easy parsley pesto

I talk a lot about how I compromise and substitute in my recipes here in Ethiopia.  I do this almost exclusively because an ingredient is simply unavailable.  But I've been thinking a lot about how substituting can simply be about using up what's already in your refrigerator.  If you are not living in a third world country, maybe you simply don't feel like going to the grocery store to get that ONE ingredient.  Swap it out for another.  This is what I did when I found a delicious pesto recipe and fresh basil was no where to be found.  Fresh bunches of parsley, on the other hand are always in my home.

Parsley Pesto with walnuts  (adapted from a recipe in the March issue of Real Simple)
1 lb Penne pasta (the ones with the lines in the sides so the pesto sticks well)
2 1/2 to 3 cups of flat parsley leaves
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
juice from a small lemon or lime
4 cloves garlic minced
5-6 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tspsalt
1/4 tsp pepper
about 1 cup ground pork, turkey, or Italian sausage

In a food processor pulse the parsley, walnuts, cheese, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper.  Slowly drizzle in a few tablespoon of the oil and pulse until combined.  Add more until the consistency is right.  Taste and adjust for salt or pepper if needed.  Set aside.

Brown the sausage in a skillet and break up into very small bits.  If not using Italian sausage add salt, pepper,  garlic powder and onion powder.  Just a little of each. Set aside.

Cook the pasta al dente and save 1 cup of the cooking water.  Add the sausage to the pasta in a large bowl and add a big dollop of pesto.  Add in a little of the pasta water and stir to coat.  Keep adding pesto and water until it's coated to your liking.

This pesto just gets better the next day.  You could definitely keep the pesto in a small jar in the refrigerator for a few days to let the flavors melt even more.  My girls thought the pesto was a bit too spicy from the garlic so next time I might add a tad less or try roasting the garlic first so the flavor is milder.  I don't know about you, but I like my pesto to have a sharp garlic flavor.  There was more for Justin and I that night which is just fine.

I served this pesto with prosciutto, date and caramelized onion flat bread.  The sweetness from the dates paired well with the pesto.  I won't insult your intelligence by typing out the "recipe" for this flat bread.  It's so darn easy.  Your favorite pizza dough recipe will do (just roll it out very thin). Here's my favorite dough. Saute onions with oil for long enough they start to caramelize and then spread on the dough along with the cooked prosciutto and chopped dates.  Bake until crispy!

The girls turned their noses up at the dates and onions on this flat bread.  Some night the kids just end up a little hungry after all is said and done.  I am a believer of making sure your dinner line up includes "adult" choices too.  In my house if my child squinches her nose up at what lies on their plate and says something like "I didn't want xyz,  I wanted abc!".  I quickly let said child know that I'm not only cooking for them.  There are other people who live in this family too!  Some nights I need grown up food.

moving past the bouncing

I recently experienced that precious breakthrough moment when my child prefers to just roll over and go to sleep for a nap instead of having Mama bounce her to sleep.  It happened with Ashlynn a week or so ago.  She's happily had me rock, cuddle and bounce her to sleep for her naps since she was born and for the most part I've been happy to do it.  Once the breakthrough happens I have to admit, I breath a huge sigh of relief.

I developed that new Mommy lower back pain from walking, bouncing, and rocking Addie to sleep when she was born.  With Bella I had knee pain from all the up and down jarring motions trying to soothe the un-soothable child.  Physically I was prepared for Ashlynn and all the bouncing that comes with a child in the first year.  The high altitude in Ethiopia has made my lungs stronger. I didn't feel strain from bouncing her in a physical sense. I felt more strain this time around with being needed elsewhere by my other kids.

Just as a disclaimer, I am well aware that some parents never bounce their kids to sleep for naps.  Some children are happy to soothe themselves to sleep by laying on their backs from day one.  Awesome!  Good for you.  It didn't work for us and I'm OK with that.  We let our kids scream it out for naps off and on through their first year of life.  I'm cool with letting them cry.  It worked for the most part.  I don't necessarily rock them all the way to sleep.  But definitely until they are drifting off.  In our family there is an unbelievable amount of child soothing that goes on in the first year of my children's lives and I am the one to do it ninety eight percent of the time.  Them's the shakes.

