You Capture: SKY

So the first thing I thought of when I saw that the "You Capture" theme this week was "sky," was work.

But wait, you say. 

You work in a cubicle.

On a large corporate campus.

In the middle of suburbia.

I know, I know.  But hear me out.

I work about 25 miles away from where I live, and every day my commute takes me from my Urban-with-a-capital-U neighborhood in Minneapolis, across the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge.  The road is essentially a high bridge over this marshy wetland/river valley.

And from this high point, before decending into the valley,

I can see A LOT of sky.

I also go past Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.  Not just by it, but right under the primary approach/take-off-path of the two main runways. 

Now I don't know about you, but I am facinated by planes.  If your timing is just right, you can see a plane, coming or going, extremely close-up.  I spend a lot of time gazing up towards the sky on this part of the drive. 

{Given how distracted I am by the planes anyway, I thought it would be a bad idea to add to that distraction by trying to take a picture, so you will just have to use your imagination}

This is the view from my parking spot.  Well, it is not technically my parking spot, but it is where I park.  Everyday.

The building I work in is in the other direction.  It is about a two-block walk.

I enjoy the walk. Except in winter (hello, this is Minne-so-ta). Most days I look over the expanse of pavement of our parking lots (enough to hold cars for almost 7,000 employees) and greive for the lost priarie.  What an environmental disaster.  It  could not have been that much more expensive to build a parking ramp. 

I digress.

So, here is the view half way to my building. 

I work in a maze of cubicles, but I am lucky enough to have a window.

Here is my view.

And on my way home from work (or anywhere for that matter) there is a particular view that always tells me "I'm home."

The Minneapolis Skyline.  With Skyscrapers.

If you are visiting from I Should Be Folding Laundry, thanks for stoping by, and please leave a comment and vote for me over there -----> if you are so inclined.

These pictures kinda suck because I took them with my cell phone camera.  To see more quality renditions of "Sky" check out You Capture.

Sick babies...

If you ask me, there is nothing more sad than a sick baby. 

Except, maybe, a sick baby in a hospital gown.

This picture is from our trip to the ER back in February when Oliver had RSV, Croup and an Ear Infection.

Unfortunately, we made another trip to the ER recently.  Oliver had been sick with a cold, it got worse and after a couple of days of fever we took him to the doctor, and he was diagnosed with a double ear-infection.  He was prescribed some anti-biotics and after a few days seemed to be doing better.  We finished the anti-biotics. Then he took a turn for the worse.  He had several days of fever around 102-103.  Thursday evening, my baby was not looking so good.  We kept him on tylenol but his fever went up, and up, and up.  When he woke at 5:00 am Friday morning he was on fire and his temp was 105.4--GULP! 

That is S-C-A-R-Y range.

So we dressed quickly and headed to Children's of Minneapolis.  Oliver was an extremly sleepy baby, and while we didn't get much rest, Oliver made himself comfortable.

 

Sleeping peacefully.  Too bad it didn't last.

The doctor came in and took a look, his ears were still infected, but not bad enough to explain the super high fever.  She explained that she wanted to do a blood culture, and urine culture and maybe a chest X-ray.  The nurse would be in shortly to get a urine sample and a blood sample.

Oh.

Ok.

Wait...

How do you get a urine sample from an infant?

With a catheder!?!

Oh my poor baby!  My poor, sweet, sick, uncomfortable-enough-without-anyone-sticking-a-tube-up-his-yoohoo-thank-you-very-much, baby!

Now, I have a lot of respect for nurses, they do very noble work.  But I wanted to throttle those nurses.  THEY WERE HURTING MY BABY!

 I just about died as I watched them pin my baby down and do their business to his business.  And the screaming.  The red-faced, body-shaking, voice-quivering screaming.  We were both seriously traumatized by it, so much so that it took me almost a week to get my wits about me enough to write this post. After all the torture, I nursed him, and he cuddled with Papa until he fell back asleep like this:

The good news is, nothing was seriously wrong. Diagnosis is probable virus that slowed the ability of the anti-biotics to do their thing.  More anti-biotics and time should do the trick.

I am so sad for my baby that he has been in the hospital three times now (when he was 4 months old he had two inguinal hernias repaired, and the RSV incident discussed above), but I am SO grateful that each time it was for relatively minor things.  Overall I have a healthy, happy baby and a Mama couldn't ask for anything more.

BYOP

Bring Your Own Plant.

I have some really great people who live on my block, and last Tuesday a couple of those neighbors hosted a meet and greet for the neighborhood (many of us are relatively new). 

Instead of your typical Minnesota get-together where everyone brings a "salad" (why we insist on calling any cold side-dish a salad--even when there is nothing green in it-- I will never understand) they suggested a seedling exchange.  What a great idea!  The timing was perfect for us because we are putting up a fence and I'm going to be busy landscaping.

I brought lupine seedlings, and I took home this:

I love perenniels, once you get the planning and planting done, you can have blooms all summer, year after year with a relatively small amount of work.

While I enjoyed myself perusing the seedlings and chatting up the neighbors, Oliver had fun swinging with Papa.

Oliver also got to hang out with his buddy Henry (who is just 10 days older than Oliver!)

