Minestrone Soup

On November 20, 2010 · 1 Comment · In recipes - soup

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe! Funny, too, since we’ve actually tried a handful of new ones recently–I just haven’t been in situations where it was easy to take pictures! Anyway…

We had plans to go out to dinner on Friday night, but when Nora and I were feeling as crappy as we did that day, we decided that we’d rather go on a night when I could fully enjoy myself. I really just wanted to stay in and have some good homemade soup.

I didn’t want to go with our usual chicken noodle soup, so I went back to my saved recipes and found this easy recipe for minestrone soup from Katie at Good Things Catered. To my surprise, I discovered this weekend that Katie’s blog is no longer up (does anybody know, did she get another book deal?) but I still want to give credit where credit is due!

This minestrone is chock-full of vegetables, which I love. I use low-sodium everything, so it’s healthier than canned, store-bought, or restaurant soup, and it’s still really flavorful. It’s very easy to throw together, too–the most time-consuming thing is chopping all of the vegetables, which can easily be done in advance for a quick weeknight meal. We’ll be making this often throughout the winter, I’m sure!

I skipped the napa cabbage because it’s expensive at our grocery store (especially since the recipe only calls for 1/4 head) and I don’t know that it would add much. But in case you feel so inclined, I’ve left it in the list of ingredients below. Aside from that, we used dried spices instead of fresh (and used less of them as a result), but season according to your taste.

Minestrone Soup
(Source: Good Things Catered)

Ingredients:
– 2 tsp. olive oil
– 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
– 1 sweet onion, diced
– 4 carrots, sliced
– 4 celery stalks, sliced
– 2 cloves garlic, crushed
– 1/4 head Napa cabbage, chopped
– 2 small zucchini, diced
– 1 cup chopped green beans
– 2 tablespoons parsley, minced
– 1 tablespoon oregano , minced
– 1/2 teaspoon thyme, minced
– 28 oz. diced tomatoes
– 48 oz. low sodium chicken broth
– 1 (14 oz.) can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
– 1 (14 oz.) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
– 1 cup dry pasta, cooked
– Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. In large stock pot or dutch oven over medium heat, add olive oil and bring up to almost smoking.

2. Add onion, carrots, celery and salt and stir to combine. Cook, stirring occasionally until softened, about 5 minutes.

3. Add garlic and stir until fragrant, about 60 seconds.

4. Add cabbage, zucchini, green beans, parsley, oregano, thyme, tomatoes with juice and chicken broth. Stir to combine well, turn heat to a low simmer and cover and cook for 30 minutes.

5. Add beans, cooked pasta and simmer for 5 more minutes.

6. Salt and pepper to taste, let cool slightly and serve.

 

Snotty.

On November 19, 2010 · 9 Comments · In nora

I hoped that we’d be able to make it until Nora goes to daycare before we’d experience her first sickness. But as it turns out, that wasn’t in the cards.

My poor little baby has her very first cold.

Oh, and to make things even more fun? I have it, too.

She’s actually in pretty good spirits–except when I am sticking that stupid bulb aspirator in her nose, of course. When that’s happening, she screams bloody murder the entire time and makes me feel like a terrible, awful, no good, very bad person. It is horrible. Who invented that thing, and why do all babies *hate* it with the fire of a thousand suns? I want to find him and hurt him.

But Nora is in bed for the night now, and we’ll see how it goes. We have the humidifer going, and I just hope she can make it through the night with her limited ability to breathe through her nose.

I called the pediatrician’s office to ask about Nora and see which medicines I can safely take while breastfeeding her. You know, I figured that since I’m not pregnant anymore, the list would be longer. To my surprise, it was actually shorter. Much shorter. I CAN’T TAKE ANYTHING. Nothing. As it turns out, the decongestants that are designed to help “dry out” congestion can also dry out your milk ducts, too. In other words, it can severely hinder milk production. Not good. Soooo no medicine for me. But I figure if my little Nora can make it through this cold without anything more than some saline nasal drops and an aspirator, so can I.