The great thing is that I'm on the tail end of this haul.  It's monumental to have reached this point with my third daughter.  She is ready to nap like a toddler and I am ready to give her a little snuggle, a kiss on her forehead, plop her down and tiptoe out of the door.  It happened at varying times with each daughter.  Addie maybe the earliest because she took a nap at daycare. Arabella took the longest and needed the most bouncing.  In all honesty Bella was the one who liked to be bounced the hardest with the largest motions (think lunges and squats with a baby in my arms) and under the loudest noises (the roaring exhaust fan above our stove in Manila).  Ashlynn was the easiest to bounce to sleep. She needed quiet but she always complied by closing her eyes and drifting off rather quickly.  With every one of them it was clear when they didn't need it anymore.

I know this sounds ridiculous but I decided to calculate just how much time I've spent over the last 5 years bouncing my babies.  It's a rough calculation but essentially I made a chart splitting up the girls' naps over the months and recorded how many minutes I'd bounce on average for each nap.

It's an average.  It doesn't take into account illnesses or teething that required longer bouncing sessions or the times I'd bounce them and lay them down then have to come back and do it again in 15 minutes after they screamed themselves silly.  It doesn't take into account easy days where they needed fewer than 10 minutes of bouncing before being put in their crib.  And If I were really being honest the numbers should just be doubled for Arabella.  This chart also doesn't take into account any bouncing to the girls to sleep for the night.  This is only for naps.

Anyway, the math nerd side of me felt a million times better after compiling this data.  I spent roughly 46,800 minutes bouncing my three daughters to sleep for their naps over the course of the three years that each of them were under one year old.  That's 780 hours or 32.5 days.  I have essentially spent an entire month of my life bouncing them to sleep. And the funny thing is, when you put it in terms of months it's only been one.  And one is an OK number.  I'd do one over again.

But let's just say I'm happy to be done bouncing (for the most part).  My knees and back will be pleased.  

thoughts on having a kindergartner

We are on week two of kindergarten and school is still on a shortened schedule for the three kindergarten classes at the International school where Addie is attending.  Meaning, she gets off at 1PM instead of the 2:50PM that will begin next week.  These first two weeks are meant to ease the kindergartners into the longer schedule.  Lord help me when the days are even longer than they are right now.  As it is, Addie is on the school bus at 7AM and not back home until 1:45PM.  Next week I won't see her until 4PM.  That's an eight hour day at school for my five year old.

Addie's adjusting well, loving her teacher and making new friends.  She's happy to get on the bus in the morning. She's still smiling when she comes through the front door in the afternoon.  I helper her get situated at the table for her snack and I sit down with her and we talk about her day.  She tells me about so-and-so and lunch time.  Play time outside. The girls getting chased and tackled by the boys (already?!)  Learning to sound out the "th" letter combination.  Creating cut out pictures of herself. Experiencing new situations with friends.  There are too many boys in her classroom, she says.  She learned the word "boyfriend" from another kid at school (already?!). Life is happening for my little girl at school. It all sounds very interesting and I love hearing her tell the tales. I  knew she'd do well, she's a very mature and responsible little girls but it's fun hearing the bits and pieces at the end of the day.  She's even good about passing on messages from Ms. Vicki. I'm getting flyers and notices about parent night, back to school supply requests, prepaid hot lunch cards...soon I'll be signing permission slips.

She starts to melt down about 4PM.  She's tired and voraciously hungry.  She bursts into tears about silly things and acts even more dramatic about situations with friends or her sisters. Her baby sister loves Bella more than her now.  Bella won't share! It's all my fault!  I don't feel happy about myself! Drama queen tendencies have clicked up a few notches for sure. She's passed out cold for the night at 6:30PM, even earlier sometimes.

Kindergarten is new for me too and I'm surprised at the feelings I am having.  I didn't realize how long she'd be gone from the house every day.  I'm mostly shocked at the realization that she's spending more time with her teacher, other grown ups and her peers than she is with her mother.  I'm filled with a strange mixture of pride, relief and sadness about having my first born off at school now.  She's learning to read and socially engaging in situations that will help her grow. A love for school and learning is hopefully blossoming from her experiences at kindergarten. It's all good stuff but putting my daughter in the hands of others for eight hours every day has me feeling a little left out.

