All Things Bright and Beautiful

All Things Bright and Beautiful,by Ashley Bryan.  What a beautiful book!  A picked this one out of her collection a month ago and it is now firmly in the rotation.  I’m not a religious person and the inspiration for this book is an Anglican hymn, but I the references to God are general and not Christian specific.  She loves the pictures of the fish; I love the diverse images of the people and the art work in general.  The words are simple enough that A pretty much had her favorite parts memorized by the 4^th reading.  I recommend this book to anyone looking for a simple artistic children’s book that doesn’t mind general references to God as the creator.

The Beauty of Beets

Beets make the best food coloring EVER!  It's that rich pink that is usually only achieved with a strong shot of red 40, but without the harsh chemicals and additives, and it has the bonus of injecting your comeda of choice with a few vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients :-).  I am on a muffin kick and in my search to keep things fresh and interesting I decided to add some beet puree to my next batch. 

To be honest I first got the idea a couple of years ago from Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, by Jessica Seinfeld. A loves the taste and I love what's in them. Yum yum happy mum!

The Best Cereal Ever...

is the one that you make yourself... unless you love cornflakes. LOL. I have no recipe for that ;-).  Since moving to Puerto Rico I have had a hard time getting the breakfast cereal that I love.  My first choice is Kashi's lean crunch, A loves it too.  My cereal has lots of protein, fiber, vitamins, etc. without a cup of sugar to go along with it.  Here I could keep buying Kashi but it costs twice as much and isn't always fresh.  So I've looked up some recipes and got the basic ingredients and decided to make my own... and I wondered why I didn't do this a long time ago. The ingredients may seem to cost a lot on the front end, but I've made about 4 batches and am only half way through my supplies.

Ingredients - Everything varies based on your preferences

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup puffed wheat

1 cup puffed rice

1/2 cup oat bran

1/2 cup wheat germ

1/2 cup flax seed

1 cup walnuts (finely chopped)

1 cup almonds (finely chopped)

1 cup pecans (finely chopped)

1 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1 cup honey

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 tbsp. powdered ginger

1 tbsp. nutmeg

1 tbsp. cinnamon

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1 tbsp. olive oil



Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl (sin spices). Mix the olive oil, honey, and maple syrup in a small mixing bowl. Put the oil in first to keep the honey and syrup from sticking to the sides. Add the spices to the honey and syrup. mix the "wet" ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the coconut. Put in a shallow pan lined with foil (to make it easier to remove when done). Bake at 350 degrees for 15 mins. Remove and let cool. Add the cranberries and move to a container. You should store it in a cool dry place. This should make about 1 bag of cereal. Enjoy!

Girls Hold Up This World

Girls Hold Up This World, by Jada Pinkett Smith.  I love this book!  My mom got it for A when she was first born and we read it every night as part of our bedtime routine.  It is a poem with wonderful photographs of girls from diverse background.  When A was a baby she loved looking at the different faces.  As she got older she loved the rhyming of the words.  I’m not sure if she understands the message yet - that all girls are smart and powerful - but my hope is to embed it in her subconscious.  I recommend it for everyone with a little girl at home.

The Evolution of a Toddler Diet

One thing I know for sure is that when it comes to my toddler and food, there is nothing that I know for sure. She eats bread but not the crust, she eats the crust but not the bread, she eats potatoes sometimes (usually when fried), she eats fish, she only eats raw food, she eats nuts, and she eats berries but only the red ones. LOL! I can’t keep up.


We have evolved from fish sticks and chicken nuggets though. These days A is eating mostly almond butter and honey sandwiches on whole wheat bread (it would have been peanut butter but Costco only offered almond butter as a less processed alternative to the main brands of peanut butter). It is the meal/snack of request 95% of the time and to be honest I really can’t kill her for it. It has lots of protein and lots of fiber; omega 3’s and is low in cholesterol, etc. It is also really easy to make ;-)

So that is it for now… oh, that and Chinese food. Anything that starts with the word Chinese she is game for. Go figure.