The one really nice thing about Nora being a little under the weather is that I don’t have to feel so guilty for spoiling her a little. Yesterday ended up being really, really rough. It felt like I spent my entire day trying to get her to sleep in some way or another. After I gave up on the nap in the crib, she was so overtired that I couldn’t even get her to sleep anywhere, really. And trying to get her to bed last night proved to be really difficult, too. It was just an all-around awful day. I felt like an awful mommy. So today, I decided to take it a little easier.

Due to the cold (I’m guessing that’s the reason, anyway), she slept a lot today. In fact, she napped for 50 minutes straight in the crib this morning, then another 20+ minutes after that–not too shabby, I don’t think, especially given that she’s sick. I’m starting to think that the problem with the crib is not getting her to sleep, but getting her to stay asleep. Once a sleep cycle is over and she gets into that “light sleeping” stage, she wakes up too easily in the crib, and doesn’t yet have the ability to put herself back to sleep. I’m not really sure what to do to improve that. Is this just something she’ll learn with age?

Anyway, this morning, when I gave up on trying to soothe her back to sleep in the crib and took her out, she was still tired, so I let her sleep on my chest for another hour or so.

My poor, poor sickie. I hope we both feel better soon!
 

Crib Notes

On November 17, 2010 · 19 Comments · In baby sleep habits, child development, nora

I’ve mentioned before that Nora is a great sleeper. We are very, very lucky (so far, anyway), and we know it. We’re grateful. We have no right to complain.

But the thing is that Nora is kind of particular about where she sleeps.

Up until now, we’ve been doing whatever works. We figured she was young enough that we weren’t really setting bad “habits,” and hell… when you have a newborn, you just kinda go with the flow.

So recently, we’ve been putting her to bed (swaddled) between 7:30-8:15 p.m. When I say “to bed,” I mean that we put her in the Fisher Price Rock ‘n’ Play in our room. She’ll sleep in there by herself until we go to bed between 10-11 p.m. Before our bedtime, sometimes we’ll hear her fuss a little and we’ll have to go in there and place her binky back into her mouth, or give her a little jiggle to settle her, but she generally goes right back to sleep without issue.

Then, she usually wakes sometime between 5-6 a.m. for a feeding. I reach over, pull her out of her bed, lay her in our bed next to me, nurse her, burp her, then put her back into her own bed. Then she’ll continue to sleep until 8-9 a.m.

Heaven, I tell you. Heaven. But believe me, I keep waiting for this to end. I hope it doesn’t, but I just feel like it’s too good to be true.

For naps, she has been taking a really solid morning nap–like 2-3 hours. Most of the time, I recognize the signs that she’s getting drowsy, and I put her in her vibrating bouncy seat or her swing to help her nod off completely. Once she’s sleeping, I turn off the vibration or the swing and let her continue to nap in whichever seat she is in.

In the afternoon, she’s less reliable. She’ll definitely sleep, but the amounts of time vary and they’ll generally be shorter in nature, like “cat naps.” And she kind of sleeps wherever–bouncy seat, swing, car seat, on my chest, in the boppy, etc.

You’re probably asking yourself, What is the problem?

Well, the problem is that she will NOT sleep in her crib. And given that I’m going back to work in a few weeks and she’ll be napping in a pack ‘n’ play at the sitter’s, I figure I really need to try to get her adjusted so that she’ll still be able to get her naps in.

I think the problem is that the Rock ‘n’ Play, the bouncy, the swing, the car seat… all of them kind of “cuddle” her in a way. They make her feel cradled and cozy, almost like she is being held. The crib is flat and firm and BIG.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve made a few half-ass attempts at getting her to nap in her crib, but I was kind of casual about it and took whatever I could get. The longest stretch she ever went was 35 minutes. Not exactly a quality nap.

On Monday this week, I decided to give this some serious effort. I’ve been attempting to get her to take her morning naps in the crib. And, well, let’s just say that the morning naps are no longer very solid. And Mommy barely has time to shower. Or do anything, really. (The house is a freakin’ mess.)

