Parenting Practices - Part 2

And so continues Part 2 of Parenting Practices that "former self" PK (pre-kids) would have raised her eyebrows in wonderment at...

TV Watching and Other Electronics: Rated No Big Deal PK

So this practice has developed in phases...

Phase 1 - Pre-pregnancy - I only know that I thought watching tv, playing video games, etc was no big deal for kids because (1) I love tv and I was a kid once and I turned out fine, (2) I remember having no qualms about letting kids that I babysat watch tv and the big one ---> (3) I never had any reason to research the pros and cons of sitting in front of the tube for hours upon hours.

Now, Phase 2 - Pregnant with child #1 - All of a sudden I was ANTI-TV 1000%. I was reading all sorts of things about the horrible effects of television on children under 2 so of course, child #1 was not going to be watching any tv. (I will say that I didn't really start doing anything about this until I felt he was more aware of his surroundings - maybe around 4-5 months.) With child #1, he did not get to watch tv ever until around the time he turned 1. (Funny story though, he somehow started **miraculously** knowing who Elmo was...so I have always wondered who it was that let him watch Sesame Street...lol)

Phase 3 - See Phase 1, #1 above, specifically the first part. I remember thinking, "Well, he has to know who the Bernstein Bears are! I love the Bernstein Bears! Oh and Little Einsteins is educational! I want him to love music!" And so on and so forth... But I would still limit it to about 1 show every day or so. I also was not keen on other people letting him watch tv since I wouldn't have any say on the type of show it was. I was very intentional about what shows I would let child #1 watch. I wanted (and still do) the shows to be positive with good lessons built into the story line. Also if they were educational that was a big plus.

Phase 4 - Pregnant with child #2, husband is working A LOT and/or I need a shower... - TV has become somewhat of a babysitter, as much as I hate to admit it (seriously, I'm squirming in my chair...). When I need child #1 to be occupied consistently with almost no chance of him moving from his spot on the bed/couch, I put his favorite show on. I am still very intentional about what shows he watches and I try to make sure the messages are all positive but he admittedly watches way more tv then I ever thought he would at this age purely out of convenience. It's still limited to 1-2 shows/day or 1 movie on "special" occasions (special meaning any situation I need a little longer time to complete whatever it is I'm doing...). It's not that I feel like this is somehow making me a bad mother or he's going to have problems but I just want to set a standard of "high activity" in the house and not a standard of "laziness" where we are always sitting in front of the tv. Basically I want to create good habits.

Current Phase - Similar to Phase 4 but now child #2 probably gets more tv viewing in then her older brother did at her age. She's never really just sitting in front of the tv left to watch it and she certainly never watches tv alone (it's always because older brother is watching something). But I feel like overall we have come to a good place - not too extreme in either direction of the tv watching spectrum. We don't just leave the tv on with whatever show is on to let little eyes take in whatever the world has to offer. But we also don't prohibit any and all television which helps this mom get things done, like making dinner. And if I feel like child #1 is becoming too dependent on watching tv then I just leave it off for a few days and "reset his clock" so he's not asking to watch tv out of habit.

The electronics aspect was added to this post later only because I didn't feel it needed a seperate section. It closely relates to the tv watching in that it started out at 1, on a scale where 1 is not allowed at all, and has slowly moved up the scale to where it's at now which is about a 3-4. We let child #1 play on the iPad or my phone which has puzzle and coloring games on it. Again I try to limit this to an hour throughout the day, at most. If I feel like it is becoming a habit to just go to the iPad and play on there instead of choosing other toys or activities to play with, then I scale way back again to get out of the habit. I do notice that if child #1 has had to much tv/electronics time that his mood starts to suffer and he doesn't listen or behave as well. So that's my motivation to turn it off and get us all doing something active and engaging!

Diapering, Babywearing and Solid Foods - Rated as Not Even Thought About because...why???

