Crabby Mama

We had the best dinner the other night and I thought I would post the recipes here.

Ginger Glazed Mahi Mahi

3 TBSP honey
3 TBSP soy sauce
3 TBSP balsamic vinegar
1 tsp grated fresh ginger root
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp olive oil
4 (6 oz) mahi mahi filets
salt and pepper to taste
1 TBSP veg oil

1. In a shallow glass dish, stir together the honey, soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, garlic, and olive oil. Season the fish fillets with salt and pepper and place them into the dish, turning to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 20 min to marinate.
2. Heat veg oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. Remove fish from dish but reserve marinade. Cook fish for 4-6 min per side, turning only once, until fish flakes easily with a fork. Remove fish fillets to a serving platter and keep warm.
3. Pour reserved marinade into skiller and heat over med heat until the mixture reduces to a glaze consistency. Spoon glaze over fish and serve.

Coconut Rice

1 cup coconut milk (will use a smidge more next time to keep rice creamy)
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp sugar
1 cup long grain white rice
3 TBSP chopped fresh cilantro

In a saucepan, combine coconut milk, water, salt and sugar. Bring to boil (be careful will boil over). Add the rice, stir well, ans reduce heat to med-low. Cover and simmer undisturbed until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is fluffy, about 20-24 min. Remove from heat and let sit without stirring for 10 min. Fluff with fork and add cilantro. Adjust seasoning to taste.

We also had steamed asparagus with this meal. The mahi glaze was wonderful on the rice too. Altogether yummy and pretty easy.

Today we made cotton ball snowmen. I was going to post directions, but I think the pics are self-explanatory.

The girls had a BLAST! I helped Erin cut the straight lines and I cut her circles. Leah cut all of her pieces on her own. I could NOT believe how patient Erin was and how much she enjoyed it. This video is ADORABLE!

After that, I looked around the internet for gross motor things we could do indoors since Erin does best when she is blowing off steam. I found the MOST fun game. Here is what we did:

Find 5 or 6 pairs of colored socks. Take some laundry baskets and label them with the colors of your socks. You can use color words or just use a piece of construction paper in the colors of each of your socks. We used two per basket. I put the pile of socks in the kitchen and the baskets at the entrance to our playroom. Then I put various obstacles between them, like pillows to jump over, stools to run around, and a chair to crawl under. The girls took turns carrying a sock through the obstacle course and putting it in the right basket. Then they would tag the other one to take her turn. It was so cute and after a little while, they started designing their own obstacle courses.

The other thing we did was “Jump the River.” I folded a blue blanket as thin as I could. The girls jumped over it on one foot (well, Leah did). Each time they did it, I would unfold the blanket a little bit so it was wider. They continued to jump the river until they couldn’t anymore. It was good stuff on such a cold wet day.

As an 8 lber at birth, Adam should be moving toward sleeping 4-5 hour stretches at night. And he is not. But I totally know why now. I am reading a book called The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems by Tracy Hogg. We weren’t really having any real problems, but I always like to read stuff and be proactive. So she says that breastmilk comes in three parts:

Quencher (first 5-10 min)-high in lactose, slakes thirst, rich in oxytocin which acts as a sleeping pill

Fore milk (next 5-10 min)-high protein, good for bones and brain development

Hind milk (15-18 min)-high in calories and thick, helps with weight gain

Adam always seems sleepy right around 8 minutes into feeding, which I now know is due to the quencher. At his late night and overnight feeds, when he falls asleep eating at around that time I always just put him back in bed and stumble back to bed myself. But I learned from this book that I am depriving him of that hind milk and the chance to be truly full. AND she does not recommend changing sides for at least 30 minutes. If the baby nurses longer than that (never happens here), then you can switch. If you only ever do 10 min per side, all they ever get is the first two parts.

The book recommends cluster feeding, which is doing two feeds close together before bedtime, and then doing a dream feed, which is doing a feeding between 10-11pm right before I go to bed, to “tank him up” before the overnight. I started that tonight and we will see how that goes.

