Lights out!

The other day, Owen says to me out of the blue when we were talking about going to the park, "When we leave we need to turn the lights off."

Huh. Good for him, and I guess he's paying more attention to our actions than I realize. The rest of our conversation went something like the following. Note: It's not all that easy to explain the concepts of energy/electricity and saving it to an almost-3-year-old!

A solid adventure

My Claire-Bear is 5 1/2 months now, and last week she got her first taste of "solid" food. She was sitting on my lap at dinner and kept lunging at my plate, which contained some roasted sweet potato. I figured sweet potato is a pretty traditional early food, so why not? I cut off the outside to get rid of the salt, pepper and oil, and let her have a go at it. Aside from my worries that she could get a piece off and choke on it, it seemed harmless enough. She loved it so much that we decided then and there to give her a bowl of baby rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, and she's been loving that for the past week. Tomorrow we're going to try carrots. Exciting adventures (and a lot more work for me) ahead!

I know the current guidelines say that you shouldn't give anything but breastmilk (or formula) for the first 6 months, so I was kind of on the fence about introducing any food "early". Interestingly, although they said the same thing two years ago when Owen was a baby, I was more or less asked by a health professional (our health visitor) "why haven't you started given him any solids yet?" when he was about 5 1/2 months. Claire was really just over 5 months, but she definitely seems to have all the signs that she's ready, and she's taken to the food really well, with one exception (**TMI baby poop discussion warning**): she hasn't managed to poop in nearly 2 weeks. This isn't really anything new for her, as she's gone ages without pooping previously, but of course I'm now worried that it was too early, rice wasn't the best first food, etc. etc. Anyway, we're off to the doctor this afternoon and will see what he says. Hopefully I don't get too much of a scolding for having already started her on solids.

A brief note if there is anyone out there reading this who hasn't weaned a baby yet and someday might. I really wanted to keep her to all breastmilk (no formula) for as long as possible, but I have found that baby rice does really weird things in breastmilk that it doesn't do in formula. Basically, it turns completely liquid, so that what starts out as a bowl of cereal with a good thickness for an infant turns into something so thin you can't spoon it. So you end up adding more and more cereal. I have no idea why breast milk does this and formula doesn't. Enzymes? Anyone happen to know the answer to this?

Home sweet home

Oh, right. I meant to tell everyone I was taking a bit of a holiday (a whole MONTH in good ol' Tejas). Thing is, I thought I'd be able to do some blogging from my parents' house in Texas, but it turns out that even with grandparents around, having both Owen and Claire all day every day is more work than it is having Claire at home by myself. Thank God for those 3 days a week Owen goes to nursery when we're in London! On top of that, my parents' internet went out a few days after we arrived and it took Verizon TEN DAYS to come out and fix it. They blamed all the new university students back in town, but I'm not buying it.

Anyway, we are back, but I'm not promising anything in the way of exciting content for a while (or ever, ha!). I have a thousand things that need doing here (sorry my internet friends, but having reliable hot water and a working clothes dryer, and buying winter coats for the kids - yes, already - are higher priority than you), and we're still fighting some residual jet lag or insomnia or something with Owen. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Claire isn't going to be a sleeping ball of cute much longer - this child has started demanding attention, and seriously wants to move. C'est la vie.

Tomato and goat’s cheese tart

Today, a recipe because, well, it's been a while since I've done a food post, and this one just won't be the same once summer is over and in-season tomatoes are a distant memory. This also reminds me that I need to tell you about my patio "garden"; I'll try to do that soon.

I love quiches, but I also like the idea of a savory tart that doesn’t use 6-8 eggs and a cup of heavy cream on top of an ultra-buttery pastry. So, a couple of recent recipes have gone right to the top of my “to cook soon” list. The first skips the pastry but includes eggs; it uses thinly sliced potatoes as the crust. I’ve had a few issues with getting the baking time right on this (it took about 30 minutes more than the recipe said last time I made it) and with the potatoes burning on the edges, but once I get it right, I’ll try to remember to share my version with you.

The second has the pastry, but skips the eggs (ok, the pastry itself does include 1 egg and the filling does have a lot of cheese in it, but whatever, it’s healthy I’m sure…) It’s adapted from David Lebovitz, one of many food blogs I enjoy reading regularly.

To bottle or not to bottle?