You know you live in a Jamaican House when…

Curry chicken is your last minute meal. LOL. At least once every couple of weeks I run out of ideas for dinner and turn to my staple of curry chicken.  I like it best with boness skinless chicken thighs but that's no fun for the bone lovers in the family (of which A has become a member).  Here is a recipe from Jamaicans.com that I thought was good and simple.  I also add potatoes and carrots to mine.  Enjoy!

Curry Chicken

INGREDIENTS :

•1- 3lbs chicken

•2 tablespoon curry powder

•onion, thyme, garlic, pepper, black pepper.

•salt to taste

•lemon or lime juice


METHOD:

1.Clean, skin,and cut chicken in small pieces,then wash with lime or lemon juice

2.Drain, season with curry, onion, thyme, garlic, peppers, salt and let marinate for awhile

3.In a skillet pour about 3 tablespoon of oil. Let oil heat but not too hot

4.Add chicken and let cook until done.

5.Serve over white rice

Benefits of Kids TV

Kids TV isn’t just for kids.  We frequently set down as a family to watch cartoons with A.  I think we’re all getting the same thing out of it. LOL. I find it much better for learning phrases and names of objects because they speak slowly and clearly.  You can’t yell at the novella  “habla despacio por favor!”

Cleaning Revelations

I now know why my Mother in Law washes the dishes AS SOON as a meal is finished. In NC there was a grace period; you could let a couple of meals go by without having to do all the dishes. Nothing smelled no flies were attracted; people wouldn’t be appalled by the way you kept your home. Not any more! These flies don’t let you rest for a second! Walking in my kitchen you would have thought I hadn’t done the dishes or taken out the trash in a month. No, I do the dishes every day. The trash is taken out every couple of days but by then there are fruit flies everywhere.


I can’t stand it, but I also can’t just stop everything to wash the dishes. More often than not I have 1 hand to work with, so those dishes are just going to have to wait. Yuck.

I have also realized since coming to PR that keeping a clean house in the Caribbean is a full time job. The floor must be constantly swept and moped, the dishes must be done after every meal, then there’s laundry (I’m washing 5 days a week), and the regular cleaning, and the cooking, and the list goes on (I didn’t mention the yard). I know why so many people on the islands have a helper, maid, whatever you want to call it. When am I going to have the time/energy to enjoy paradise? I’m tired and I just got here. I just know I’m neglecting some crucial household chore while writing this…

We Found the Black Town

So we decided to take a trip to El Yunque National Forest a couple of weeks ago and took the scenic route along the beach. It took forever, but was a nice drive. On our way to El Yunque we went through a small town call Loíza. For a split second I could swear we were in Jamaica. Everyone was Black! LOL. I got kind of a kick out of it. Finally Puerto Ricans that looked like us! I don’t remember seeing any non-Black PRicans and this was a first. What does it matter you say? Nothing much I suppose. We are still American and they are still PRicans, but as a Black American I can’t help but get excited to see people that look like me in another country, especially when mostly everyone we see on a regular basis looks more White than Black.

One of the reasons we wanted to leave the US was so A & E could experience life not being a minority, but the same thing we were running from is the same thing we have run into here in PR. There is a visual class divide. PRicans with good jobs, nice homes, kids in private school, and dark skin are few and far between. Already A had to brush away a girl on the playground that kept playing with her hair. Clearly she had not seen kinky-curly hair up close before. Oh well, time to dust off Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children by Sandra Pinkney. “I am Black, I am Unique!”

Busy as a Bee

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 

I was really productive while the girls were napping the other day.  I actually started cooking dinner at 2:30pm.  Chicken in the oven. Check.  Rice and water in the pot. Check.  Broccoli cut up and in the steamer ready to go. Check.  When the “real” time to cook dinner rolled around all I had to do was turn everything on - you have to watch the rice though, because it was soaking it doesn’t take nearly as long to cook - something that I can do while breastfeeding (ah, the art of multitasking).  I think I just found a new system.  I also managed to wash 3 loads of laundry, sweep upstairs and do the dishes.  This, of course, was only possible because BOTH girls took their nap at the same time.  

