The New Most Popular Meal in My Life

It's fast, it's easy, it's bland, and it has been one of the only things I could/can consistently stomach for the last 2.5 months. Drum roll......

Special K

Skim Milk

See, I did have a legitimate one month long stomach bug. Then followed it up with the first trimester of our new pregnancy. We've got a new baby coming this summer! And I'm so excited that I've made myself sick over it. Or something like that. I'm hoping at 13.5 weeks I am on the other side of this badness. The absolute worst of it was around weeks 7 and 8. But I still had Special K for dinner 3 out of the last 7 nights of the week. And since I sometimes have it for breakfast too, I'm feeling pretty special. 

Today might be a turning point... I was home with L, we had an appt in the morning with her prospective preschool 2s program (seriously? I know. I had no idea.), and hit the grocery store this afternoon. Then I made dinner and semi straightened up the house before S came home. Things like this have not been happening lately. AND I think I might eat the dinner I made and just say no to my special friend. Progress. 

L has no idea what is about to hit her. She is just busy being busy and getting SUPER excited about the littlest and most fantastic things. What she is not excited about is the "I'm a Big Sister" book she got for Christmas. I now have about 30 pictures of her ignoring the book. Here are a few.

"Please take this away while I look at my owl book with no pants on."

This one took about 2 minutes of asking her to come see me and then asking her "where's the baby?" After she pointed to the baby she threw the book on the ground and ran away.

In a last ditch effort I set the book up like this and tried to get one of her walking up behind it. Out of absolutely nowhere, she did a somersault and I captured her mid flip. This was the winner.

So here we go! I'm hoping my cooking is going to pick up while my deathly ill feelings die down. We are really looking forward to meeting the fourth member of our family. Pregnant with a toddler is REAL LIFE. Wow. But I'm in it to win it. 

-RT

Popularity Challenged: A Recap

I have yet to figure out the key to what makes one blog post more popular than another. Sometimes I write a post I really like and it bombs. Then I'll try to crank something out when I'm tired and just want to sleep. I'll think it is awful but people will really like it. I have a lot of special powers behind the scenes thank to blogger. I can see the popularity of my posts based on specific clicks. So really this isn't an overall basis of who saw them, but who clicked on a direct link. Either way, let's recap my four least popular posts. I'm trying to learn something here. 

Least Popular Post 1: Chicken, Mango, and Avocado Summer Salad

I love this salad. I reread the post. It was from June and I think I was still working out some kinks. But really, cook this salad. It is so good. It might not be right for this time of year, but it was 90 degrees today in Houston, so there is a time and a place for everything. 

Case of the Mondays with Antihistamines. Not good.

Least Popular Post 2: Under the Influence of Antihistamines 

This one is just bad. So... sorry about that. It makes sense that it is least read. Don't even bother clicking above. It's three paragraphs of complaints. 

Heroic

Least Popular Post 3: Pretending to Be an Indian Olympian 101

I really liked this post, and BONUS we had this for dinner tonight. I LOVE Maya Kaimal's Indian Simmer sauces and talked about the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and what a huge joke Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera were. I still think all of those things. This was probably one of the ones that I really liked that just didn't get a killer reaction.

This one. LOVE

Least Popular Post 4: I is for Independence: Two Days of Hard Fought Ladybug Meals

So here I'm pretty sure I know what happened. Everyone who didn't have a kid was like "why the eff would I read this." That's true. But I still like this post for parents. If you have a toddler you know what it's like to have a few stressful days when they start getting picky with food or start to assert their independence. Reading this was like a trip down memory lane. It's crazy how quickly things change. Landy had her first meal at the big table tonight not in her high chair. This post was just two months ago. 

So here is your chance if you want to give feedback. Not on what is above, but on the blog in general. Do you want more or less of anything? I've been trying to work on the length of my posts because I can go off and type and type and type and type and type and type and type and.... you see where this is going. I would love to have some more guest posts from friends (HINT HINT). 

