Babywearing Through the Seasons

Babywearing makes loads of sense in the mild climates of fall and spring, but some parents ask if it is too hot to wear baby during the summer, and the answer is no! Babywearing can actually help you stay in more tune with baby’s temperature and hydration needs than other methods.

 

 

This past summer, babywearing helped us brave the crowds during a busy 4th of July Parade, and made a cozy nap spot in the midst of a lot of stimulation.

 

 

Babywearing kept us hands-free everywhere from the public bus in Virginia Beach to flying kites on the Jockey Ridge dunes in North Carolina.

 

On the beach, the Wrapsody Water Carrier helped me get baby fed and napped without leaving the fun of the shore.

 

We wrapped up our summer adventures with a morning harvesting potatoes at Great Country Farm where, once again, the ability to get one or the other (or both) of the kids up saved the day and kept the fun going.

 

Now that fall is in full swing, we love wearing our boys on evening walks, to pumpkin patches, and during yard work.

 

When winter hits, there is no need to stop babywearing. Wearing is a great way to keep baby warm and cozy and to closely monitor baby's temperature and needs. When baby is in a front carry, a large winter coat or maternity coat can fit over both wearer and child.

 

 

 

 

 On the back or the front, each person can wear their own coat, though this can feel slippery, especially with ruck straps.

 

 

 

Or, child and wearer can share a special babywearing coat. We have a Suse's Kindercoat that I bought in an extra large so Dave and I could share it, and I could wear it while pregnant. (Albeit, it is a big tight for Dave.)  Such coats are even great for spring showers, when the seasons change yet again.

 

 

A version of this post was originally published at http://beltwaybabywearers.blogspot.com/2013/10/celebrate-ibw-2013-babywearing-through.html?spref=fb

 

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Bulk Cooking & Lunches

As we continue our gluten-free (GF), dairy-free (DF) trial, we've rediscovered our love for bulk cooking. Our general approach to cooking is that Dave and I each cook one bulk meal per week. We eat some that night, keep some in the fridge, and freeze some to create a versatile freezer rotation. By combining fresh meals, leftovers, and freezer meals, we can eat all week despite only cooking twice. It's a great plan, but life with two tiny kids had made even that difficult. But, going GF/DF encouraged us to re-prioritize cooking. Our kitchen is messier now that we are back to cooking this amount, but we're enjoying some yummy, healthy foods without breaking the bank.

Here's what we've been doing: if we cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker, it gives enough meat for that night's dinner as well as leftovers for chicken salads (like Asian Chicken Salad) and general lunch munching.


Recently, we cooked a whole ham in the oven and that gave of loads of meat for dinner, lunch leftovers, a potluck, the freezer, and ham and bean soup. Amazingly (sadly), this was the first time I've ever had ham that wasn't injected with saline. Thank you J&L Green Farm for bringing us delicious, forested, unmodified pork.

Another week, we cooked a beef roast and utilized that in different ways through the week.

Toddler's plate with I-can-do-it-myself-sized portions.
Beef roast with potatoes and carrots, salad with cranberry vinaigrette, and a lot of mustard.

Another great bulk meal was shepherd's pie. Dave made this one up using ground beef, whatever veggies we had on hand, and a topping of mashed squash and chipotle peppers. The kids alternated thinking it was too spicy and shoveling it in.

For pizza night or easy lunches, it is easy to whip up a large batch of Mini Egg Pizzas (this was our first baked item with the frozen eggs.)

With all of these leftovers, coming up with GF/DF lunches isn't as overwhelming as I expected. Here are several ways we've combined things to create yummy bento lunches:

Bento Lunch 1 

squash shepherd’s pie

chicken

kiwi

corn

celery

Bento Lunch 2
corn chips (one processed food I am not ready to give up)
blueberries (the one berry we are not restricted on)
dried apricot
sprouted spicy thai trail mix
hummus
thin-sliced turkey

Bento Lunch 3

squash pancakes

pine nuts

blueberries

 bell pepper
 homemade cornbread with apricot preserves
 beef roast with potatoes and carrots

What do GF/DF things do you eat for lunches on the go (or for other meals)? We are hungry for ideas, as this is all very new to us.