***edited to add***

The take away is this - You have to do things when you can, not always when you want to.

More Hair Stuff

I continue to refine my technique for maintaining A’s hair. The tightly curly method isn’t very practical for a toddler – at least the curl defining part. I was leaving her hair in double strand twist instead of trying to define each curl and that lasted much better through the first nap. I was also able to cornroll her hair with beads in the week leading up to the move. It lasted a week which was great, but the process of putting them in and taking them out took a couple of days.


Right now since she is doing so much swimming I am doing 3 ponytails, two in the front and one in the back. In the morning I spray her hair with water, put in conditioner and kinky curly and finger comb it. The parts are the same from the day before and I’ve decided I don’t care if her parts aren’t perfect these days. At night I take out the ponytail and make a braid then twist it into a sort of bandu knot. I have started not to braid her hair all the way to the ends and found that it’s easier to take out in the morning.

If she is doing some serious swimming then I just braid up her ponytail and make it into a bandu knot to keep her hair from getting tangled. I also did a similar style for myself at the pool the other day.

There isn’t much to report about my hair. I do as little to it as possible. Co-wash and condition every 3 days (when I have the time), I detangle after the shower instead of in it and have been using some homemade hair goop. That’s about it. If I had more time I could experiment with styles, but since E has started pulling my hair out in clumps (not exaggerating) my go to style is a pony tail.

ME vs. the Mosquitoes

My biggest challenge so far is how to deal with the monster mosquitoes. They are constantly attacking me and my girls. A is covered in them and E was rubbing a bite on her wrist that then turned into a blister/boil so large that my neighbor was concerned enough to convince another neighbor to send a picture of it to her husband, a doctor. Great. At one point E, only 7 months old, had 9 bites literally from head to toe. I stopped counting A’s bites at 15 and never tried to count my own. Needless to say we were suffering.

This problem required a multi-faceted approach with troops fighting on many fronts. We went old school with the mosquito nets at night and found a bug replant that wasn’t toxic. I have to reapply it like 4 times a day but it was either that or cover the girls in something that was “hazardous to humans.”

I find myself wearing long dresses and pants the spraying Off on my ankles and feet.

Then there is the poison. I’ve only used the spray once on the plants (the owner recommended it) and we burn the coil outside on the covered terrace. E isn’t crawling yet and A doesn’t mess with the plants, but using the spray was a sort of last resort. The coil is great for short periods of time… I try not to think about what we are breathing in. Lately I have also been forgoing my cool tropical breeze (especially in the morning) and keeping the windows and doors closed.

I’m not sure what works and what doesn’t but there is a BIG difference in the amount of bites we’re getting from the first week to today :) I’ll try to find a less toxic way to deal with them when we move into our house, but for now I’m just glad not to see the girls covered in welts.

Pineapple Juice

Don’t you hate when you buy a pineapple and have to cut away half the fruit to get to the sweet part. My hubby has a great way to use those pineapple skins to make juice.

Make sure you wash the outside of the pineapple before you cut it.

Cut the pineapple the way you normally would setting aside all the cuttings.

Boil 4 quarts of water. Add pineapple skins to the boiling water and remove from the heat, letting them seep for 30 mins.

When the skins are finished seeping add them to the blender and blend until a pulp has formed.

Strain the skins into a container and repeat until all the skins are done.

Grate a piece of ginger 1 inch long.

Sweeten with sugar to taste.

Waste nothing….

Shopping in a Time Warp

I walk into the grocery store and (this has happened at a couple of different places) it’s like stepping into 1995. Back when nothing was bad for you and the more complex the scent the better - You know, before organic and natural foods/items became popular. The food selection is not what I left in North Carolina. I never realized how fortunate I was to be able to choose what brand of whole wheat bread I wanted to buy. Here there are 15 different varieties of white bread and maybe 2 of wheat bread – and only one whole wheat bread. Organic dairy? Forget about it. Unscented wipes? I don’t think so. Why wouldn’t you want your baby to smell like a fresh spring morning?