We've been cooking a lot lately, and that is pretty easy blog material. I have also undertaken fitness regiments for this blog. Wait for that on Friday. It's been four months since this whole blog journey began. I'm having a great time so far. Hope you are too! 

-RT

What's for Dinner? A Lecture.

What if I told you I knew about something that would make you thinner AND do your dishes for you? (Grill companies, feel free to steal this marketing ploy from me.) My grilling obsession is getting to a point where I find myself becoming hostile when grills are blatantly marketed to men. When you do an image search for grills, 75% of what pops up is this:

Buy this apron for your favorite DB

That being said, if people are coming to our house and bringing food to grill, S is in charge. The accountability of ruining someone else's dinner and me do not go well together. Maybe you have heard the term "Happy Wife, Happy Life" or maybe you whisper it into your husband/boyfriend's ear 20 times every night after he goes to sleep. I can't think of anything catchy, but someone should come up with something similar about knowing your grill and enjoying cooking more. Like "Know your Grill, Eat your Fill." Copyright, Trademark.

This grill looks pretty happy, but would likely be happier if it was an automatic gas grill.

This is a quick one to show you how you can make an entire dinner on the grill and not have any pots, pans, or baking sheets to wash afterward. I tossed a small side salad in a cereal bowl for some greens, but you could also throw some asparagus on the grill. We just didn't have any this night. Grills are like cooking at home HEAVEN. They save you calories and fat you would get from pan frying. The grill makes fire, the fire cooks the food, the fire cleans the grill. Fire good. Scrubbing pots bad.

Starting out with drumsticks, sweet potato and eggplant.

After the veggies have been flipped and the chicken has been turned a little

The veggies are ready and when the chicken was fully cooked we basted it with a homemade bbq sauce

Fresh spinach and tomato salad with olive oil and vinegar dressing

And there it is. Dinner.

 If you love doing dishes, raise your hand (KWG, put your hand down). Now that we all have our hands down...... Sometimes dishes are totally worth it. I love making salads in my salad bowl so I don't mind washing it by hand after. Other times I would rather run two miles after dinner in 90 degree heat than do the dishes, but my extreme fear of roaches and vermin gets the better of me. And S peer pressures me into it. Peers. Ugh.

What I love about this blog is that I actually get great feedback from friends and a few have told me that they recently manned the grill for the first time and that kind of thing makes me smile. This will be my last post dedicated to convincing women to grill (I'll just harp on it lightly from now on) but grilling is a major part of what makes cooking fresh food at home easy. The food we put on the grill is always in the form that we purchased it (or post cleaning and prepping).

Closing tidbit is just a reminder that even if you are on a budget, cooking at home is a less expensive and healthier way to feed your family than other options you might think are saving you money. This was kind of shocking to me:

So one last harping post, get to know your grill! It will make you thinner, it will do your dishes for you, and the heat will give your cheeks a nice natural flush. You see, the third secret is.... grilling is sexy. 

Lots of things could be going on here. I choose to not comment on any of them.

 What else do I need to do to convince you? It's almost soup and stew season so get your butt in gear the next few months and you'll be ready to grill like a pro next March when it's 85 degrees in Texas. 

-RT

Eating Organic, Supporting Local Farmers & Kitten Eggs

This almost makes me want to be a farmer. ALMOST.

I don't recall thinking very much about organic vs non organic until I was put in charge of a tiny little person and her diet. All of a sudden it became important to me to know where my food was coming from and when I brought it into my home, what that food was bringing with it. First let's get something straight, I TRY to do my best when it comes to the food we eat. As much as I wish I could do my weekly grocery shopping at Whole Paycheck Foods and buy all organic, that is just not realistic to our family budget. So living in our real life, we do the best we can, and if I have to buy some things non organic that I would rather not, I don't sweat about it. The one thing I often find with organic products (like baby food in a jar or pouch, applesauce, etc) is that the ingredient list is pretty basic. Instead of having a baby food jar of bananas that has 4 - 5 ingredients, you get the following ingredients: bananas, water. That is what is most important to me. Trying to stick to real food when I can, but having my cheating moments (usually with wine, cookies, or ice cream).