I decided to cloth diaper when I was about 5-6 months pregnant with child #1. I also discovered babywearing, as in the use of wraps or other sorts of slings to "wear" a baby, when I was at the end of that pregnancy or right at the beginning of the newborn days. And solid foods was something I researched as I got further in my "Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" book and it become more pertinent to life as we knew it. All of these things were decisions that were made almost instinctively - it just felt right. Cloth diapering made financial sense too. Being an accountant, it was kind of hard to ignore that. Babywearing was convenient and a way that I could keep my baby close when out and about and wanted to keep wandering, germy hands away. This was especially nice with child #2 who I had "out and about" much quicker than child #1. With child #1 I just did not like putting him down. Unless he was sound asleep after driving somewhere and looking quite comfy in his carseat, I liked holding him and since he became a fairly large baby quite quickly, this saved my arms when I was holding him at functions/parties. I did try to wear him once when I was walking every day but in that case, I found the stroller to be much more useful. I didn't like huffing and puffing next to the other moms who were otherwise enjoying their walk as they pushed their smooth gliding strollers. With child #2, she lived in the wrap for her earlier months and it was a heaven-sent blessing because I was running around after a 20 month old who needed constant attention and we often went outside to let loose the pent-up energy. As child #2 has gotten older, I've had less of a need for the wrap and will often put her in the stroller and let child #1 walk. Child #1 almost never goes in the stroller anymore but if we're in a situation that requires it, then I just put child #2 in a wrap. I never bought a double stroller.

Solid foods is something that is a little interesting. I assumed baby food bought in a jar was the way to go PK. Wouldn't have had any other reason to believe otherwise. Then I heard about making your own baby food so that became something I was a little interested in. Then I heard about BLW (baby led weaning) and, after attempting to feed child #1 purees, realized this was the way to go. Child #1 did not like purees and I found it to be a bit of an inconvenience. I mean, why go to all the hassle of either (1) making the food or (2) opening a jar only to have the kid spit it all out and not ingest any of it?? Didn't seem worth it to me. PLUS I was reading in "Womanly Art" that solids aren't even necessary for the first year of life so, whoop! there went my motivation right out the window!

Continuously over the first year of life, I had people that appeared to be quite concerned that I wasn't feeding my child. But I learned to just kind of brush off the comments because I knew that it was ok. He LOVED to nurse and was getting all the proper nourishment from breastmilk so I had no reason to worry. When he started trying to pick things up with his little fingers, I started giving him minuscule pieces of food. Now, I will say that I was always very nervous about this because having never done this before nor ever seeing this BLW thing done in person, I had no clue what I was doing. So I just scoured the internet forums that supported this type of thing and hoped and prayed that my child would never need the Heimlich. There were a few instances where I thought my child was surely dying (child #1 was a gagger) and I would curse the day that I ever heard of BLW but once we made it through those earlier days, I loved it. Sure it made quite the mess as he tried to feed himself but I feel like he's such a great eater because of it. And now with child #2, I worry almost never. I'm much more confident and adventurous in what foods and food portions I give her to try. (For the record, I thought she was going to be my puree-eater so I bought a HUGE GIANT box of organic baby food, yes... in jars... but she turned out to hate having anyone put anything in her mouth. She's very much an "I will do this myself thankyouverymuch" type of girl...so the box of jarred food is still in my pantry. But she is also an AMAZING eater, much better than older brother ever was at her age.) IF there is ever a child #3, I will not be buying any baby food, even if the child does love it, because I'm a firm believer in BLW now.

Crying and Sleeping Through the Night (as it relates to an infant less than a year old) - Rated Normal and Necessary PK

This is such a controversial topic among mothers these days but because of that I am addressing it here because I want my children to know how it was for me. And I want to remember how we parented since the years have a funny way of erasing details.