There are a few “organic/green” health stores in town, but they are more like health convenience stores – a little bit of everything, but no good variety of anything. I was able to pick up a bottle of mosquito replant that didn’t have the warning “hazardous to humans” listed on the back. We won’t talk about how much it cost.

Tropical fruit on the other hand is in abundance! Yay for mangos, bananas, pineapples, star fruit and papayas!!! These are not purchased in the grocery store, but directly from farmers along the side of the road. We’ve also driven by a free range grass fed cattle pasture and are determined to find out where those cows end up… hopefully in my freezer ;)

Welcome Home

So here we are in paradise. My family has officially relocated to Puerto Rico, which is still (technically) in the US but also not really. Hubby grew up on an island and this is about as close to home as he’s going to get right now. I on the other hand am a mainland princess and have some adjusting to do…

I was looking online for an AA mom expat blog and couldn’t find one… so I guess that is what this will develop into. There are so many things to discuss… hmmmm where to start?

It’s been a couple of weeks and I still kinda feel like I’m on vacation. Our belongings have not reached and we are staying in a furnished home on the beach  It’s a little rough juggling the girls without my supplies but we are making due. Poor E is sooo sick of her car seat/ high chair/ bouncer and A has all but given up on her “room”. It’s now just the place we store their clothes.

Oops. Nap time is over, I hear someone crying…

Fish Sticks and Chicken Nuggets

One cannot live on fish sticks and chicken nuggets alone… or can they?

A is currently putting this theory to test. When she just started eating food she ate everything I put in front of her, which was usually fruits and vegetables but now she has a true toddler diet. I feel bad because as a new mom I was guilty of judging moms of toddlers who only ate processed food. Now I am one of those moms. She prefers the salty breaded flavor of meat/fish over anything else. That’s not entirely true, if I offered cookies for dinner she eat that too.


Surprisingly this doesn’t keep me up at night, E does. I don’t have the energy to fight her right now. She doesn’t have any issues with her weight and is very healthy overall. This is simply a luxury of A’s toddler years and by the time she is in school (hopefully before then) she will eat what we eat for dinner.

Soul Searching

Don’t wish it was easier wish you were stronger…

This is the life I choose for myself. I can’t cry about hubby not being here and when he is complain that he’s not doing enough. I am tired all the time, but this is the life that I choose for myself. I have two beautiful daughters that love me and need me. I have a loving husband that provides for our family. I do not worry about bills. I am a very blessed woman in grand scope of things. It is easy to get bogged down in the “if only’s” and “why not’s” but I am trying to lift my head above the chaos of entertaining a toddler and nursing a newborn and appreciate my life for what it is. This is only a phase and it too shall pass.


Another mom of two who’s kids has the same spacing as A and E mentioned that she missed the phase I was in. Are you crazy!? Apparently it doesn’t get easier, just different.

Too Much?

For the first year of A’s life she had only enough hair to smooth with your hand. It wasn’t enough to make a pony tail until she was 16/17 months old. I was excited to “style” her hair with little braids, pony tails, two strand twists, and anything else I could think of. We reached a point in the early fall that I needed to budget 30mins in the morning to do her hair – what little hair there was. I’d been reading natural hair blogs and trying to do protective styles on A’s hair; the problem was that no style lasted more than a day and although I was careful I still saw more hair in the brush than what I was comfortable with.


So now that I’ve done a little bit more reading online ;) I’m taking more of a laid back approach to A’s hair. I’m going to treat her hair more like I treat my own in terms of styling and manipulation. No more tight pony tails and perfectly sectioned parts. Last week I used the tightly curly method to define A’s curls and have been finger parting and two strand twisting them at night to keep the curls from frizzing out. In the morning I refresh the curls with my leave-in water mixture and seal with my coconut shea soufflé. I have been decorating her hair with head bands and barrettes.

I am in love with A’s defined curly fro. I hope my enthusiasm is contagious.

Akon - Oh Africa

This is A's favorite video these days.  She literally has me play it 50 times in a row. 
I just thought I'd share :-)



I am glad that her first association with Africa is a positive one.