A friend recently sent me an article from The New York Times headlined "Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce" and I was like hmmmm. The article discussed how a Stanford study found there to be little to no difference in nutritional value of organic vs non organic food. The problem is, I never knew that people actually thought that. The items I eat organic I choose because of pesticides, not because I think it will be better for me nutritionally. Other good news from this study: Organic milk not only lasts for two months, it also has more omega-3 fatty acids than non organic milk. Double bonus.

Happy cows don't lie. Also a great way to teach your toddler to say "moo!"

I don't really care if my meat or poultry is organic, but I have always worried about meat being hormone free. I know at least 10 girls who have had early puberty... like getting their period in the fourth grade early. To be fair, experts say that there are a number of reasons why girls are experiencing early puberty. To achieve puberty, girls must have a certain BMI, and one of the better theories says that because women are now exposed to better nutrition at an earlier age, they experience puberty earlier. The more popular train of thought is that kids are fatter and as the obesity rate increases, so does the rate of girls maturing sooner than normal. Even knowing this, along with the fact that food hormones, once consumed, are digested in the stomach, killing their ability to have any biological activity. I still don't want hormones in my food. So there.

Added growth hormones are about to enter your body.... Arm yourself.

In a perfect world everyone would be able to afford fresh, pesticide free produce. Unfortunately, pesticides have a purpose, and when it is used farmers yield more crops. Organic farming yields less crops, comes from fewer farmers, and so it is more expensive. I try to do the best than I can within my means.

Step one is supporting local farmers and growers. When possible, head to your local farmer's market. They are in EVERY CITY now. We have one in Houston almost every day of the week except Sunday, but there is probably one on Sunday somewhere. I really like the Urban Harvest Market on Saturday Mornings. If you are going to pay to buy organic, AND you can support local farmers while doing it, it's a win win.

Step two is about knowing your budget and having realistic expectations of what you can afford. Eating what is in season is a great way to stick to your budget, but there are also some organic foods that are a complete waste of your money. The pesticide count on certain non-organics is so low, that buying the organic version has almost no benefit. You can save that money to buy organic when it comes to the produce with the highest pesticide counts. That is where the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen come in. The Dirty Dozen are the fruits and vegetables that are the most contaminated with pesticides. By simply buying these 12 organic, you can substantially lower your pesticide intake. The Dirty Dozen includes (in order of most contaminated to least): Apples, Celery, Sweet Bell Peppers, Peaches, Strawberries, Imported Nectarines, Grapes, Spinach, Lettuce, Cucumber, Domestic Blueberries, and Potatoes (not sweet potatoes though). Leafy greens and green beans are also high on the pesticide count, but "The Dirty Fourteen" just doesn't sound as cool. I buy organic Kale always, it is almost the same price at HEB.

On the flip side, the Clean Fifteen are fifteen fruits and veggies with the lowest pesticide count, meaning you don't need to buy them organic. Especially handy for household budgets. They include: Onions, Sweet Corn, Pineapple, Avocado, Cabbage, Sweet Peas, Asparagus, Mango, Eggplant, Kiwi, Domestic Cantaloupe, Sweet Potatoes, Grapefruit, Watermelon, and Mushrooms. A really good variety and lots of kid friendly foods the whole family can eat.

My last food hang up is eggs. I pay too much for eggs because I want to buy the package that says "humanely raised in fields of loving soft grasses from Hens who have pet kittens to snuggle with at night." Those dozen eggs cost about $4.50. Worth it.

Best friends = Best Eggs

The Rooster was busy elsewhere...

 Seriously... you don't have to be a cat person to love kittens. Get over yourself. Kittens are for lovers. Kitten eggs are expensive, but completely worth it.

