Working from home has unique challenges, as any home-office employee knows. But I always thought this would be the best setup for raising kids. After all, there aren’t many options. You can be a stay-at-home-mom and survive on 1 income in a world priced for dual income families. Or you can go back to work and pay the majority of your salary to daycare.
Or you can, gulp, work from home.
I’m not complaining because it’s still my top choice. Everyone’s got a different situation, but this is what feels best for us financially and logistically. However, I have to admit it’s not what I thought it would be like.
Baby food is a whole industry. I think it should be called Baby fast food. Because, yeah, every once in awhile you need to just grab food that’s already prepared. I get it.
But surely you don’t eat fast food every day? (Fingers crossed over here.) Why should your baby?
Ok, ok, it’s not like a jar of Earth’s Best prunes is akin to a McNugget. The ingredient lists I’ve read on those jars are pretty darn clean, in fact!
Still. I’d rather not teach Danny that food comes in small jars with colored labels. I want him to see and taste some raw ingredients, see me in the kitchen, listen to the pots bang (and bang on some himself.)
It’s one of my core values, this home cooking thing. In case you hadn’t noticed.
Anyway, this whole idea of giving baby real food seems to confuse a lot of moms. I’ll outright admit that I am not an expert. Danny’s only been eating solids for 5 months. And there is no “right” way to introduce food to your baby.
But here’s a glimpse at some of what he’s been eating and why – and how to prepare it.
I promise it’s not hard. Please share this post with the moms you know – together we’ll change this culture of prepared, processed food!
Sweet tastes good. End of story. I’m reminded of this each day when Danny accepts his spinach or his beef but really lunges for his sweet potato. It’s a built-in craving.
Ok, so on that note I was in Target yesterday and decided we probably needed some cookies (oh geez, here we go Michelle). Since I wasn’t going to make it to Whole Foods, I figured I’d see what Target had. Like, a bag of good ol’ Fig Newtons must be fairly natural? Not too many weird ingredients, right?
Wrong! Fig Newtons are made with high fructose corn syrup, as are just about every other cookie on the shelf. Including the homemade-looking Archer brand I almost got fooled into buying. Only Kashi cookies were made with regular sugar.
(Which, of course, does not make them healthy by any stretch of the imagination. But I still bought them. I’m human.)
Anyway, the reason I’m talking about sugar and corn syrup is because we are all human, and we love our sweets. This is a recipe you will therefore love. All 3 of us did!
Cranberry Citrus Quinoa
For quinoa:
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 cup orange juice
1 cup water
big pinch of salt
2 Tbl. olive oil
1/2 onion, minced
1 cup butternut squash, diced
1 pear, diced
5 oz. fresh cranberries, chopped (although I suppose you could use dried)
1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
1 handful fresh mint, chopped
1 handful fresh basil, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
Big pinch cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
First, rinse and drain quinoa. Then combine with OJ and water in a pot, bring to a boil and simmer until water is absorbed.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a big pan and add onion. Add a bit of salt and pepper. Cook until translucent. Add squash and pear. Mix and cover until they are soft (about 5 min). Mix in quinoa, then add herbs, lemon, and more salt and pepper.
*At this point, take out a portion for baby and set aside. At least, that’s what I did. Though in retrospect I think he’d have liked the cranberries if they were chopped smaller.*
For the adults, add cranberries, walnuts and cayenne. Mix well.
Serve over cooked or raw greens.
For the record, here are other things that Danny likes to try and eat:
Deodorant, christmas tree ornaments, my leg, the couch, his coat, my nose, the cat’s tail.
You’d think natural selection would have knocked out this dangerous need to eat everything by now! Or else natural selection is what gave mothers eyes in the back of our heads. Sometimes.
Sometimes your day (and by “your day” I mean “my day”) consists of a little boy repeatedly unrolling the toilet paper, pulling stuff out the recycling bin, and methodically removing books from the shelves.
Or maybe you spend too much time on Facebook, too little time doing your hair, too much money on the heating bill and not enough on pedicures.
Perhaps you look in your pantry and see nothing except a bag of lentils.
Then you turn around and the little boy has a piece of kitty litter in his mouth. Again. Meanwhile, the kitty ate some kale out of your shopping bag and proceeded to throw it up all over the white carpet. Also the repair guy never came by like he was supposed to.
Well, shit. You’re not feeling very fancy today, are you?
