man, so much i need to write about and not enough time. anytime i want to sit down and write something, i either forget what it is that i wanted to write, or just dont feel in the mood anymore. this may just be the most random post yet, and quite possibly the longest, but here we go.

Yesterday on the Dr. Oz show, the topic was What causes autism. I found this epsisode to be incredibly intriguing. When you're pregnant, all you want is a "healthy" baby. What does that mean though? Do you know how many things happen AFTER the baby is born. Thus, a parents worry, anxiety and fears NEVER end. I found it scary how these poor parents had a perfectly healthy child one day, and the next day the child lost their words. No one yet knows the causes of autism, but there are 3 theories discussed on the show. The top one is one im sure every parent has gone over in their heads a million times - vaccinations. I personlly, do not feel that vaccines cause autism, but the parents in the audience with autistic children felt so strongly otherwise. No one can say for sure, but i do know whats for sure - i do want to protect my child against the infectious diseases that are very real and one thing i do know is that vaccines help prevent that. Second theory was environmental factors, such as pollution. Third theory was the age of the parents. Its true, the older you are, the chances of your child having autism increase!

As i was watching, I just took a glance over at Maddie and wondered what was in store for us in the future. My mind was brought to a blog that i follow. Sophia was born perfectly healthy. A precious little girl for a new young family. 2 weeks into her life, they started noticing lack of movement. She was soon diagnosed with SMA, a degenerative disease. Basically, her muscles deteriorate over time...she will never crawl or walk. she cant even lift her own arm. Usually, babies with SMA do not live past 2 years of age...but Sophia is about to celebrate her 2nd birthday. It's just so scary how things can happen at anytime. Even when you give birth to a perfectly "healthy" baby, you never know what can happen. I look at Maddie and thank God everyday for what I have in that moment in time.

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At the end of March, I have to travel for work. I am DREADING this. I cannot be away from my baby. Thank goodness its only for one day, but still, I wont see her.. FOR ONE WHOLE DAY. I already have anxiety about this.

Will she know im gone? i actually hope she doesnt.
Will J know what to do?

And since having a baby, morbid thoughts enter my head all the time. I always think, what will happen if im gone. I was always scared of planes, but now, im SO frightened to travel. What if something happens? Who will take care of my baby girl. I buckle up when im in the backseat of a car. I do take extra precautions bc im so scared, not of leaving this world, but of leaving Maddie in this world without me. I told myself if I die, I hope that Maddie is at least 25 years old....its sick isnt it? But these are my thoughts and fears...

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OMG I cant believe I forgot to write about this. 2 days ago, we had our LAST cardiologist appointment. Thats right, my last, because the hole in the heart Maddie was born with has closed. woo hoo! I really wasnt expecting to hear that, although I knew the hole had been very small the last time we were there 4 months ago. This was great news, not just bc of my babys health but bc she doesnt like that place very much lol. they have to take blood pressure and EKGs and the worst is the echocardiogram, which is basically like a sonogram and maddie cant sit sitll for things like that. Anyway, great news for my little girl.

I have to give it up to Schneiders Hospital as well (formerly known). I love being affiliated with this hospital. As anyone on the island knows, this is a great childrens hospital and I love having it close by. Their pediatric cardiology department was great!

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Breastfeeding - everything was going fine until her teeth came in. They are really growing now and so, her teeth scrape against me as she eats. OMG. Its becoming painful when she latches now. At least she doesnt bite. My cousin told me her son bit her so hard she bled. Ouch. But I'm still feeling sore everytime she eats and I'm not sure if this is something that will go away or not. I have thought about going to the bottle but I REALLY hate pumping. I mean, HATE it. all aspects of it. Another option is to go to formula, but i dont see why i should when im home with her all day. oh wells.

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Maddie's new thing is laughing. She was always a smiley baby that laughed but recently shes been laughing A LOT. Like, she'll see somethig on TV, laugh out loud. She will look at something in the room, laugh out loud. My back is turned to her and I hear her laughing to herself. Its hilarious. The funniest is out of nowhere, if you start laughing, she just automatically laughs too. Her laugh has changed too. It sounds like a "ha ha ha" now.

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so remember how i had been mentioning how maddie had an allergic reaction to something she ate? well i monitored her food for a bit but the rash was still there. so, i started thinking what else it could be and for some reason eczema came into mind. so i started googling and i really think this is it. A lot of things started to make sense after i realized it was eczema. a cousin of mine had eczema growing up and i took a pic and sent it to her and she said it did look like it. so now that i have some inkling of what it is, we can treat it better. I purchased a cream similar to cetaphil, called CeraVe. I also went out and bought 100% cotton PJS for her. We bathe her in cooler water now. With these 3 things combined, the cream especially, I already see a difference in the rash. Here we are, 2 days apart:





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I discovered a great new app on my phone. Its called grocery iq. omg i love this app. It makes a list of things to buy by store. you can check off what you'ev bought already and it sorts it by aisle! Another tab leads you to coupons and you can check off the coupons you want and email them to yourself. Then you just print. The list then reminds you to use your coupons. Me loves!