As soon as child #1 was born, there was no way I would have let him cry unnecessarily. If there was something I could do to keep him from crying I would do it. This practice is one of those that was developed purely from instinctual feelings. I feel like a crying infant always has a reason to cry. They're hungry, their clothes are uncomfortable, their tummy hurts, they need to feel secure in the arms of momma, etc etc etc. Crying is an infant's only method of communication and while we as adults may think that they are crying too much, think about how much we talk in any given day! An infant has to communicate somehow and crying is it. Because it felt right in my heart, I did whatever I could to keep the crying to a bare minimum. If I couldn't stop the crying then I would research the dickens out of it trying to figure out what else I could do to help my baby. That included cosleeping (see above, child #1 did not like to be alone!), holding for naps, letting babies nurse whenever they wanted to, and giving up on the notion that they would sleep through the night when I was ready for them to. I feel like it is my responsibility to make an infant's life as stress-free as possible. Children are people and deserve respect. And, yes, they are still children with undeveloped brains (albeit developing at exponential rates!) and they don't understand this world yet. So often when I get frustrated, I try to put myself in their shoes. How would this look to them since they don't know that I still exist even though I left the room? And that has helped me in my attempt for sensitivity and patience as I address their needs.

Now, given the above sentiment, I will say that I may have been extra ultra sensitive as a first time mom to child #1's every whimper and while I don't think it hurt him in anyway, I find that I am less likely to jump at the first sound of child #2 and tend to listen first to what type of cry it is. Child #2 also has a very different temperament and is verrrrry easygoing so I know that if she whimpers a little, she's probably not going to erupt into full scale emergency cry if she's not tended to immediately. And I have found that child #2 will even soothe herself oftentimes if given a few seconds. I still don't let her cry for more than a few minutes and I can usually discern when it is a "need something" cry as opposed to a "just trying to get comfortable" cry. And speaking of "types" of cries, interestingly enough, child #2 also has an "I just got my feelings hurt" cry which is a very high-pitched, shrill cry that makes you want to cover your ears. It has actually temporarily deafened me at times and I am not kidding. Child #1 never had a cry like that although he does have a "pouty lip, giant crocodile eyes" facial expression that does the trick so, once again, to each his own...whatever works! And they have definitely figured out what works!

So that's that...for now. I may have forgotten something and in that case, I'll be back for an epilogue!

Parenting Practices - Part 1

One of the things that no one really tells you before you have kids is how you will question everything you thought you ever knew. It's probably because those people know that whatever they say won't really matter until you have kids of your own. BUT before I had kids, I thought I would do things just. like. this.. 

and I would never do that, *covering your mouth so said parent of child performing heinous deeds can't read your lips*

oh yeah, and what your kid is doing??

Abominable...

until my kid does it every day...and then? Perfectly acceptable.

I am being a bit facetious but seriously, I don't think I'm alone. Even after one becomes a parent it's still pretty common to look at another mother and wonder "what the heck is she thinking??" but then, at least now, I know to quickly remind myself that she is doing what she feels is best and it probably is the best for her child.

That's another reason no one tells you about the great "brain transformation" that occurs after you have your own child -- every kid is different and requires special treatment uniquely suited to their needs, temperament, etc...

So yeah, surprise doesn't adequately describe what "former self" would feel if she were to fast forward to see what "current self" is doing on a daily basis. It makes me wonder what my children will be thinking before they have kids. Will they remember how they were raised? Will they have developed an "oh no she didn't!" mind-set about other parents only to find themselves doing the same thing a few years later? I want to be able to remind them how they were raised and how I, as their mother, used what may seem to be unpopular parenting practices in order to parent them in the best way I knew how.

Also before I get started on my list (which I decided to post as a two part series because the post became rather long), I have to also add that even in the 2.5 short years of parenting, I have already changed my mind about certain mothering "policies". Is that bad? Maybe to former self from 1.5 years ago, but to current self, no. It's about being flexible and adequately changing to the needs of your family.

The Players in this comedy called Parenting:

 The Parents

 

Child #1 aka Jayden Noah - 2.5 years old

 



Child #2 aka Ava Grace - 10 months old

(Photo taken at 9 months old)

 

So without further ado, my current parenting practices - PART 1:
(I will be rating each practice according to what former self felt about such practices PK [pre-kids])

Breastfeeding: Unrated as I hadn't really thought too much about it until I was pregnant with my first child. If anything I would say I would have rated it as "the normal thing to do".

I really can't remember thinking too much about breastfeeding PK other than to think, oh my gosh that woman is feeding her kid right there in the middle of all those people!!!!!!!!!! How uncomfortable...poor thing...

