No Average Mom

In a couple of weeks we will be getting our new car. We have never leased a vehicle before and are only doing it for one year. My father-in-law was able to secure us a one year lease through his employer. Since our car was totaled last month this seemed like a reasonable thing to do. The lease will allow us to drive 30,000 mile without incurring additional charges. We have decided that this would be a prime opportunity to take a road trip. We are trying to decide where to go and how many luggage sets we can fit in the car. It is pretty small and between two kid, a dog, and the luggage there won’t be a whole lot of room. This means we will have to pack lightly and plan carefully. I am hoping to find a destination that is family friendly and affordable. It will be really nice not to have to worry about anything going wrong with the car since it will be brand new.That is one thing that has kept us from taking trips in the past. Our other cars are older and have high mileage making them prone to breaking down.

Our 3.5 year old has been a terror to potty train. I started trying to potty train when he was 2.5 He was so resistant to my efforts I remember being in tears at one point. I gave up for about 6 months and gave it another try. He quickly decided that peeing in the potty was okay. There is however no convincing him that popping in the potty is the way to go. He will simply hide in his room and poop in his pull-up. Last week I decide I was not going buy anymore pull-up and started using cloth underwear. He has stayed dry but still runs to his room and poops. I keep hoping that the underwear will make it more uncomfortable and motivate him to use the potty. It thus far has had no impact whatsoever. I keep telling myself that everything will happen in its own time but it is just a little irritating to keep washing loads of yucky clothes.

Both my husband and I have been noticing that our hair seems to be falling out more rapidly than usual. It isn’t to the point that we need hair loss treatments or anything but it is noticeable. I went so far as to put one of those hair catchers in the drain to try to catch it all. It likely is the result of all the stress we have been under in the last month. That has to play some part in hair loss I would assume? I remember loosing a fair amount of hair after the birth of my second son and that it stopped once life became more normal. Given that my husband will have his cast removed tomorrow I am guessing that our collective stress levels will be reduced significantly soon.

It has been about a week since I decided not to buy my son anymore Pull-ups. It became clear that he has no intention of learning to poop in the potty as long as he has pull-ups on. The child uses the potty whenever he has to pee but just wants nothing to do with sitting on the toilet. Well, after a week of wearing cloth underwear I don’t feel one step closer to having him poop in the potty. He walks around telling me “I poop in my underwear”. My hope is that eventually he will realize that being uncomfortable is not fun and being dry and clean is. For right now I just don’t see any progress. I know everything will come together in its own time but it is still just the slightest bit frustrating.

Yesterday was supposed to be my day for baking. I used to try to spend one day a week making homemade food that will last us for the rest of the week. As the list of things I can make from scratch grows my baking days now seem to stretch into 2-3 days. On Sunday I made muffins, cookie bars, and cheese. I started out baking yesterday with the intention of making sandwich rolls only. I ended up baking 4 dozen rolls followed by 2-3 pounds of granola. This is probably does not sound like the best way to lose weight does it? Well, I didn’t stop there and then threw together a batch of peach yogurt. Once the yogurt was in the oven it was time to roast coffee. Our first batch of home roasted coffee was incredible! We used an old hot air popcorn popper and it only took about 7 minutes for a batch. I doubt I could ever go back to convenience food if I tried. Today, I am stuffed to the gills with real “slow food” and I love it.

Last night I set out to make some cereal. We had used up the last of the Kashi in the house and I couldn’t bare to run to the store. I started scouring the net looking for ideas and found a ton of recipes for granola. I love Post Great Grains cereal but the price has gotten ridiculous. The granola recipes I looked at all had a ton of oil in them. I decided to take a general granola recipe and tweak it to fit what I had in the house. I have to say it turned out AMAZING! You really can throw just about anything into granola and it should work out. My recipe ended up being:

7 cups oatmeal
2 cups chopped assorted nuts
1 cup unsweetened coconut
.25 cups wheat germ
2-3 Tbsp flax seed
.25 cups flax meal
1 tsp cinnamon
.24 tsp vanilla powder
dash nutmeg
Several sprinkles of Durkee maple sugar
stir this all together

1/2 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp olive oil
scoop of coconut oil
1/2 cup water

boil this together and slowly pour over dry mix so as not to over soak any one area.

Put on 2 parchment lined cookie tray. Bake at 300 degrees until golden brown, stir frequently. I sprinkled periodically with more maple sugar.

Cool and put in airtight container.

Did I mention this is amazing? My son who refuses anything to do with these items on their own tried it and at a bowl. He also did so with milk which he never does!

This weekend I had to have a serious talk with my older son about nutrition. The child only wants to eat things made of white flour, starch, meat, or cheese. Any combination of these items is fine with him as well. I have been trying to get him to understand where our food comes from and how it is made by making most of our food from scratch. He finally expressed his disappointment with the newer limits in his food choices. I explained to him that my job as parent was to guide him to make healthy food choices. I explained how people who only eat sugary and starchy food end up overweight. He had no idea what I meant and why this would be a problem. I realized because we never discuss people being overweight in his presence that he has no idea what being overweight means or even looks like. I explained how hard it was to be overweight not only on your body but on your life in general and that I don’t want him to need a fat burner supplement or some other diet when he grows up. It was necessary to explain to him that loosing weight can become a lifelong struggle and that is not something I want for him. He seemed to grasp the concept despite not completely liking everything he heard.

For Christmas I bought our younger son 4 sets of identical pajamas. They feature a character from one of his favorite movies and I thought he would love them. He screamed at the sight of them and absolutely refused to have anything to do with them. About 2 weeks ago he decided that these pajamas were the best them ever and has since refused to wear anything else. He doesn’t want to wear regular clothes and battles me to put them on. The only time he will wear jeans is to go somewhere in the car. For some reason he understands that you can’t wear pajamas outside the house. I am now really glad I got 4 sets because we would be in trouble if there were only one.