Angry Birds was also giving away a free download for their holiday version so ive been playing that. but playing on my phone sux compared to playing on the ipad.

oh im also addicted to restaurant story too hehe.

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Lastly, my boss is a serious DOUCHEBAG!!! i cant believe how douchy he is. words could not even describe. I seriously am beginning to LOATHE him. his latest antic: my coworker sends out and email to overseas and tells them we are off on Monday for presidents day. His response?:


Dear All,
I will be working, so please don’t hold off on sending any emails with important issues.

Thanks,
Frank

What a DICK. and a LOSER. He has 3 kids and 1 grandkid (and is only 43). He has NO life. He thinks hes so cool. We call him mighty mouse cuz his attitude is always like "HEre I come to save the dayyyyyy!". my coworker asked me if she should tell him that an email like that makes me and her look bad and i told her not to bother. i honestly dont care if that looks bad or not. I have the day off and i am going to sit on my ass with my feet up while you sit at your computer. Theres nothting that is SO important it cant wait one day. but he wants to make sure everyone knows how much he does, and how hard he works and what a hero he is. And yet he complains all the time about how much he does etc. And why does he think that is? Bc he writes stupid shit like the above email. What a clown. He thinks he gains respect this way...but actually he loses it. I could care less about him. I could care less about this job.

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the weather today is in the 60s! and i am planning to take maddie to the park once J gets home. when we moved here, one of my favorite things about the neighborhood was how close the park was. a great perk!

further to my below post, this is pretty much my view for a few hours of each day (minus J). me cooking, baking, or cleaning, while maddie sits in her PNP watching. i love the freedom i have to do my own thing while still watching her.

im making tuna salad here...


in other food news, heres another easy dinner meal. teriyaki chicken. i love the recipes that require one ziploc bag. throw soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic and ginger into a plastic bag and throw the chicken in to marinate. seriously, thats it. you can bake the chicken, but i threw it onto my grill pan. dinners ready in just a few minutes.

i keep forgetting to video maddie rolling....but i caught one the other day. i still crack up when i see it:


She is at a really fun age right now. As she grows more independent, I find I enjoy everything so much more. I've mentioned a few times how I'm not a fan of the baby stage....and I'm realizing more and more how true that is. I think im a better parent now than i was a few months ago. I know most people want them to stay babies and I always hear "when they start to become more mobile, you'll wish they werent". Maybe ill feel that way someday, but for now, I actually look forward to the day when Maddie will crawl and walk. When she wasnt sitting up yet, I told everyone I cant wait till shes sitting on her own. They would tell me "yeah when it happens you'll wish she wasnt"...but i havent found that to be true yet. I love that she can sit up on her own. It makes my life SO much easier. I think I enjoy her more when I can see shes actually a little person. I can, however, see myself regretting saying this when shes 16!

i LOVE the weekends! it feels SOOO freeing. I love not having to tote my ipad around the house. I love not having to be attached to the laptop. I love being able to just lie there and do nothing with Maddie. I WANT THIS ALL THE TIME!!!

Even though J has been busy at the store and not been home till Maddie is asleep, I still love all my time with her. Its been hard at some points, not having someone to pass her off to, but since she can sit up on her own, its been much much easier. I can sit her in the pack n play and cook, or clean. Which is what i did saturday. I vacuumed and steam mopped the kitchen while maddie sat and watched. And then i rolled the pnp to the formal living room and she watched me do the same to my entryway. I made kimchi jigae and everything!

Sunday my family came over. Maddie was SO good. even let everyone hold her! i know i complain a lot but deep down i know my baby is awesome!

Maddie has been into books lately which i am LOVING. Her first favorite book was a book my book club had gotten me, called Farm Animals.

She loves the touch n feel books and knows exactly where to touch.


She loved this book so much, I tried to find other touch and feel books online and I bought some but she doesnt like them as much as Farm Animals.

But surprisingly, that book actually recently got trumped by a famous Eric Carle book, Polar Bear Polar Bear what do you hear?


She looooves this book. She smiles and laughs as i read it. Its so cute bc she will try to peek in between pages to see whats coming next. She loves the pictures. and I love reading to her.

Her naps have been getting so much better. I figured something out. If she wakes up early from a nap, I dont go to get her for 15 minutes. I let her whine, cry or whatever she wants to do for 15 minutes. after 15 minutes, i go to get her if shes still awake. But I found that most of the time, she will go back down for a nap! amazing! this has changed my days and her schedule tremendously. She had even taken a few 2 hour naps. GLORIOUS! this caused me to move her first solid meal from afternoon to the morning time. I Think this schedule is much better so i hope she can keep it up. Shes still at 2 naps a day most days...