LOL!!

I mean to former self, it was less about feeding a kid and more about the "nudity" aspect. Like, "you better cover that up!" I do remember seeing someone nurse their walking toddler in the middle of the forest once when my family and I were out rock climbing and I just tried not to stare.

As far as nursing older babies/children, I would have definitely rated that a GINORMOUS NO.

Now...I would say to each their own.

For myself, although open to the idea of nursing as long as child #1 wanted to (that is, once I reached the 6-9 month mark, since before that it was a mental, and sometimes physical, challenge to even get to the 6 month mark), I became pregnant with child #2 when child #1 was 11 months old and could only stand it another 4 months before saying "Enough!" I couldn't handle the sensation anymore given the current state of my extremely sensitive everything...i.e. boobs, hormones, personal space...15 months was the end of my son's breastfeeding adventures. Child #2 is now 10 months and I want to at least make it to the 15 month mark so I don't feel that I've given her any less than her older brother and then we'll see how it goes after that. I do think about the fact that there are MANY people out there promoting breastfeeding to at least the age of 2 (current World Health Organization suggestion) but I look at my 2.5 year old and cannot imagine how I could possibly still be breastfeeding him. I mean, ew. I don't know if it would be different if I had never stopped but I can't even really wrap my head around that because all I can think about is "ew". That's just weird to me. (Note that it only became "ew" once I actually had a 2 year old myself who had not been breastfeeding for several months. AND that only applies to ME breastfeeding MY 2 year old. I don't think "ew" when I see other people breastfeeding THEIR 2 year old...or 3 year old. Seriously. I really feel like "to each their own".)

Co-sleeping: Rated a big NO-NO in my pre-children days

This next practice lends itself naturally to breastfeeding so makes a perfect second practice to discuss. Co-sleeping in our family started out as an "accident" but has become something that I am pretty passionate about. Initially it was a way to get. some. sleep. Something that I took for granted just days before my son was born, when my one and only all-nighter in college resulted in me sleeping the entire following day to catch up. Yeah, that doesn't happen once you have kids. So you find other ways to cope. For me, that was co-sleeping. Child #1 was not a good sleeper in terms of being able to (1) go to sleep on his own and (2) stay asleep on his own. So I found nursing him to sleep was easiest and he was often held while he slept. I loved that and everything I was reading was saying that was great. (Granted I was not reading books like "Babywise" or Dr. Ferber's book - the great "cry-it-out" advocate -- or any other books out there that said that you must teach a child to sleep on his own. One of the first books I read was "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" produced by La Leche League and I can probably thank them for all these "crunchy" tendencies that have since developed.) So when it came to nighttime sleeping, I couldn't very well hold him because I become rather limp when I sleep so the next natural step was to lay him next to me. He got to eat whenever he wanted to, I didn't have to get myself out of my oh-so-comfy bed to get him when he cried (which would have been all. night. long. since he didn't like being by himself) and I hardly had to wake up to attend to his nourishment needs.

So those were the early days, but since then...I have discovered other great benefits of co-sleeping...

(1) Breastfed babies thrive in the presence of their mother and the risk of SIDS goes waaaay down. The baby's breathing becomes regulated and they often wake more frequently which helps to avoid "failure to rouse" which is theorized to be linked to SIDS. (Failure to rouse is terminology used to describe a very deep sleep when it is difficult to wake the baby - almost like a coma.)
(2) When they make little noises and you're not sure if all is well, you can just peek an eye open and see yep, they're still breathing and go back to sleep.
(3)  When they puke in the middle of the night, you are right there to turn them over and make sure they don't choke. (Yes, this has happened and I was SO glad that we were right there to attend to his needs.)
(4) There is more time to bond with the baby especially when you work full-time, like I do! This one has always eased some of the mother guilt that I have from working full-time. (A mother is always measuring the minutes she spends with her children, as if there is some chart out there that says a certain amount of minutes spent with children equates to being a good vs bad mother...)