The point of this post, while taking some twists and turns, is that you don't have to be all or none when it comes to making decisions about the food you eat. What are you willing to compromise on and what do you support strongly? I suggest that everyone look into the food they are eating and find a good balance. While you are finding a good balance, also look for a local farmer's market. Supporting you local farmers is good for you community and good for your health. Eating what's in season (what the farmer's are growing) is cost effective and produce picked fresh and sold within days has so much more flavor!

- RT

10 Reasons to Eat Breakfast & Better for You Easy Oatmeal

There isn't much that I don't love about breakfast. If you can dream up a breakfast item, I probably have a deep infatuation with it or it holds a special place in my heart. Pancakes for dinner, fried eggs, sausage, bacon, waffles, kolaches, donuts, breakfast tacos, breakfast casserole, scones, bangers and mash, home fries, grits, croissants, eggs  benedict (or sardou), quiches, etc, etc, etc. It is all delicious but most of it goes into the "treats" category or at least certainly not in the every morning category. Then there are things like fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, egg beaters, that make up the more every day fare. 

It's a joke fruits.. you know I love you.

I am on a somewhat new quest to discover faster and easier ways to get a better breakfast. For those of you that don't eat breakfast, stop being idiots. Coffee and diet coke do not count as a breakfast meal. Here are 10 fantastic reasons to eat breakfast every day, provided by TheDailyMeal.com.*

 1. Brain-Boosting Powers

As you stare off into space at your work desk, you may wonder why you can't focus on a darn thing. The fact that you started your day off with just two sips of coffee may be the reason. After a night of fasting, your brain needs a fresh supply of glucose (blood sugar) for fuel. Without it, you'll have trouble processing new information, have issues with physical understanding, and won't remember much.

2. Get Essential Nutrients

Your morning meal is fortified with nutrients that your body needs to function healthily each day. Nutrients like folate, iron, B vitamin, fiber, and other essentials are only gained through food, and while the body can always use its stored recesses to make it to the next meal, that initial burst of essentials is never provided without eating breakfast.

  

3. Help Your Heart

Making sure to get breakfast in your system does more than keep you awake — it promotes a healthy heart by preventing diabetes and lowering blood pressure. Those who skip breakfast tend to have higher cholesterol levels, a major risk factor for heart disease. Breakfast eaters tend to get less fat and more fiber in their diets, which leads to less overeating and fewer unhealthy snacks between meals.

4. Reduce Metabolic Syndrome

Instead of loading up on a heavy dinner, start your day off with a grand meal at breakfast time. Doing so may help prevent metabolic syndrome disorders like obesity and insulin resistance. A study in the International Journal of Obesity examined the type of foods and specific timing of consumption that resulted in metabolic syndrome characteristics in mice. Mice that were fed a meal higher in fat after waking had normal metabolic profiles, while mice that ate more carbohydrates in the morning and consumed a high-fat meal at the end of the day showed increased weight gain and other markers of metabolic syndromes. Researchers found that the time of fat intake matters; when eating fat early, metabolism worked efficiently and affected the animals’ response to different types of food later in the day.

5. Less Likely to Develop Eating Disorders

Even though skipping breakfast is quite common, it is a form of disordered eating. Breakfast literally means breaking the fast, and is necessary in order to jump-start your body. An Australian study found that 13-year-old girls who did not eat breakfast were on average more dissatisfied with their body shape and had undergone more diet regimens then those who broke the fast with regular morning meals. Since skipping breakfast is often about skipping a meal for weight control purposes, it's is a disorderly way of eating.

6. Enhance Immune System

To fight the common wintertime colds and flus, you need to sit down and eat your breakfast. A study in the Netherlands showed that eating a substantial breakfast boosts your body's gamma-interferon, a natural antiviral that directly activates immune cells. Skipping breakfast caused a 17 percent drop in gamma-interferon.

