Homemade Baby Food Pride

Hola!  I made baby food from scratch.

This is in reference to #3 in my New Year's Resolutions List.  I thought we could do a lighter, brighter topic for today after the last few posts. 

FYI - Should you ever attempt this, you may want to know that you should only do one item at a time.  One squash will provide LOTS of baby food portions, and more than one will be overwhelming - but you will feel like a sacrificial wonderful mother while you learn how dumb you are.  :)

Alright, here are my BE-U-T-FUL pics!

 

Yes.  I really did plan to make all of these at one time.  I'm crazy.  I stopped short of the sweet potatoes, though. 

But...I did this on November 5, and we still haven't run out!

For how to make pumpkin puree, please visit my friend Hannah's post.

 1.  Wash the pumpkin.

 

2.  Cut off top.

3.  Scoop out the seeds. 

4.  Place seeds in a bowl to bake later

...or to neglect until they're moldy...ahem.

 

5.  Place in a baking dish and add water.  (Then bake as recommended on Hannah's blog.)

Squash is a lot like pumpkin, hence the similar photos.

 

Eventually, I realized that I was CRAZY and would never make it on my own, so I enlisted reinforcements. 

*Well, actually, just one reinforcement.

 

 

All baked!

 

Then we just had to scoop out the yummy insides and puree them.

 

 We had so many things that we had to store TONS of puree in ziplock bags until the first batch had frozen, because I ran out of containers to freeze in.

All I could think of once I hit the third and fourth hours of the night in my over-zealous cook-ahead-ness was Proverbs 31:15.

"She stays up into the night;
   she provides food for her family" 

I think it may actually say something about that blessed woman getting up while it's still dark, but I'm not a morning person, so I've adjusted the text a tiny bit.  ;)

Damp, Dirty, Messy Gratitude

Today, I became a REAL mom.  Today I...

• ...cut my finger on a razor (I was searching for something else in a spot I couldn't see clearly, and I grabbed it with my finger.) *This is not a real mom moment, but it's relevant to the second bullet point, and my finger is still throbbing, so I counted it a bullet-worthy-event on it's own.

• ...fed Emily a bottle instead of nursing for timing reasons (I let her sleep in and then cut my finger, thus skewing my exit strategy a bit.)

• ...witnessed my body go into overflowing mama mode (not nursing overnight OR in the morning apparently has consequences.  Duly noted.)

• ...may have fed her a tiny bit extra in an attempt to stem the surplus. 

• ...received my surplus "gift" back from my generous daughter.  Repeatedly.  (I went through two burp cloths and a receiving blanket.  Oh, and my previously wet shirt became even soggier during this hour-long process of re-gifting.)

• ...had an awkward social encounter as I attempted to use humor to deal with the situation.  Don't ask.  

• ...went through two diapers at once during a diaper change.

• ...had the privilege of testing out our "Wee Guard Car-Seat Saver" (a handy contraption for protecting the car seat from exciting diaper issues) on a massive diaper blowout.  It worked!  Car seat saved!  Em's outfit...not so much.  It didn't come home from lunch with us.  Neither did 18 wipes.  

• ...was outsmarted by a feisty gas pump...almost!  (We got along once I finally remembered to enter my zip code.  Today's events plus gas fumes apparently overwhelmed my brain cells --- or my "read-the-tiny-beeping-screen-and-follow-directions" cells).

• ...gave Em and myself mid-day baths (and trimmed her nails for the second time in 3 days).

• ...plunged a toilet.

The craziest part is that, despite all of these REAL mom moments, I'm extremely grateful.  Not so long ago, such events would have resulted in a massive meltdown with serious entitlement issues (i.e. "I deserve a vanilla Dr. Pepper from Sonic" --- hey, I didn't say I have expensive entitlement issues!)  Instead, I'm content and even a little happy.  All I know is that I'm quite thankful for God's grace.  I'm pretty sure He gave me a double scoop today.  Hopefully today's extra grace wasn't taken from tomorrow!  Either way, I didn't melt down today.  Not even once.  (Stay tuned about tomorrow, though.)

I know there will sometimes be melt-down-y days, and frankly, today would have been understandable, but I'm filled with damp, dirty, messy gratitude that today didn't ruin life.