And those are just a few of the benefits, there is much more scientific evidence that I've discovered as well but those ones up there ^^^^ are the most important to me.

Part 2 of Parenting Practices will continue mañana...that's tomorrow...

"Twinkle, twinkle...T, U, V..."

I love this video so much. Jayden is so funny as he tries to sing "Twinkle Twinkle" and gets the words confused with the "ABC song". He was doing so many cute things that night and I didn't get it all on video but I'm glad I got this much!

Eyebrow Entertainment

Funny Faces

This isn't the clearest picture but it just cracks me up so much I have to share it. Jayden loves to put stickers on his (and our) faces.

California 2011

DJ and I decided to take a trip to California to visit our best friends Chad and Joy in Vacaville (about 30 minutes south of Sacramento) for our summer vacation. We hadn't all spent time together as a group since our wedding and before that in 2006 when DJ and I went to California for Spring Break so it was a long overdue rendezvous. AND we had never spent time together as the families that we are now - Chad and Joy have 3 kids so along with our little family of 3 we had a much larger group then in years past!

We had such a great time - lots of laughing, which is what I will remember the most, great conversations, lots of golfing for DJ (Chad had to watch since he was due to have back surgery the following week), some fabulous girl time (even once without kids!) and delish food, oh, and some much needed down time.

We also were able to visit a couple of wineries, which was a first for DJ and I and we walked around Old Sacramento before our flight on the last day. It was fun to see some things that we hadn't seen before especially since I've made several trips to that area already both for fun and business.

The bad news is that after the first day there our camera battery died and then I lost my phone after the second day there so we were without any camera for most of our visit. (I did end up finding my phone before we left, thank God! Actually I didn't find it, a person on a tour of one of the wineries found it and turned it in. The world really is full of more good than evil.)

Here are some of the pictures that we did get...

I forgot to mention that we spent a couple of nights in Denver prior to leaving for California both for ease of traveling and for family pictures that we scheduled with a photographer in Denver. DJ was able to take Jayden swimming for the first time in the hotel's pool. Both DJ and Jayden had a GREAT time with that experience!

Since Chad wasn't able to golf, it was like DJ was being followed around by his own personal photographer on the first day he got to golf. Here are some of the best photos...

That was a gorgeous course set among the vineyards in Napa.

It kills me that we didn't get one photo with all 8 of us together. We went to a vineyard called V. Sattui and it would have been the perfect photo op but as it goes, when one has kids, those sorts of things just kind of get pushed to the side.

After V. Sattui, we went to another vineyard for the specific purpose of taking a tour. Someone DJ works with used to live near the Napa area and recommended this particular vineyard (Groth Vineyards). What they failed to mention before we went is that most people that work there really like the product they promote. And I mean they really like it, enough to consume it in great quantities while on the job. Needless to say our tour was quite interesting while our drunker-than-a-skunk tour guide meandered through the process of educating us on the finer art (or should I say science?) of making wine. We were quite thankful we had Jayden to turn our attention to during the, ahem, more detailed portions of the tour.

 I took pictures in an attempt to passively alert our guide that we were there for the short version of the tour. All was lost on our guide however.

 DJ doing a great job of acting like he's always wanted to know about the different species of grapes and hundreds of types of soil present in that particular valley.

 Joy is pretending to laugh at Jayden when really we are doing all we can to hold in our laughter at our guide.

 Our inebriated tour guide

 Best friends for life!

Before my camera died after our first day and I lost my phone on the above tour, I was able get a few pictures of the kids altogether. I'm so very glad the Files' kids got to meet Jayden. They all loved each other!

 Caden and DJ spent some quality Tiger time together on the Wii.

 As mentioned in a previous post, this guy officially became a crawler in California!

Miss Adalyn Paige, aka the next Pepsi girl (I'm convinced of this by the way. Just put a curly dark wig on her and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference!)

Carter gave Jayden lots of love that week - it was sooo cute!

Thanks to Joy and Chad for being the best hosts friends could ask for! We had the best time!

