoon

Time:

  • 7-10 minutes

Cost:

  • storage containers = free
  • ziplock bags = ¢ (we buy them in bulk at Costco)
  • food = varies (bananas = 24¢ each, sweet potatoes = 50¢ each, carrots = free from Grammy’s garden)
  • tools = free (thanks for the Cuisinart Smart Stick Mari&Kris – a wedding gift)

How-to:

1. Collect food containers

When Avery started eating solid food (AKA mushy food), we decided to go with Gerber’s First Foods.  They come in packs of 2, and each container has two servings.  After Avery tried a few of the foods, we knew he liked them and wasn’t allergic, so I knew which ones would be worth making at home.  In the meantime, I washed and saved all the plastic Gerber food containers – to reuse and store homemade baby food.

2. Gather all supplies on a work surface

3. Mix. I did this for about 3 minutes to make sure the carrots were mixed as fine as possible for Avery’s little tummy.

4. Distribute into storage containers.  I filled them 3/4 of the way, the same amount Gerber does so I know 1/2 a container is one serving.

5. Store them. Put 2 in a ziplock bag and label the bag with the date and food name.  I put some in the freezer for later and one package in the fridge for immediate use.

6. Eat! How did Avery like his homemade carrots?

Messy = He likes it!

7. Clean up.  The stick mixer comes off with a push of a button and if you rinse/wash it immediately after use, it cleans quickly.  Then the same with the mixing bowl and clean up is done!

I repeated this process with sweet potatoes and bananas.  The sweet potatoes mixed really well and Avery loves them just as much as the Gerber version.  Bananas on the other hand were a fail.  I didn’t realize it until after I had made 6 containers and stored them away.  The one in the fridge turned brown within a day and when you reheat it (15 seconds in the microwave so it’s not cold) turned a rubbery consistency and wasn’t smooth enough for a baby to eat.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.  Two for three isn’t bad!

What’s your favorite veggie or fruit to make for homemade baby food?  Did you try and that didn’t work?  Do you have any tips or tricks to share?  Let us know!