Bye-Bye Binky!!!!

Photo Credit

If there is one vice Katie has, it's her binky.  And I've had it.  I have had enough of the tantrums if it can't be found.  I have had enough of the whining for her "binty."  I have had it with this girl who thinks she NEEDS her pacifier in order to survive.

I have also had enough of the guilt from her pediatrician.  And now that she's 18 months and heading for her well-visit this afternoon, I'm pulling the plug on her plug.

The problem has been, though, two-fold.  1) I didn't have any support in this decision until recently (and even at that, I don't know if the support is really there or not - maybe I'm just making it up in my head).  2) The idea of taking her binky away from her is daunting.  It's intimidating.  She's intimidating.  And I know I shouldn't admit that I'm intimidated by my daughter, but it's the truth.  I want her to be happy.  I don't want her to be mad at me.  But I also want her to be healthy, show off her beautiful smile without obstruction, and not be socially blocked.

I've heard some recommendations from fellow moms who have gone through the same thing.  I have heard horror stories from moms who are still going through it.

I decided last weekend we were going to have a Bye-Bye Binky party this weekend.  And by party, I mean the family gathers together, collecting all the pacifiers in the houses, make a big to-do about saying "bye-bye," and putting them in the drawer.  And then I heard there is a good chance she will simply replace her pacifier with her thumb.  Which is equally bad.

That's when I took to ol' Google.  Simply typed in "bye-bye binky," and came across this.

Nothing else has made as much sense as this method has.  Reduce the amount of pleasure your child experiences while sucking on his/her binky!  Genius!!!

So, this shall be my method.  

And now I can go to Katie's appointment today with a plan in place to be binky-free by the weekend!

Viruses are the WORST!

Seriously, whoever gave this bug to my bug needs to be hit.

Monday evening, Katie developed a fever.  101.4.  Then it went up to 102.3.  We gave her Tylenol and hoped for the best.  Overnight, she woke up multiple times.  We spent some time on the couch (quite a few hours, actually).  Her temperature was down to 100.2 by morning.  We gave her more Tylenol, called the doctor for advice.  The nurse (her favorite - big shout out to Craig, the best nurse at Dr Manus' office) said to just keep her going with Tylenol, give her a warm bath and call back if the temperature spikes again.

By mid-morning, her temp was down to 97.6.  We went into the city and got ourselves a kitty (which is a whole notha post).  Came home, no temp so no Tylenol.  Gave her a bath, put her to bed.  Overnight, the temp skyrocketed to 103.6.  We stripped her down, gave her more Tylenol and she fell asleep.  Of course, this was yet another fitful night, spent alternating between Mommy & Daddy's bed and the couch with Mommy.

In the morning, we called and made an appointment with our doctor.  It was good to get some reassurance that we were doing what we could, but it sucked to find out that it was viral and there wasn't much we could do.  Doctors orders are as follows: plenty of fluids, bland foods (dry cereal, applesauce, pasta), and limiting her dairy intake.  This poor girl was MISERABLE without her milk.

Last night was probably one of the worst nights.  She slept in her crib for about an hour and a half.  Then she moved into our bed.  And was up every 45 minutes.  If it wasn't her waking up because she was hot or thirsty, it was because the new kitty came in meowing or Mommy got a wicked tickle in her lung and had a coughing fit.

Poor Daddy has to work all day and got a really bad night's sleep.  And there's no napping for me today, since every opportunity afforded me (and hopefully there are plenty of naps - and long ones at that) will be spent showering and cleaning the kitty box and reviewing for this dreaded math placement test that I was led to believe I didn't have to take.  Oh well, nothing like waiting to enroll in the math class I NEED (that's only offered in the fall - and hopefully this is my last fall at Triton) to find out that the counselor effed up.  Lovely.

And here I am, first post in over a month, doing nothing but complaining.

Goodness me, I promise I'll try not to be so Negative Nancy next time.  Besides, it's not my fault - I also just realized I'm out of coffee. :(

(just because it seems so fitting)

Strawberry Summer Cake

A couple of weeks ago, in my stumbling via stumbleupon.com, I came across this amazing food blog.  The recipe that was displayed was for this beautiful looking strawberry summer cake.  And as amazing as it looked, I knew I needed to try it out.  (I should note, a very important factor in deciding whether I'm going to try a recipe or not is how many ingredients I need to buy - for this one, it was just the strawberries - win-win).

If you want to see the original recipe, head on over to Smitten Kitchen.  I'm going to repost is here, along with my picture of the beautiful finished product.