10 Ideas for Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free Meals

We are six weeks into doing a gluten-free (GF), dairy-free diet with hopes of it addressing health concerns for three out of the four of us in the family. Several doctors had recommended this to me as part of an anti-inflammatory diet after V was born and my pelvic instability was so intense that walking, sleeping, moving, really anything and everything was difficult. I had enough going on between new baby, work, and extreme pain, and many medical appointments that overhauling our family's eating seemed impossible. So, we shelved the idea. Fast-forward to now. As we've been looking at ways to address V's eczema, both our holistically-practicing medical doctor and our chiropractor suggested that V cut gluten, dairy (or at least pasteurized dairy), melon, oranges, berries, and juices. After a month of planning time, we were finally ready to do it.

The first week was the hardest, as 2.5 year old V had some major behavior and sleep disturbances that might have been some sort of withdrawal or might have been normal 2-year-old stuff.  He also had the most dramatic benefit—his eczema cleared up rapidly, at least until we stupidly tried a new soap that caused a major flare-up. His healing from the flare has been much quicker than normal, though. But, he still does get new patches of dry, itchy skin.

My chronic pain has been better in some ways and unchanged in others. For the past year-and-a-half, I've been waking up every morning with knee pain. This has mostly cleared up since the diet change. While I do have pain related to certain activities, the chronic inflammation went down. I also have less day-to-day pain in my lower back with the changes. That said, the real test is the surge of relaxin that happens each month based on my cycle. This time, I ended up with lightly sprained ankle along with the normal pelvic instability and low-back pain. But, it did heal in one lightning-fast week. Four weeks later, I ended up re-spraining the same ankle. Ugh! 

What else? Losing weight was not a goal for the diet change, but I did notice that my body dropped a few pounds and slid me under my pre-kids weight. Hooray for a chance to bust out some of those old favorite clothes I'd lodged in the attic. 

Dave has not noticed any changes with his contact dermatitis or gut. Baby E is just along for the ride. His biggest health issues have been reflux, which he has aged beyond, and cradle cap which remains. But, we know that sometimes the benefit of this kind of diet change can take 2-3 months. If nothing else, V and I appreciate the solidarity.

The biggest surprise to me was that we were able to do this without living in misery or resorting to loads of expensive packaged specialty foods. The kids have adapted well, and Dave even learned to make GF bread with our long-favorite Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method.

Here’s the shakedown of what we've been eating.

Breakfast:

Paleo Granola Bars These are hearty, amazing, and smell like pumpkin pie

Potato and Sausage Egg Scramble We aren't doing Paleo, so potatoes are still in for us. We used potatoes we harvested ourselves from our community supported agriculural (CSA) farm. They are so fresh and delicious! As I've shared previously, we used our frozen eggs for this.

Gluten-Free Oatmeal I like mine with some maple syrup, vanilla, and dairy-free chocolate chips. The boys like theirs mixed with applesauce and raisins or frozen pineapple.

Apple Pie Cinnamon Smoothie What can I say besides yum?


Dinner:

Buffalo Chicken “Pasta” We'll save ourselves $10 and make the mayo with a mild olive oil next time rather than avocado oil.

Squash Latkes We used almond flour in place of the wheat flour and topped these yummies with aoli. Our kids love these every single time!

Leek Potato Soup This was so creamy, I didn't even miss the cream.

Slow Cooker Tacos Al Pastor These tasted great in a wrap made of lettuce

TexMex Crockpot Carnitas We tried some GF-tortillas, but ended up preferring lettuce wraps. We also made "nachos" with corn chips, carnitas, beans, hummus, and guacamole

Artichoke Lemon Pesto Chicken Pasta We elected GF pasta instead of spaghetti squash that night.

We look forward to seeing what another month or so of this diet brings, though Dave and I are beginning to struggle with missing some of our favorite foods and coping at gatherings that have our old favorites.  The most humorous moment is probably when my employer generously provided a pizza lunch from Dominoes and thoughtfully ordered some gluten free pies. I took several pieces into a quiet room, removed the pepperoni, peeled off the cheese and trashed it, put the the pepperoni back down on the saucy crust, and then rejoined my coworkers to chow down. The slices were manhandled but delicious.