Sleep training is hard, y’all.

On Monday, she actually slept in there for 50 minutes straight, which I thought was awesome for Day 1. Tuesday and this morning have not gone as well. For instance–right now, she has been in the crib for 30 minutes and I’ve already gone in there three times to “shush-pat” her back to sleep.

And because she’s not napping as well, she’s been crankier than usual. She’s missing out on some of the sleep that she needs, and I feel like I really need to help her so that she can get this transition out of the way before I go back to work. And my hope is that if we reach success with naps in the crib, it’ll then be easier to transition her to the crib for nighttime sleep as well. (Which we definitely plan to do before she hits 4 months–we’re thinking maybe around Christmastime?)

So, I know. I know that when it comes to a 9-week-old baby, we kind of have it made. I’m feeling kind of ballsy even asking for any advice on the sleep subject. But does anyone have any suggestions for successful napping in the crib? How did you make the transition with your baby?

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child has been helpful for many things, but I don’t find that it really provides methods to help out with some of the challenges. I did some Googling and found some explanation of The Baby Whisperer method, so I started trying that today. We’ll see if I have any success with it. In the meantime, if you have experience with this, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Edited to add: I just don’t know how persistent I’m supposed to be. It’s now been a total of 56 minutes in her crib, and I’ve had to go in there another time to shush-pat her back to sleep. So her longest stretch of sleep for this 56-minute “nap” has probably been 15 minutes. Do I keep going and letting her sleep at these ridiculously short intervals, or am I supposed to give up at some point and do whatever I need to do to give her some solid sleep (swing, bouncy, holding her, etc.)?

Another update: At the 60-minute mark, she started screaming again. So that last stretch of sleep was like 4-5 minutes. I decided to give up and pull her out of the crib, because let’s face it, we’re not getting anywhere with this. And she is still exhausted. I have her with me now and she can barely keep her eyes open. What gives? :(

 

Baptized

On November 16, 2010 · 7 Comments · In family, nora, religion

We celebrated Nora’s baptism yesterday. It was really special and we had a lot of family members who took a good chunk out of their Sundays to come celebrate our little girl.

First, we all attended regular Sunday Mass. Afterward, our family stayed behind while the chapel cleared out, and then our priest performed the private baptism. Nora was a little angel and was such a good girl throughout the whole thing. She didn’t cry when the water was poured over her head–just had a very surprised look on her face! It was cute.

Some pics from church:

Nora with her godparents, Tyler and Melissa

Parents and godparents

With my mom and my grandma

With Michael’s parents and grandma

With Michael’s poppy

With Michael’s sisters, our brother-in-law, and our nephews

The two of us with our girl

After church, we headed back to my mom’s house for a party. It was just a really nice day. Of course, we were busy hosting so we didn’t end up getting many pics at the party. Doesn’t that always happen? Ugh. But after the crowd cleared out, we did get some pics of Nora smiling at her Aunt Cristina…

And this face is just hilarious:

And then one with Aunt Cristina:

The day was a success, and left us all exhausted. I was in bed by 9:00 and sleeping by 9:30, which is essentially unheard of for me!

It was really nice to have the opportunity to share the joy that Nora has brought to our lives with so many of our family members. We are so thankful for the gift of Nora’s life!

 

When Daddy Does Bathtime

On November 13, 2010 · 6 Comments · In nora

I can’t decide if she looks more like a rockstar with a mohawk, or Cindy-Lou-Who. :)

P.S. Nora had her 2-month pediatrician’s appointment today. She is tipping the scales at 9 lbs., 9 oz. and is 21.75 inches long. She received four injection vaccines (ouchie!) and one oral vaccine. Poor baby, she cried this awful, painful cry and it took all my strength not to cry along with her. Daddy felt absolutely terrible, too. But she recovered quickly and aside from being extra sleepy this afternoon (which could’ve also been from the missed morning nap!), she seems to be doing OK with it all.