Wallflower Grown Wild

Today is Ian’s one month birthday. Such a short time, but it seems as though he has always been a part of our family. It has been a great month, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of his first year of life holds!

The only genre of movies that Kyle and I will agree to watch together is documentaries. So that’s why we ended up cuddled on the couch last month, watching Food, Inc. via Netflix Watch Instantly. And let me say…Whoa. Dude. As if Fast Food Nation (the book, not the supremely crappy movie) and Super Size Me didn’t traumatize me enough!

Don't you love the irony of meeting Morgan Spurlock (of "Super Size Me" fame) while clutching a giant cup of sugary soda?

Anyway, this sparked yet another conversation about how our family’s diet is not-so-awesome and needs to be addressed. (Like, why do the children shun the box of Organic Oaty-O’s that have been sitting in the pantry for months, yet they descend on Golden Puffs like locusts?) Maybe that’s why we got so excited when someone forwarded me information about Bountiful Baskets, a regional food co-op.

For $16.50, we got a laundry basket filled with yummy fresh fruits and vegetables. I was concerned that we might end up with some weird things that I’d be unable to use (for my cooking skills are not up to being creative), but the only item that hasn’t been entirely consumed is the red peppers. The kids have been eating fruits and vegetables with every meal- fabulous!

The only drawback is that we have to pick it up at the ungodly hour of 7 am on Saturday morning. (!!!) Thankfully, the pick up site is about two minutes from our home.

The contents of our first basket.

I found the generous amount of bananas to be particularly exciting. Brady is a banana-eating fiend, but I still managed to snag enough of them to make a loaf of banana bread. I used this recipe (with less sugar), and then sprinkled the top with a smattering of butterscotch chips.

This loaf barely lasted long enough to get a photo...

I’ve allowed this blog to lie fallow for far too long, eh? Life with a toddler and two homeschooled kiddos is usually hectic, and I tend to sacrifice my own pursuits in order to manage everything else. My personal goal is to regain some balance in 2010.

Though this may prove challenging, thanks to the arrival of baby Ian on January 13th…

Ian sporting his beanie hat. (Photo by DoChara Photography.)

Ian is modeling a Beanie Hat from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms. I also made this pattern for Brady, but the yarn that I used looked bedraggled after a couple of wears (Caron Simply Soft, I think). I used Lion Brand Cotton-Ease (in Lake and Taupe) this time around, with much better results. The only modification was adding a couple extra rows before the decreases, because my kids have giant melons. I’d like to try knitting this in the round next time, but knitting tiny little baby hats on DPNs intimidates me following some false starts with crazy amounts of laddering.

I also made half of a pair of booties from the same book, but switched to making Bev’s Stay-On Booties in the interest of saving time. Poor choice on my part- these booties do NOT stay on Ian’s long feet. Hand-knitted baby booties going astray makes me sad.

In other baby-related crafting news, I used this tutorial from My Crafty Side to make clips for Ian’s Gumdrop pacifiers. (Incidentally, the shape of the Gumdrop is far superior to the face-dominating  roundness of the Soothie, Brady’s pacifier of choice. So glad I discovered these!)

My first attempt at making a pacifier clip.

Finding grosgrain ribbon that was (a) an adequate width, (b) non-girly, and (c) coordinated with the pacifier colors (because I probably have some form of OCD…) was more difficult than I anticipated!

I’m not in love with the method of attachment. I made a trip to SAS Fabrics by the Pound, home to a million random notions, in pursuit of smaller, lighter plastic clips (like these ones, which are apparently only available in bulk quantities online); after wandering past box upon box of belt buckles, I resigned myself to using metal suspender clips. Ian doesn’t seem to mind, though.

I am a bit susceptible to the trends that sweep the blogosphere (the corner that I inhabit, at least- the mommy/homeschooling/crafty segment). Though the temptation rarely leads to action, I entertain fantasies of making no-knead bread or handcrafting the baby’s shoes or building a cunning play kitchen. Then reality sets in and I buy a package of semi-healthy bread from Costco, a tiny pair of Crocs, and a plastic play kitchen that is ugly and flimsy but has burners that making realistic boiling sounds.

The five-gallon bucket of homemade laundry detergent sitting in the kitchen is a testament to the fact that I fall prey to these notions at times. (Thanks, Duggar family!) Additional proof- my hair.