The New Normal

It’s true that you forget the pain of child birth after about a year. You also seem to forget the pain of recovery and the sleep deprivation. Was it this bad last time? I suppose the answer is yes and no. I did have to deal with a newborn and all the fun stuff that goes along with that but now I have the added pleasure of a toddler and all the fun stuff that goes along with that. No sleep at night and no sleep during the day. Yay! (sarcastic enthusiasm)

This is what all the moms of more than one were talking about, Mommy boot camp. I had a moment last month when hubby was out of town. A didn’t want to sleep and E didn’t want to sleep and it was 2 am. At one point they were both crying and I was totally overwhelmed and also started to cry. A stopped crying and began rubbing my leg saying “it’s okay Momma, it’s okay.” My cousin informed me that, at the point you are comforted by your toddler you have officially been inducted to the world of mommy hood. I guess I’ve arrived.

I wonder when I will go from surviving to living and enjoying life. I hit an all-time low yesterday. A friend brought dinner for me (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!). I knew she was coming all day and still made no effort to change out of my pajamas and what’s worse (in my opinion) my house was a mess and I still invited her in. I mean food on the floor, old dishes in the sink, toys everywhere mess. I have no shame. Hell I’m tired all the time. I don’t feel like cleaning up. My garbage can has been on the curb for 4 days now and I don’t care. I don’t feel like doing A’s hair and I don’t feel like brushing my teeth. I’m going to have a fun time explaining that last one to my dentist in a couple of weeks. I was able to sneak a shower yesterday and couldn’t believe my luck. This isn’t living.

I know it will get better, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me right now. Or maybe that is the attitude that is messing me up. Maybe it won’t get easier; maybe (hopefully) I will get better at managing our time.

My New Favorite Fruit

When I was a kid my mom and I would walk by the tropical/exotic fruit section of the supermarket and experiment with fruit that we had never seen before.  I loved the way star fruit looked.  Actually I really loved the name :o).  I remember getting a star fruit from the store but having no idea how to eat it.  I think we peeled off all the skin and cut it in slices. LOL.  By then there wasn't much fruit left to eat.

I met my friend the star fruit again on vacation with Hubby in Jamaica.  We were at a friend's house and they had a star apple (or fruit as we Americans call it) tree in their yard.  Hubby picked a couple of ripe ones and just started eating them like, well, like apples.  I also started eating some like apples and it was much easier to enjoy this way.  They taste tart but in a sweet way.  Kind of like lemonade with just a little sugar, but in a tropical way - if that makes any sense?

Here in the states I buy them ever so often (they are pretty expensive) but I have been lucky enough that my organic produce delivery service has started carrying them for a much better price than the local supermarket.  The only thing I do (after washing) is cut the edges of the star points off and enjoy.  A just loves them too!  I can't wait until we live in the Caribbean and can enjoy this treat on a regular basis.

New Year’s Resolution

Happy Belated New Year everyone, I hope last year was as productive and enjoyable as you hoped it would be and that next year will be even better. At New Year’s dinner this year when everyone was declaring their resolutions for 2011 I found myself at a complete loss. Be a good mother? Exercise more? Eat better? No, those all rang cliché to me and not a “new” goal. I know that this year is going to be a tumultuous one, having just given birth the week before to a beautiful baby girl, E, and with the prospect of an international move on the horizon and everything that goes along with that. It seemed unrealistic to expect to achieve anything more ambitious than survival.


That being said, after a couple of days of contemplation I decided that my resolution this year would be to keep up appearances. It may seem vain and superficial but looking good makes me feel more confident and I know that even though they shouldn’t the world judges people based on looks. I don’t want to be one of those women people feel sorry for because they’re always wearing pajamas. I don’t want to be martyr mom who takes care of everyone but themself. That’s okay, I don’t need that cross to bare.

I recently had a fashionista friend help me audit my wardrobe and while she decided that I should keep my collection of T-shirts, they were relegated to the category of workout clothes. Ha! They were the lynchpins of my daily mom uniform.