I know it's normal to feel this way.  I know I'm not the first mother to have these revelations about kindergarten but I'm still navigating this new life my daughter is having.  I'm trying to sort it all out.  Now, I feel guilty for mentally rolling my eyes when other mothers (with older children in school) would say things about not wanting to put their youngest in preschool yet because they still want them at home with them during the day. When they hit kindergarten; off they go.  I guess I get it now.  Maybe I'll be slower to enroll Ashlynn in preschool because of this revelation.  I guess time will tell.

It's hitting me how very important it is to have my child in the very best school with the very best teachers.  She's with these people all day long.  The influence they have on her is vast and I have an urge to somehow ensure the greatness of her classroom and learning experience.  I guess it's the Mama Bear in me trying to give her the very best.

Part of me wants to go to her classroom after hours and hang pretty lanterns and fabric garland around the room and deliver soft colorful pillows for the library.  It's silly and yet I can't help but imagine transforming the classroom into a beautiful oasis for my daughter to be immersed in at school.

I guess this is where people will tell me it's time to let go...maybe just a little bit.  

the nana fairy

Arabella had a serious obsession with her pacifiers.  She's never been able to soothe herself and took to her "nana" like it was an appendage.  We hated the nana and at the same time thanked our lucky stars she was comforted by it.  If I counted up all the time we've spent searching our homes for the stupid little rubber things or looking under tables at restaurants, under the seats of the car, in boxes, under beds...it would probably equal two weeks of our life. Maybe more. Just finding the nanas.  I've probably spent $50 over the years on replacements.  At age two nana had been downgraded to naps and bedtime. No more carting it with us or using it out of the bedroom.  But still, we spent countless nights woken by Bella's screams because she'd misplaced nana in her bed sheets?

It was time for nana to go.  We'd been preparing Bella for the nana fairy's arrival for months now.  Mostly as a threat when we were furious because we'd given her a pacifier and two seconds later it had been lost again.  But the preparations were in place.  Her third birthday was D-day.  I started getting nervous about D-day because I didn't want to ruin her B-day.  I was expecting at least two night of crying herself to sleep.  I'd been preparing to let Addie sleep in the guest room until Bella got over the trauma.

Last week I took all her Soothie pacifiers and put them in a box.  I gave her one strange newborn Nuk type pacifier she wasn't used to and told her she could use this one until the nana fairy came on her birthday.  She seemed OK with it.  The next day I asked her if she was ready for the fairy to come and if there was something special she wanted the fairy to leave her.  She said "Barney".  She's been talking about a stuffed Barney doll for her birthday for weeks.  Lucky for us we had one waiting for her birthday.  That night she handed over all her pacifiers and set them in the box on the coffee table.  Addie requested that the nana fairy not be allowed to come in their bedroom to retrieve the pacifiers.  Fair enough.

That night she fell asleep and slept through the entire night without her nanas.  No crying or fussing or issues.  Justin and I couldn't believe our luck.  The next morning she was thrilled to see her Barney doll and hasn't asked about her nanas since.  Piece of cake.

It was time and she knew it.  We are so proud of our Bella Bean.  Now that the nanas are gone, for whatever reason she seems to have grown up even more.  It's only been a few days but it has made a difference.  I think she's proud to be a big girl.  

3, that's all folks

I'm struggling with the mixed emotions of having my last child.  Ashlynn is our third daughter and we've had three kids in mind since we started talking about having children.  So here we are.  The third one is almost 6 months old and it's hard to believe that 5 years ago it was just the two of us.  It's hard to digest that in such a short amount of time I've had three pregnancies, three births and three beautiful daughters.  I guess it's hard to digest that phase of motherhood being over for me.  It's easy to forget all the rough parts of pregnancy and birth when I'm snuggling Ashlynn in my arms and she's babbling at me with complete adoration in her eyes.  I don't want to be pregnant again and yet it's still difficult to let go of that idea.