Henry is such a sweet baby, and I am majorly jealous of his hair--just LOOK at it!  Oliver looks like he wishes he had hair like Henry's too!

The visit was shorter than we would have liked.  While Henry had just woken up from a nap, Oliver was overdue for one.  Which is probably why we had such a hard time getting them to look at the camera at the same time, let alone coaxing a smile out of both of them.

Exhibit A:

Not to mention I was working so hard to try to get them to crack a smile that I neglected the composition of my photos...

Exhibit B:

But I did manage to get this one.

p.s. Piglet has outgrown his nickname... I'm going to have to think of a new one.  We've been calling him stinky, but he actually responds to it more than Oliver so we are going to have to quit...

Odds 'n Ends

I was going through my pictures this week and found these cuties!

{look how little he was!}

DIY Baby Food

When I was pregnant, and reading and learning about all things baby, there are a lot of things I said I would or would not do. 

"I will not give my baby a pacifier."  I did.

 "I will not let my baby cry-it-out."  I did (but I hated every minute of it, so it doesn't count). 

"I will use only cloth diapers."  True, except for the "only" part. 

I will breastfeed.  I do. 

I will make my own baby food.  I do.

It is really much easier than I thought it would be.  Last night I made some lentil blends for Piglet.  Start with some basic ingredients:

In this case I used a mirepoix (mira pwa).  That is french for carrot, onion and celery.  Well, it probably translates more elegantly than that but google translator was no help.  Where was I?  Oh, mirepoix sauted in EVOO.

Next, stir in a pound of lentils, 3 cups of chicken stock, three cups of water, a bay leaf and a table spoon of cumin.  What?  Your baby doesn't eat cumin? Piglet has a very sophisticated palate (that was an inside joke for one of my readers--you know who you are) one of his favorite things I've made is curried carrots.  He didn't care for broccoli though.  Apparently you are not supposed to feed little ones broccoli.  He got a rash.

So, back to the baby food.  Let it all simmer for about 20 minutes.  It should look like this:

Then you let it cool off.  Seriously, it is not fun (and sometimes dangerous) to try to blend hot things.  While you wait for it to cool you could do what I did and grab a glass of wine and curl up with your favorite blogs.  Or you could grab some wine now.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

Oh, thanks for coming back!  So way up at the begining of this post you might remember that I said I was making lentil blends.  I also cooked up a bag of frozen peas, some sweet potatoes and Grandpa Mike's organically grown green beans.  Then, you blend. It is easiest if you work in small batches, and add just a bit of water to help get things going.

 

I use these little glad containers for food storage. 

They are the perfect size for baby portions.  The down-side, they are plastic, which means I prefer not to microwave them.  But it is easy enough to run them under water for a few seconds and then put the baby-food-cicle into a microwave safe dish.

Six or so small batches later and you've got a whole lotta baby food. 

Not bad for an hour of work.

Now, where to put it all...  Uh-oh.  Mama needs a new freezer.

Thanks for dinner, Mama!

A moving target

Now that Piglet is mobile, this is what happens every time I get down on the floor to try to snap some pictures of him.

A cap, a gown, and sweet, sweet revenge.

I didn't mean to let Mother's Day come and go without a post, but it has been a busy few days around here.

We had a fantastic weekend. Not only was it Mother's Day, but it was also Andy's graduation (Master's Degree number two, thankyouverymuch).  We made it our first "family vacation" and headed down to Winona for the festivities.  Piglet and I are very proud!

{Don't they look handsome!  And alike!}

Piglet got a little bored and restless during the ceremony.  It's safe to say that his favorite part of the whole shindig was Papa's nifty hat.

Piglet tried it on for size, luckily he has some time to grow into it.

After a celebratory dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, we went back to our hotel room and relaxed.  I watched the twins game.  Andy and Piglet played.  You may have read previously here and here about Andy making Piglet laugh by blowing raspberries and giving kisses.  This weekend the tables were turned.

I like to call this picture "Revenge of the Piglet"

Here is a closer look at Andy getting a taste of his own medicine:

*Sorry about the grainy pictures in this post, they were taken with a cell phone camera*

My Mother's Day was lovely.  Lunch with Andy's folks, dinner with my dad and some lovely and generous gifts.  The only shadow on the day is the fever piglet developed, fortunately his is fine.

You Capture: Spring

Spring: v. To move upward or forward in a single quick motion or a series of such motions; leap.

 

Now head over to I Should Be Folding Laundry to see other interpretations of Spring!

Apples and a little head

Broccoli?  No Problem.

Peas?  Yes please!

Green beans?  Keep 'em coming.

Apples?  Blech!

On another note, Piglet went to the doctor today.  He is in the 70th percentile for height, the 50th percentile for weight, and the 20th percentile for head size.  Now that you mention it... that head does look small!

Piglet's new hobby

Now that Piglet is mobile, he has a new favorite hobby--Mama-climbing:

Piglet at the start of his journey:

Note the can-do attitude:

But Mama-climbing is exhausting, Piglet needs to stop for a rest:

Preparing to summit:

Victory!

Next up, Papa Peak!

Forward motion

I appologize for the quality of the video, but this was the first time I saw Piglet crawl (lunge?), and I didn't want to risk loosing his

cooperation to fix the lighting.  Enjoy!