You will need:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for pie plate
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk (I used whole since that's what we have in the house because of Katie)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound strawberries, hulled and halved



-Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 10-inch pie pan or 9-inch deep-dish pie pan. I used a standard 9-inch pie pan, because this is what I had.  I noticed with my first attempt there was just a tad bit too much batter, and it spilled over the edges just a teensy bit.  Didn't affect the taste, obviously, but didn't look as pretty.  With my second attempt, I just left out about a 1/4 cup of the batter.  Worked wonderfully.
-Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy with an electric mixer, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. Add dry mixture gradually, mixing until just smooth.
-Pour into prepared pie plate. Arrange strawberries, cut side down, on top of batter, as closely as possible in a single layer (again, on my first attempt, I left a little bit of space.  This allowed the cake to swallow the strawberries into the cake.  Didn't look as pretty as I'd hoped, so with the second, I overlapped the strawberries so there was virtually no cake batter showing). Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.
-Bake cake for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes. (Gooey strawberries on the tester are a given.)
-Let cool in pan on a rack. Cut into wedges.

Here's my finished product:

Hello, Sunshine!

Wow, hard to believe it's been a full month since my last post!

Things have been a bit crazy, but crazy in a good way.

I finished last semester with yet another 4.0 GPA.  Now, normally I wouldn't brag about something like that, but since I'm a mom, a part-time worker, and a full-time student, I'd say that's a pretty big accomplishment and deserves a wee bit of bragging.

Katie is growing way too fast for my taste and she's discovering new things every single day.  Unfortunately, I can't find my camera battery charger so I don't really have any photos.  Fear not, though, for I just purchased a new one today from Amazon and it should be here by next week!  Hooray for summertime pictures!

Katie and I took our first trip to the pool a few days ago.  She absolutely adored it - couldn't stop going down the water slide and getting all upset when I made her get out to put more sunblock on.

We got some wicked colds this last week which just knocked us all pretty much completely out.  Daddy's on painkillers, so the last few days have been .... interesting, to say the least.

And as soon as the bug decides to wake up, we're getting right back out into the sunshine!!!!  Hurry up Katie, Mommy needs some vitamin D!

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 09

Day 9 - A song that you can dance to

Now, honestly, what song can you NOT dance to?  And exactly what kind of dancing are we talking here?  Are we talking slow, romantic dancing?  Silly, girlfriend dancing?  Mommy/daughter dance party, dancing?  Elaine Bennett dancing?

Le sigh.

Okay, I'm going with a song that I like to dance to with my darling, sweet Katie Mae, usually when she's not being darling, sweet Katie Mae, but incorrigible, tempter-tantrum-throwing Kathryn Mae.  I don't know if it's the repetition, the fact that Mommy can't help but sing along and therefore lose all lung power and proceed to mildly hyperventilate, or what, but this song gets the girl out of a funk like nobody's business.  And I apologize if I get it stuck in your head.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 08

Day 8 - A song you know all the words to

All right, here's what you need to know about me.  I am a lyrics queen.  I will listen to a song that I like SO many times that I know exactly what's being said.  And if I'm unsure, I look it up.  So, this one proved to be a bit challenging because there were so many to choose from.  However, there is one song that slowly crept into my mind until I thought, "well, shoot, I know all the words to that one - PLUS, it's kinda sorta a rap song, so it's even COOLER that I know all the lyrics."  Yeah, I'm a nerd.

Little backstory with it, though.  I can't remember exactly when I first heard this song, BUT I can tell you that the first time I really listened to it was when Sam and Artie performed it on Glee.  This is not making me look any cooler, I can already tell.  But then I grew a bit tired of the watered-down, G-rated version of the song and decided to really pay attention to the original.  And so here you are, for your viewing (they're both so cute) and listening pleasure:

Want to see a beautiful woman?

This is my grandmother, Estelle.  Unfortunately, I never got to meet her.  She died when my dad was still a teenager from lupus, a disease that essentially makes your body allergic to itself. 

I really wish I had gotten to meet her - doesn't she look like so much fun?  I don't know if you can really see it here, if this photo does her justice, but when I look at this picture, I see a woman lounging on the floor, bare feet, giving someone a piece of her mind or adamantly telling a story.

I got to go through some of her old jewelry today that my father has had up in his closet for ages, he thinks since about the time my parents got married (so about 30 years) ago.

I had so much fun going through all of her jewelry, imagining her getting all dolled up to go out with girlfriends or with my grandfather (although, from what I hear, that wasn't a regular occurrence).  The woman had style, I can tell you that.  Just knowing that some day that jewelry will probably be mine (hopefully, anyway, seeing as how I'm her only grandchild, the offspring of her only child), it just gives me thrills and chills.

And it's not the monetary aspect of it - the jewelry probably isn't worth much at all, it's all pretty much costume jewelry.  It's having a connection with a family member I never met, knowing that there were women in my family who did get dressed up to go out, who did wear jewelry (my mother and sister definitely are not fancy-schmancy people). 

My grandmother has always been my answer to the question "If you could have lunch with one person, dead or alive, who would it be?"  I'm fascinated by this woman.  It may be because I never met her.  It may be because of the stories I've heard about her.  It may be because my grandfather never remarried after she died so many years ago (and as far as I know, he never went on any dates, either).  I just feel like there's this grand romance when it comes to her.  Estelle.  My middle name.  In Hebrew, it translates to "star."  Go ahead and tell me she doesn't look like a star.  :)