No, I'm not talking about formula vs breastfeeding; the bottle I'm talking about is one of water. Sometimes I just need to rant about things that drive me nuts. The most recent pet peeve I've been reminded of is bottled water, especially at restaurants. The event that got me thinking about this was our recent trip to Belgium, in which the restaurants there were serving bottled water for an average price of €6.50 (=$8.56 or £5.39) for 1 liter. Insane! Two flat out refused to serve us tap water when we asked. The funny part about all this is that, as I mentioned last time, we were there visiting my dad who is teaching a study abroad program called "Environmental soil and water," in which the students take a field trip to the local water treatment plant and learn all about what's actually in the tap water and what processes it goes through before reaching the public. Bottom line is they think it's fine.

Sure, I know when you're out and about and thirsty, a bottle of water can be an awesome thing. But there is no question in my mind that it's just not good for the environment. I Googled "bottled water environment" just to see what I could find, and although many internet sources of information are dubious, there seems to be pretty good agreement on this point. The most reputable looking article I found was here, author's bio here.

The disagreement comes in whether bottled water is "better" for you than plain old tap water. I think the answer is probably not, especially if you have a filtration system on the tap water, since apparently a lot of bottled water is just this - filtered tap water. Obviously this depends on where you are, but the impression I get is that tap water in the US is controlled by the EPA, whereas bottled water by the FDA, and apparently the EPA has higher standards. In addition, there seems to be concern over phthalates leaching from the plastic bottles into the water (not a problem if you buy glass, but glass bottles certainly aren't as prevalent as plastic and probably cost more). On the flip side, it may be that tap water has pharmaceutical and hormone contamination, which is also bad, and could have contaminants from pipes, especially if they are old. This article on Slate was quite interesting and seemed the most balanced thing I could find...

Anyway, it's certainly something to think about. Apparently if you live in the US you can learn about what's in your water from an EPA website. I had massive difficulties getting it to work, and not all information is stored online, but eventually I did find a couple from places I've lived previously. The information for the UK (or London area at least), is here. I'll leave you with what we do at home (for now, until I actually read the report for our area and figure out what it means). We have a Brita filter pitcher, and I change the filter (and wash the pitcher) regularly. If I'm going out, I try my best to take some of that water for in BPA-free reusable bottles and/or cups that I wash frequently. I'd prefer a filtration system on the tap itself, but, well, we live in a rented flat so that's not a possibility right now. And when we're at restaurants in London, I ask for tap water.

Mini-vacation

As I hinted at yesterday, we'll be away for a few days visiting my dad in Belgium (he's teaching a study abroad class there). I'll try to come up with something fun to write about (beer? chocolate? how to survive 6 hour car trips with a toddler and a 3-month-old?) while there. Until then...

To-do list

I'm a big list person. To-do today lists; to-do someday lists; grocery lists; packing lists; to-cook lists; things I've cooked list; the list (ha!) goes on.

I plan to someday expand on my cooking-related lists, but today the list is more mundane. I wrote down a list this morning of all the things I need to do today and thought it would be funny to share with people. I don't do this every day, but sometimes it just helps me focus when time is short (we're going away for a few days tomorrow morning; more on that later too). I wish I had a scanner at home so you could see I'm not hiding something or making any of it up, but pinky-swear I am being totally honest.

Here it is (explanatory notes are in parentheses):
-pack!
-laundry
-marinate chicken (for dinner)
-raita (as in, make it. also for dinner)
-check pita (could be moldy, in which case we probably don't want to eat it for dinner)
-freeze milk (extra expressed milk I had for Claire)
-Owen's table (as in, clean it because there is definitely milk from breakfast souring on it's surface)
-water plants
-put away clothes in living room (laundry and Owen's old 6-9 month clothes I've been going through for Claire. Yes, she's only 3 months, but some 3-month clothes are already a bit small on her...)
-iron? (as in, only if I have time after doing everything else on the list, writing a blog post and surfing the internet, or if I really must take something with us this weekend that simply cannot be worn without ironing)
-dishes
-Claire 3 month pic - facebook (she's 3 months today so I thought I'd post a pic or video)
-fingernails (as in, take off what's left of the polish that's already half-gone, and maybe repaint if time permits)
-exercise (I still have separated abs 3 months after Claire was born. I'm trying to do something about it, really I am, yet somehow I hardly ever find time to fit in my 15 minutes of exercises that are supposed to help them come back together.)
-Owen underwear (as in, buy him some with either Bob the Builder or Cars (the movie) on them so that I can convince him that underwear really are better than pull-ups)