Three kids is considered a large family these days.  We've had multiple people assume we have a large family for certain religious beliefs.  It makes Justin and I giggle because three kids isn't all that many.  For good reason we've decided that three is a good amount for our family.  Now that Ashlynn is with us I feel like our family is complete.

Mothering an infant with a toddler and little girl is hard work.  The hardest work I've ever done.  Maybe not as hard as it will be when they are all teenagers but for now I'm pretty wiped most days.  Justin and I love having three kids.  It feels right.  Work, but the good kind of work we get to do together.

Last week I pulled out all the baby clothes Ashlynn's outgrown.  All the newborn size as well as the 3months and 3-6 months size is too small for Ash now.  I've been thrilled at the idea that once she's outgrown something we can give it away.  Thrilled with the idea until I actually did it.  I put a huge box together of all the adorable tiny clothing and sent it two doors down to the American family that is having their first baby girl this summer.  It didn't hit me until the box had left my arms and I received a thank you text from the expectant mom that I was saying goodbye to the newborn stage.  Never again would I be filling the dresser with tiny little onesies and footie pajamas in expectation of a new baby arriving.  It was heartbreaking.  I'm shocked at the emotions I have about it.  Even as I write this my eyes are filling with tears thinking about being past the newborn stage of my third and last child.  Maybe I was thrilled with the theoretical idea of purging our storage of baby gear, toys and clothing.  In theory it was liberating.  In reality I'm sad.

Even more ridiculous is the fact that I'm still deep in the trenches of mothering my baby girl.  I am exhausted from lack of sleep, breastfeeding , battling night wakings and teething.  Even in the thick of it all I am having an emotional battle with it being the last time.  Lord help me when we get rid of the crib.  

Remind me how hard this is

Ashlynn was such a great sleeper.  Key word-WAS. Right up until she hit 4 months.  Her big sisters gave her a virus and at the same time she started teething pretty intensely.  While she was sick she barely let me lay her down to sleep.  As the cold passed the night waking didn’t.  Teething the first tooth is a long drawn out ordeal with the gums swelling, the tooth coming up and receding over and over.  Just as expected her gums on the bottom have been bothering her off and on.  Sometimes so much that she refuses to nurse from the pain or lay down from a throbbing head.  Other times her gums are fine.  We’ve recently passed a bad few days of teething and the night waking was just getting worse.  Teething can no longer be my excuse for why she isn’t sleeping well.  Something had to change. 

Last week I reached my breaking point.   Ashlynn was waking up at night every two hours, often every hour.  I was so tired I was bursting into tears in the middle of the day. It was time to teach Ashlynn how to soothe herself to sleep for her naps and let her cry it out at night. I’m certain I’m mostly to blame for this night waking habit.  When she’s sick and teething she cries out and I go to her, pick her up, nurse and cuddle her. Every time.  At 4 months my baby girl turned into a conscious child with much more going on upstairs.  Surely she’s smart enough to put two and two together.  I cry-Mom comes.  This is my third kid.  How am I at this breaking point once again?  It’s almost the same time as with Bella too.  You’d think I would have seen this coming.  I guess I thought we’d bypass this phase since Ashlynn was such a good sleeper up until this point. 

Project cry-it-out started last Friday.   I’d really  hoped to avoid this stage with my third baby.  It’s excruciating to listen to her cry and not go to soothe her.  Success happened quickly though.  By day two she was putting herself to sleep for her naps by sucking her thumb or pacifier.  I put her in her crib after a few minutes of pre-nap rocking, she cries for a few minutes and then goes to sleep.  Today I put her down awake and she didn't’ even cry; just rolled over and went to sleep.  She’s taking three, one hour naps each day and I’m not loosing my mind trying to rock her to sleep before each nap.  A tiny bit of my sanity is back.