A Lovely Evening of Wining and Dining

I have had such a great time getting to know the wives of the coaching staff since DJ and I moved to Wyoming. I've been told again and again that this group is very unique in that everyone gets along really well and spends more time together than coaching staff at other universities. My experience is pretty limited since this is the first "real" job DJ has had since he graduated so we're now included with the "adults" rather than the students. (Kind of like graduating to the adult table from the kids table...) All I have to say is these women have set the bar high!

Each month we all get together at someone's house for a Wives' Night. Two women usually take the responsibility of hosting. This month it was my turn along with Addie, the head trainer's wife, and we hosted at my house. Initially I wasn't so sure about having the whole shebang at my home since we invite about 17 women and there's always about an equal number of kids. But I love entertaining and haven't had the opportunity yet plus Addie had twins a few months ago and has a 2 year old so it really made sense to have it at my house. I'm so glad I did!

I wish I would have taken pictures of everything before everyone arrived. It was such a fun set-up. We kind of had a Mexican theme going on. The menu consisted of red beef enchiladas, green chile chicken enchiladas, spanish rice (more on THE RICE later, grrr), salad and margaritas. I used my china dishes, margarita glasses and some other bright fun dishes that I had. My mother in law was nice enough to mail me her margarita glasses so I actually had enough for everyone that wanted margaritas! And she threw in some pretty napkins that I used for decoration. I loved the added color.

We also threw a little diaper party for Becky who is due with her second child in July. Since this would be one of the last wives' nights before next fall, we wanted to make sure that we were all able to celebrate with her.

So now on to my rice story... It's not as involved as my post from yesterday, but I must say that I'm yet again perplexed. I don't have pictures this time since this involves more of a taste problem than an overall disaster so you'll just have to use your imagination.

I had two things to make - red enchiladas and spanish rice.

The red enchiladas were great...delicious...thank you God! I was really worried after the day before. But I never worried about my rice. I make rice at least once or twice a week so I'm no stranger to the art of rice making. Plus I reviewed the ingredients with Lorraine a few minutes before I started so I was set.

I browned my rice, tossed in an egg, added the tomato sauce.

Threw in the Rotel tomatoes, a little chicken bouillon, some extra water and set the heat on low.

I covered the pot and set the timer.

People started to arrive a little while later. Periodically I stirred the rice to make sure it didn't stick. 

About 15 minutes after people arrived, the enchiladas finished cooking and so I checked the rice.

CUH-RUNCHY. I added more water and mentally crossed my fingers.

But luck was not with me that night. 15 minutes later the rice was still crunchy. It was like it had donned its suit of armor that night and was fending off the advances of H2O to the death.

So after that last 15 minutes, people were starting to look like starving wolves and we knew we couldn't wait any longer (I forgot to add that we also had chips and queso so we weren't completely starving our guests...). We decided to make the announcement that there would be no rice but there were plenty of enchiladas and salad.

And I ended up throwing away an entire pan of rice.

Well, almost an entire pan... I found out that some people either hadn't heard our announcement that the rice was not done or were just that hungry and ate the rice anyway. Crunchiness and all. Um, yum? They said it had "really good flavor". See I told you they are the sweetest people ever!

So I add that to my list of "reasons that I'm a horrible cook" but really, I know it's not true. My enchiladas were DEELISH. And,

I can make a mean margarita.

So the stats for the night were as follows:

11 women

8 kids (3 of which were running back and forth across the room and then through the kitchen half the night)

1 pan of green enchiladas demolished

3/4 pan of red enchiladas devoured

31 mini cupcakes inhaled

7 margaritas (plus some refills) eliminated from existence

AND everyone told me they had a great time and were so sweet about complimenting my home.

It was a fantastic time. Here are some more pics. (Sorry about the quality but I refuse to use flash and distract everyone from what they are doing so I just did the best I could with no flash.)

Becky lives a block down and Mandy lives next door so since Becky's husband had come to pick up Becky's son earlier, they used the stroller to haul all of Becky's diapers home. Such smart ladies. (By the way, Mandy is set to have her baby this weekend or at least that's my "feeling". Her due date is Sunday!)