The whole “no poo” thing was rattling around in my head for a while, but it seemed a bit too much like crazy hippie talk to me. Baking soda? Apple cidar vinegar? In lieu of shampoo? For reals? Then “no poo” started making the rounds on the Interwebs a few weeks ago and I read this article, and the whole idea sounded much more palatable to me.

Maybe it’s that I’m trying to grow my hair out. It’s a never ending cycle- I grow it out for a couple years, then chop it off when I can no longer stand the brittle/split end/breaking issue that plagues me when it’s long. My hair is thick, so drying it takes forever. If I don’t heat style it, it does this highly unattractive thing where parts are wavy and parts are straight. So the promise of healthy hair that actually behaves was mighty tempting.

And then there is our recent household mission to kick weird chemicals to the curb. We make regular use of the Cosmetic Safety Database now. Ditching sodium laurel sulfate seems like the next logical step, right?

So I was shampoo-free for the past couple weeks, and it was working out pretty well. I never experienced greasy hair or anything of the sort. I started out using a trial pack of DevaCurl products, and they were perfectly servicable until I started getting some weird buildup on my scalp. Then I started alternating those with baking soda and apple cidar vinegar, with greater success, but the results were still not quite what I had envisioned.

Although that might be due the fact that I haven’t found a styling product sans silicone that can tame my hair. So I tried to follow the Curly Girl method of styling, coaxing my waves into…something. (They sure weren’t pretty little ringlets. ) Gave up on that after a couple days of diffusing and scrunching and plopping, all leading to copious usage of barettes to disguise the insane aftermath.

I decided to try another approach and do the conditioner wash method, using a bottle of Suave Naturals Coconut conditioner that I found shoved in the back of the cupboard. For my heavier conditioner, I visited every store in a five-mile radius looking for L’oreal Vive Pro Nutri Gloss for Wavy/Curly Hair (eventually finding it at Albertsons, FYI). But you know what? The Suave shampoo bottle looks a heck of a lot like the conditioner, and I ended up shampooing my hair for three days straight.

The good news is that I can say without a doubt that the “no poo” experiment was working in my favor, because now my hair looks really, really awful after going back to regular shampoo.

When I was a college student in the not-so-distant past, I made a habit of picking up Yes (”Your Ultimate Valley Shopping Guide”) from the distribution racks that littered the campus. This weekly publication contained more advertising than substance, and what actual content it had was unexceptional (with the exception of Jaimee Rose’s editorial column back in the day, when she shared my affinity for black and white and “The OC”). However, it gave me something to read while riding the shuttle back to the parking lot; for that, I am grateful.

I still get a copy from the local library now and then, and was interested to see the headline, “Comfy flats and big bags for Black Friday survival”. You see, Black Friday shopping is a hallowed tradition for me, which started long before it occurred to the unwashed masses to camp outside of Best Buy overnight and trample innocent Walmart employees in pursuit of $100 off a plasma television. So I was curious to see what Yes would recommend to “keep [my] fashionista cred intact”…

Good thing these shoes are labeled “bargain”. I’ll need that savings to offset the cost of the $328 tote. Those fussy drawstings look like they could pose a problem when I’m digging for my wallet while precariously balancing a pile of goods… At least the irate people behind me in line will appreciate my fashion sense!

Gladiator sandals are the perfect footwear for waiting outside of a store at 3:30 AM. It’s 47 degrees at that hour, but practicality must be ignored when fashion is at stake. Who needs socks? They only serve to hide my pedicure, and Chanel Blue Satin nail polish ain’t cheap!

Seriously, what kind of vain women are buying into this rubbish? Probably the same women who would buy a $1200 holiday flower arrangement:

Whiskey-tango-foxtrot, people?!

Me? On Black Friday, I chose to forgo the advice of Yes while putting together the perfect outfit for storming Babies “R” Us at 5 AM. I was sporting a hoodie from Eddie Bauer (the poofy fleece material adds 10 pounds, but it’s warm) over a long-sleeve tee from the Gap, Old Navy jeans, and Nike sneakers that Pussycat used as a chew toy years ago. Oh, I can’t forget the handbag! It’s from the 75% off clearance rack at Target (while my Michael Kors and Juicy Couture bags languish in the closet due to a dearth of functional pockets).

We scored six boxes of diapers (756 diapers total) and six boxes of baby wipes (2,880 wipes total) for $97.24.  (For my readers sans children: that’s incredible. Trust me.) Not as good as last year, when there was no limit in place and my pregnant self (along with K.) cleared out every remaining box in the place, but I’m content with my Black Friday purchases. Ya’ll can keep your Blu-ray players and gladiator sandals.