The night time game plan gave me more anxiety.   Ashlynn has no trouble putting herself to sleep for the night.  Each night she nurses and is asleep by 6:30-7PM.  Typically she wakes up about 3 hours later to nurse again.  This feeding I don’t mind.  It’s the waking every one to two hours after that I can’t handle.  On Friday night, as predicted she woke for her first feeding around 10PM.  Also predictably, she woke one hour after that crying for no apparent reason.  I let her cry.  Scream really.  Justin said the sound could be used to torture soldiers.  Thirty eight minutes later she had put herself to sleep.  It was terrible and I was in tears at the end.  But she slept for three hours until she woke for her second feeding.  Success!    The second night she cried for 40 minutes, the third night just 3 minutes, and every night after it’s a bit of fussing and then she sucks her thumb and goes back to sleep.  That means I’m getting four hour blocks of sleep instead of less than two hours.  I cannot tell you how much this has improved my outlook on life.  The next step is to eliminate the 5:30AM wake up. She generally doesn’t nurse much so I know she isn’t hungry.  I’ll take the small successes and work on this next. 

My sleep training bible is Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby.  It helped quite a bit with Arabella and I pulled it out last week to review my game plan for training Ashlynn.  I don’t think any book can really give parents the answers for how to let your child learn to soothe themselves but this book gave me the right ideas.  It’s all about tailoring it to your comfort and style as a parent.  I have a hard time stomaching the crying but with every baby I reached a point of no return.  Either the kid had to sleep more or mama is going to loose her mind from exhaustion.  I definitely recommend this book for new parents.  It’s usually my baby shower gift for friends. 

The good news is that Ashlynn seems more rested when she wakes up in the morning.  We’re moving towards a good three nap per day schedule.  She’s getting three naps each day it’s just extremely variable as to when and how long the naps are.  On the days that she naps well she also sleeps better at night with less crying. 

I’m really excited with how quickly she caught on and started soothing herself back to sleep without my help.  I’m always hesitant to start sleep training with my kids this young.  I feel really guilty about making them cry it out.  In the end my need for sleep helps me dive right in and get’er done.  I just need someone to remind me about all this 3 years from now when I miss having a baby in the house. Please!  Someone remind me how hard this is!

planes, trains and automobiles

I've never pushed gender specific toys in my house. I was a little girl who loved making mud piles with my Tonka trucks in dirt, but I also had a love affair with Barbie (still do). Adelaide seems to be joining the princess ranks without any help from us. She really loves dolls, her Barbies, dress-up, and anything pretty. Just this morning she admired herself in the mirror in her favorite pink dress for school and said to me "Mommy, when I wear my dress, I look like this (smiling in the mirror) and I think I look pretty." (LORD help us-she's not even 4). I of course explained to her that she's beautiful inside and out no matter what she's wearing; it's her heart that matters. She ran to pick out her fancy dress shoes and socks to match.

Arabella is a very different child with varying interests. She's still very young of course. On one hand she loves playing with her big sister (it's all about Addie); pushing doll strollers and rocking her baby dolls in her arms. She has also inherited a love for shoes from her mother and most of the time walks around in her panties and a pair of cool shoes. Nothing else. She is in love with Barney, Elmo and right now the big thing is Ernie from Sesame Street (Aunt Meg's favorite). Her real love is airplanes but she'll take trains or school buses too. We have a wooden train set that we got for Christmas which is probably my favorite toys to get out and build little cities with. Addie and I will build homes out of Duplos for her PlayMobil princesses that live next to the tracks. I love building bridges on the risers and letting the little trains stop to offload their cargo. Don't get me started about that little piece of track that twirls so the trains can change directions. I'm a total nerd about the train set.Yesterday Arabella's attention span reach great new lengths. We sat together for at least an hour playing with the train set. I've given up on the elaborate train tracks with overpasses and bridges and cargo stations for her. All she wants is a ramp so the trains can go up and down and a half circle of track. She's a bit of a bulldozer so I'm still reassembling the ramp and risers fifty trillion times in an hour. Towards the end of our hour she discovered that she can put the track together like a puzzle. She proceeded to build her own track until all the pieces were gone and I just undid what she had done to give her a new length of track to place at her end. She was in heaven.I love watching my daughters develop their own set of preferences. I love Addie's passionate stance on being a Mommy as what she wants to be when she grows up. And from the looks of how she bounces her baby doll on her hip she's going to be a pretty darn good one. I love that Bella can choose to love completely different things if she wants. Fighter pilot seems like a good future career path for this little girl right now. As long as the uniform is panties and shoes.