From here on out, I am aiming for close to 15 min or more a feed on ONE side at a time at close to 3 hour intervals. Here goes nothing…

We have been lighting our menorahs the last two nights. Leah is LOVING lighting her very own menorah that she made with Mike last year. So far Nana and Papa’s presents have been hits (Barbie mermaids, games, and puzzles). Adam barely makes it awake through it all. Tomorrow we plan to make sugar cookie menorahs, dreidels, and Stars of David with some friends. Good times…

Adam is seeming to get a tiny bit better. We have him sleeping IN his crib IN the papasan at night and for all the naps he takes at home. I think being upright and in a quiet place really helps. Twice this past week, I got Erin to nap at the same time as Adam and I got a few minutes of peace and quiet in the afternoon. It was lovely.

Leah has been giving us “concerts” in our living room. She sings all of the Thanksgiving songs from her feast day and her class learned a bunch of Christmas songs to sing for a group that meets the church. She goes through her whole repertoire every concert and definitely enjoys encores. Erin jumps in with “I’m a little scarecrow” every time.

Friday, I took Leah skating at a rink that let our playgroup come in and push strollers around the rink. It was pretty fun and I am excited about trying it again sometime. Leah was kinda clumsy on the skates and had to hold on to the stroller to make it around and I had to hold up the stroller to keep it from tipping over. But we had a good time anyway and she made me laugh a lot.

That is my random summary for the day.

My baby boy has been with us for a month already. He went to the doctor this morning for his check up and got one shot. He weighed in at 10lbs 14oz and was 21.5 inches long. (I’m not sure the length is correct.) This afternoon I set him in his rocking chair to get our (newly) traditional monthly photo and he decided to smile at me!! What a birthday present to me!

Last weekend, we cheered the Gators to a loss (unfortunately) in the SEC Championship game. But we looked good doing it.

Yesterday we took all three kids to take pictures with Santa. I am impressed with the outcome.

Today I gave Adam some tummy time and Erin wanted to get in on the action. Check out his smile at her!

I made these snacks for the girls this week and they both loved them.

Yogurt Cupcakes – makes 6

6 paper cupcake cups
12 regular Nilla wafers
3/4 cup yogurt (any flavor)
3/4 cup whipped cream (not in a can)

Place paper cupcake cups in 6 holes of a cupcake tin. Mix yogurt and whipped cream together. Put one Nilla wafer in the bottom of each cupcake tin, then top with yogurt/whipped cream mixture. Finish each one off with another Nilla wafer. Place in the freezer until frozen. Great aftenoon snack!

Banana Pops

one banana
2 popsicle sticks
peanut butter
mini Nilla wafers
sprinkles

Peel banana and cut in half the short way. Push a popsicle stick into each cut side to make banana pops. Cover in peanut butter. Let the kids put a few mini Nillas on it and add the sprinkles. My girls LOVED this.

Adam has not been napping very well during the day. I am trying my hardest to do the Babywise method (eat, awake time, sleep, repeat every 2.5-3 hours during the day). But Adam will fall asleep within an hour of waking up, then will wake up again screaming after napping for only 30-45 minutes. He doesn’t get a full nap hardly ever during the day. After the 7pm feed though he sleeps from feed to feed with no wake time until morning. Well, I say with no wake time, but he usually has one 2 hour episode of grunting and fussing in his sleep every night. Anyway, I have not been able to get him to stay asleep long enough to get good rest during the day. That is why he always seems fussy when he is awake. *sigh* Maybe I am not very good at scheduling babies.

PS I let him cry it out (just a few minutes, went to comfort him, then a few more minutes of crying) in his crib this afternoon and he has been sleeping for an hour and a half. Maybe he is too stimulated downstairs with all the commotion.

The past four or so nights Leah has gotten up at about 10:30pm and come into our room. She is not crying and she looks entirely out of it. When I ask her if she has to go potty, she doesn’t answer. I usually get her to go to the bathroom and then go back to bed with no trouble. She does not ever acknowledge when I ask her a question. Last night when I told her to go potty, she went in my bathroom, pulled down her pants and squatted over my rug. Mike grabbed her and put her on the potty before she went.

I was reading about sleepwalking and it says that it usually affects boys ages 6-12 most often. So Leah doesn’t fall into that category. BUT it certainly seems like she is sleepwalking. The article did say that kids sometimes will pee in strange places during the episode. How weird! Hope she gives it up soon!