The Week in which I became a Horrible Cook

The title of this post is only a little bit dramatic and only slightly exaggerating but I laugh about it all so it's ok. I hope you'll laugh with me.

Let me explain.

I have been getting ready for a party for the past week because that's just how I am. I love to plan; that's half the fun for me when I host a gathering. So I've been busy, busy, busy. And of course because my mother's blood runs though me thick, I also took on additional projects this week because JUST getting ready for a party wasn't enough. I created a gallery wall (something I've been wanting to do for a long time), I painted a frame because the color has been bugging me every time I look at it, I took down winter decorations since I wanted my house to be "springy" and the list goes on.

Well along with all this springtime atmosphere, I started craving carrot cake with yum, cream cheese frosting. Oh man, doesn't that just sound so good? I found a recipe on PW's site for carrot cake and decided to try it out since she tends to have very delicious looking food and often delicious tasting food as well (I've already tried several of her recipes). It was a tried and true recipe that PW had found in her mother's old cookbook.

And that's when I started re-evaluating my baking skills and my life in general. It seemed all of a sudden that everything I touched, rather than turning to gold (as in the mythical Midas touch), turned to goobers.

Again, let me explain.

Oh, wait you are. Well let me get to the point...

I decided to double the carrot cake recipe because (first mistake) I read the recipe as saying that it made 12 servings.

Because I was planning on making cupcakes, I thought that meant 12 cupcakes (duh, it meant it made one cake that would serve 12!) and I wanted to have more than 12 cupcakes.

Well, in doubling the recipe, here's what the first batch looked like when the timer went off...

I had filled 4, count 'em, FOUR muffin tins with cake batter and I do believe, my cup doth runneth over.

Here's another shot. They're hard to see, I know, but in a minute I'll explain why I was taking the pictures through the door.

Now, you can see in the background (kind of), the back tins have started IMPLODING.

(I guess I should be grateful they didn't EXplode since that would have surely made more of a mess.)

But one more picture before I get to the real doozy.

I really could hardly believe my eyes when I looked in on the results of my efforts only to find a gooey monster taking over my ENTIRE oven. At that point, I decided I would open the oven door to, well I don't even remember why I opened the door. Maybe to take a closer look at the horror but as soon as I opened the door I slammed it shut because smoke billowed out.

I raced to the doors and opened them wide, as DJ and I are unsure what would ever happen if the smoke detectors went off. We're not sure how the fire sprinklers are wired (yes, we have fire sprinklers in our house) so we're deathly afraid that if the fire alarms ever go off, so will the fire sprinklers and then all will be ruined.

So as soon as I open the doors

(I should add here that there was a high wind warning in effect and the gusts were in full force at that moment but read: deathly afraid of fire sprinklers above),

I raced back to the oven to keep looking.

You know how you pass an accident on the road and you can't help but look? That's what was happening in my kitchen. I couldn't NOT look!

This whole time Jayden is in his bouncer watching me rush around, gasp in horror repeatedly as I peer into the oven watching the cake drip off the sides and then listen as things start falling off shelves because the wind is whipping through our house.

He then began wailing.

I had scared him.

Or maybe the wind scared him.

I don't know but I rushed over to him, picked him up and brought him back to the scene of the accident so we could continue staring, yes that's right, in horror.

And now for the grand finale of all pictures...

Oh yes, it's hilarious. (I've already cleaned off one of the tins so that's why there's only 3 in the picture.) I laughed and laughed.

And then a friend stopped by and I ushered her into the kitchen so she could laugh too.

And then we discussed how on earth this could possibly have happened.

I'm still flabbergasted because I honestly didn't know such things could happen. I've been baking for 20 years and this has never happened. Ever. Granted I've never lived this high in the sky but still, I had never even heard of his happening. Things like this usually get around.

But anyway, my friend and I discussed it and we decided that doubling the recipe was the culprit. We knew that doubling recipes often doesn't work for certain types of foods and cake is one of them. So with that resolution in mind, I decided to try again.

I cleaned my oven...

And got to work again.

I figured it was fate of some sort that I had bought an extra bag of carrots and had all the ingredients for another batch. You've gotta at least pat me on the back for my determination right?