I really wasn’t sure. It was always my guess that children come into the world programmed to enjoy real food. That they don’t need sugary puffs and processed, animal shaped cookies.
Seems like it’s true.
Now, I know this won’t last forever. There will come a day when Danny says, “Hey mom, I want Cocoa Puffs!” because he saw them at a friend’s house. There will come a day when he smears cake all over his face at a birthday party. Or a day when he and I share cookies and milk and tell stories and laugh.
It’s all good.
But for now, his tastebuds don’t know what white flour and sugar taste like (except for a few bits of muffin he picked off the floor of a coffee shop last week) and that’s fine by me. It’s fine by his body too – after all, sugar and white flour do nothing except make us weak and tired.
So for now, my sweet boy gets only the good stuff. For as long as I can hold out without being too idealistic.
In the video he’s enjoying this:
A simple smoothie
2 handfuls green swiss chard
1/2 apple
enough water to create desired consistency (about 3/4 cup)
Meals like this are sometimes called “Garbage Plates” or “Garbage Salads.” It makes me cringe though – I just can’t call organic veggies and grass-fed steak “garbage.”
Maybe a Kitchen Sink Salad? Even that sounds like it should go down the disposal.
Nah, let’s just call this an un-recipe. A formula for making the most out of the food in your fridge and getting dinner on the table fast.
I’ve been feeling very passionate about confronting the health issues women face. Especially those that aren’t spoken about often, the ones we hide and feel shame and sadness around. Many times I’ve said that eating broccoli isn’t the end-all-be-all when it comes to good health. It’s so darn true! So to women everywhere, hello! Please take note of the call for submissions at the end of this post.
Here’s what happened. I knew it was over during my 10am yoga class. I was teaching at a gym in Cambridge, felt something wasn’t right. Well, you can’t just walk out of a class when you’re the teacher.
An hour later, I drove home. I sat on the couch with my feet up. Maybe if I just rested a minute. I’d been working too much.
Just the previous evening, we’d started thinking about names. Boy names, girl names, either way it would have to be short and sweet to work well with Pfennighaus! We searched the internet as if we were looking for a recipe, or the weather report. But this was different because we were just starting to consider our new reality. A baby.
Two months ago I wrote about postpartum depression because…I just had to. The experience was very real for me and I’m grateful for all the women who sent support and their own stories in reply. What an amazing bunch of comments. Thank you! This whole baby-making thing isn’t for the faint of heart, huh?
It’s only fitting that I follow up now that I’m back on my feet and feeling normal again. Because I am.
Yay!
I swear, writing that post and connecting with other women who have felt/are feeling the same way did wonders for me. If you are or know someone struggling with PPD, the support and understanding of others is huge. Send them my way. Seriously. I’m not 100% sure where the line is between “Exhausted, overwhelmed and emotional new mom” and “Postpartum depression” but frankly I don’t care. The diagnosis doesn’t matter too much. Getting help does.
After months of alternating between feelings of anxiety, anger, confusion and sadness I finally heard what everyone was whispering to themselves and no one was saying to me:
I’m dealing with postpartum depression.
There you go. No more whispering. It’s a thing. A thing that happens. To a lot of women. And no one talks about it, except in shameful whispers.
That stops here. I HAVE POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION AND IT’S OK. I mean, ha, ok, it’s not great. For sure. But it’s ok. I am going to get through it. I love my child more than anything, I am not going to hurt anyone, I’m simply struggling with this gigantic life transition.
Notably, some women experience PPD in a much more severe way. I don’t mean to minimize it, this is written from my personal experience only.
Ok, one of us was wearing pants. This isn’t THAT kind of website.
Here’s the deal. I’ve started dancing in my kitchen. Yes. That is all there is to it. I have a baby who hasn’t napped, a bunch of veggies I must cook before they spoil, and 2 hours before my husband is home from work.
I was feeling blue. This is my life? Baby stuff, baby stuff, I’m sick of it! I haven’t read a real book in months, not even a magazine article. Yoga classes are few and far between. I miss my friends back in Boston. It’s like a big ol’ pity party up in here.
I help busy people find balance in their over-worked, over-stressed lives. Trust me, it's not an all-or-nothing situation! A few shifts in diet and lifestyle can rock your world like they did mine. (And if you're a health coach, I can help you do the same for your own clients.) Read on