Have i mentioned she can use a straw now? I am so over the sippy cup. the straw sippy is the bomb. she can use it herself and i just love it.

New foods she has tried - chicken soup, beef stew, "jook" (rice porridge), peaches. I have some blueberries i havent given her yet. I stopped giving yogurt bc I think she had a slight reaction to it. it was either that or mango. still not sure yet.

Maddie learned the word "picture". When I say wheres the picture, she can look at her sonogram pics hanging in her room.

still have 10 lbs to lose. oh, last week i sort of spotted and i got scared my period was coming back. but still nothing yet. wonder how long i can go without it. hehe.

oh, so she is also teething again. i can tell because grandma maddie is back! she is also doing everything she used to do when her first teeth came in...including waking up at nights! wahhhh! i dont even know which teeth are coming in, so its even hard for me to help her. Hope they come in quick. ITs so sad to see them suffering.

I'm loving all the time i have to write this blog. I even got to take some naps this weekend when maddie napped. it was such a great weekend...even though J was gone (or was it BECAUSE J was gone? haha). I am dreading going back to work tomorrow. =(

Happy Vday All!

more quick easy meals...

this shrimp jambalaya i got from anne burrell, so i was surprised how easy it as to do. there was very little prep and its a one pot meal.


last week, J's family came over to celebrate new years/FIL's bday. MIL brought her kim chi....i must admit, she is a banging cook and her homemade kim chi is the best. we used up what was left to make kim chi fried rice last night. so easy! and so yum.

i had a freaky dream about my mom the other day. she was hovering over me while I was in bed. when i dream about her, she is in her late 30's-early 40's. i know because of the hairstyle. I dont really remember what we were doing, I just know I felt like I was awake, but I knew she had passed, and she was "visiting" me. I remember turning to J, who was sleeping and he said "whats wrong?" and i said "my moms here". He grabbed my hand and I woke up.

The dream felt so real. I even asked J that night "was i talking to you last night in my sleep?"... i really thought maybe it was for real. but he said no, so i guess it was a dream. that, however, doesnt stop me from believing she was there, stopping by to say hello.

- started giving cheerios this week. maddie seems to be able to handle it fine, but i still limit how much i give her, bc i dont feel they dissolve very fast.

Well last night i decided to cook. I defrosted my roast beef I had in my freezer and made some mashed potatoes to go along with it. Found out that D and H were coming over, so I addded on a 3 cheese pasta:

crispy fried shallots. so good. i put these on top of the mash


my roast. i cuts slits in the meat and put in garlic slices. On the bottom of the pan is water, broth and marsala wine. also some extra garlic which added a lot to the soon-to-be gravy. no marination needed. very easy recipe and this fed us 4 plus it had leftovers.


done. about an hour in the oven.


this is whats at the bottom of the pan when the beef is done. just put back on your stovetop, add some flour and/or butter, maybe a little more broth if needed, and voila. instant gravy.


3 cheese pasta. SO easy. just boil pasta, then when its done, add the next ingredients. butter, fontina cheese, parmesan cheese, and gruyere. its the cheeses i had on hand, but you can add any cheese. (Sorry no pics of actual pasta).


speaking of food...

My diet has been awful lately...being that i breastfeed i should be taking in much more protein than i do.

When i was preggers meat of any kind really did not intrigue me. Now that i gave birth, that surprisingly hasnt changed. i still kind of get turned off by both chicken and beef. Weird right? I force myself to eat some beef bc I know I am anemic as it is. I do love and crave seafod but i have to limit this to three to four servings a week to avoid potential overconsumption of mercury and other trace elements.

Vitamin c....forget it. I get none. I bought some calcium fortified OJ the other day.

i could list all the other nutrients i dont get, but then that would be way too long of a post. so ill just say i need to keep better track of what im eating!

in other food news, i am loving Michelle O bama's campaign against childhood obesity. since even becoming pregnant, i always knew i wanted to play some hand in my future children's school meals. i feel that this is SO important. I remember eating nasty pizza, chicken nuggets, burgers at my elementary school. horrible. i would never feed that stuff to my kid now and i really hope these LI schools have some kind of nutrition program in place.

and totally off topic, i just found out that one of the more popular cooperative preschools in my neighborhood is literally around the corner from me! (cooperative means the parents play active roles in participation in the school and community..and you either dont pay anything, or a much lower tuition. ummm, since when did some preschools cost the same amount as a car? huh? huh?). Anyway, jae took a new route home the other day and just as we were turning the corner to my house, i noticed the school... I could walk there in 3 minutes. so excited!