Well, maybe not.

I went for a bundt this time. I figured that's what the recipe was for so why deviate? I really didn't go into this to fail again. And the picture above may not look so bad but I pulled this out of the oven after 20 minutes.

It was supposed to bake for 50 minutes.

Once I saw the side start to spill out, I hung up on my mom who I was relaying my story to and pulled out that bundt. I didn't want to have to scrape my oven again. It was hardly cooked at all and it was rising so fast that I just know the end result would have looked like this...only in bundt shape.

It's just too funny not to look at again.

After that, I resigned myself to buy Walmart cupcakes. I know, ick. But actually they turned out being pretty good and when people asked me if I made them (God bless you sweet souls who assumed I made dessert, so sweet, although, a little like salt being rubbed in a wound since I would have LOVED to say yes, yes, I did make that yummy dessert...), I then went on to share my ridiculously funny story about imploding cupcakes.

Tomorrow I will try to share some pictures from the party. It was last night and it was so much fun. Although I will tell you that there is another mystery to be solved and it has to do with rice.

DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!

This has got to be one the funniest videos that I've seen in a long time. I was dying with laughter, as in tears rolling down my face. I hope you crack a smile too and HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

(Warning: This guy is definitely tripping on something and says OMG about a million times...)

While you wait...

I have another post ready to be, uh, posted but I need to insert some pictures first so while you wait, you must watch this clip.

It's a hoot.

Gotta love JT.

Contagious Laughter

Who doesn't love to be around someone with a contagious laugh? I think Jayden may have that characteristic.

I was listening to his belly and for some reason, Jayden found that hilarious.

At the end of that video, he starts to fill his diaper, hence the startled exclamation from me as I move away.

We have hired two nannies to watch Jayden while I work. After posting a want ad, conducting interviews and talking it through, I think we've chosen a couple of great girls. Both have watched Jayden a few days so far and he really seems to love them which is the most important thing.

We had a rough start with nannies in the beginning. The first one I hired quit after the third day and now I've developed a complex. Because my first nanny quit so quickly, I'm afraid that these nannies will do the same thing. I worry that Jayden will be affected by having so many different people watching him all the time. During the interim before hiring permanent nannies, we had two babysitters that would watch Jayden off and on. So, so far, he's had 3 different caregivers, plus me and DJ. And now he has 2 more. It seems like too many but I'm hoping these two nannies, Barbara and Nicolette, will be the last ones for a long time.

As a result of my fears I have been trying to make this the best job Barbara and Nicolette have ever had. I don't ask much of them and I try to stay flexible but on the other hand, I don't want to be walked all over either. They agreed to do some cleaning for me as well when Jayden takes his naps but it's hard for me to tell them to "Please clean the bathroom", "Please put away the dishes",  "Please vacuum the floor", etc because part of me feels like I could just as easily do it myself and I don't want to be telling them what to do all the time. I typed up a comprehensive list of "Things They Could Do While Jayden is Sleeping" so I wouldn't have to keep telling them but they didn't seem to catch on that I just wanted them to DO the cleaning and not have to be TOLD to do the cleaning. Ugh. I think it comes down to the fact that I really just don't like asking for help at all. That, and I haven't developed the specialized skill of delegating very well. Some would say that I'm good at bossing people around but that's really not something to be proud of now, is it? Maybe that should be one of my New Year's resolutions. I'll have to think about that. It's all just another step in the process of learning how to be a mom!

Jayden Milestones: Something we have noticed about Jayden is that he is afraid of sudden or loud noises. I don't think this is unusual for babies but it's something I have to be careful of. I've had to watch how I react to things especially. One day, when he first started chewing on his hands (he does this all the time now), he gagged himself when he put his hand too far into his mouth. Naturally that alarmed me and I jerked his hand out of his mouth. The poor little guy didn't realize that he had done anything wrong since it doesn't bother HIM when he gags and he began wailing. I felt so bad because I knew I had scared him. Those cries are the worst and it's all I can do to not cry with him because I feel so bad knowing I caused those tears.