7. Improve Your Skin

Eggs, the incredible and popular breakfast food, do way more than fill you up. No matter how they are prepped, eggs are fantastic for your skin. Lutein, a carotenoid antioxidant found in eggs, helps to preserve the skin's elasticity and protects skin cells from free radical damage. Just one egg a day can boost your lutein levels by 26 percent. There are plenty of other breakfast foods that will do the job as well, like oatmeal, walnut pancakes, and breakfast smoothies.

8. Keep Yourself Thin

While eating breakfast alone will not help you magically shed the pounds, it may help your emotional relationship with food (and that invariably affects your weight). Prolonged fasting can increase your body's insulin response, which increases fat storage and weight gain. Breakfast also helps to prevent overeating and attempts to sate desperate hunger with quick fixes like doughnuts and vending-machine snacks.

9. Stabilize Energy Levels

A balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fiber is the key to any healthy breakfast, and eating foods with these components will increase your energy levels. Breakfast replenishes your glycogen stores, which supply muscles with immediate energy. Breakfast was found to supply around 25 percent of people's daily energy expenditure, thus leading to a high-functioning day.

10. Live Longer

An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but a healthy breakfast may keep the reaper at bay, too. Studies show that people who lived to be 100 years old were consistent breakfast eaters, or consumed breakfast more often than non-breakfast eaters. Also, those who eat breakfast regularly are less likely to develop fatal habits like smoking and excessive drinking. And thanks to all of the benefits of breakfast, the body has an increased chance of warding off disease.

So why are we not eating breakfast again?? I know that sometimes it's hard to take the time to prepare a real, healthy breakfast. A lot of good for you breakfast items include fresh fruit that needs to be washed and prepared or items that just aren't handy or easy to make. Before I had Landon I would rather be sleeping an extra 15 minutes in the morning than making and eating breakfast, so I always grabbed something to eat later at my office or a lara bar for the car. Or sometimes I grabbed nothing and was shoving chocolate in my face by 10:30am.  Good times. 

Since I first became pregnant with Landon I have made breakfast a priority. When L began eating people food we started sharing our breakfast, but sometimes I make her breakfast in ways that provide her with the fat that she needs. I don't need more fat in my diet. Trust me. This is when I started looking for some quick and easy alternatives that I could have ready when she is ready to eat. This will be a journey that starts now, so more trial and error to come. Let's start with a basic: Oatmeal.

Ingredients in a packet of Quaker Instant Oatmeal - Apples & Cinnamon Flavor:

Whole grain rolled oats (with oat bran), sugar, dehydrated apples (treated with sodium sulfite to promote color retention), salt, cinnamon, calcium carbonate, natural flavors, oat flour, citric acid, guar gum, vitamin A palmitate, niacinamide*, reduced iron, pyridoxine hydrochloride*, riboflavin*, thiamin mononitrate*, folic acid*.*One of the B vitamins.

Ingredients in a cylinder of Quaker Oats:
Rolled oats

Reading ingredient lists is a big eye opener, but especially here. The more on an ingredient list, the further away your food is from whatever it started out as. I used to be under the impression that the only way to make plain rolled oats taste good was with brown sugar, milk, butter and raisins. Even though that would still be better (in my opinion) that the packet full of ingredients above (what are "natural flavors" by the way?) it isn't a consistent healthy breakfast. Here is how to get flavor and convenience by using original Quaker Oats. This is also more cost effective, which is a huge bonus

Better for you, Basically Instant Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

Here is what you need:

Microwave safe tupperware with top, measuring cup, Quaker Oats, small packet of unsweetened apple sauce, & Cinnamon.

I use a piece of Tupperware that I can store and cook in to make this extra easy. The ones you get takeout soup in are perfect because when you cook this in the microwave, it will bubble up a few inches. 

Measure out the serving amount you want of the oats and put it in the tupperware. 

For the Apple and the Cinnamon flavor I had to think long and hard... then I decided to use APPLES AND CINNAMON. Seriously. I can't figure out why all of those ingredients above are in the packet. Sprinkle the amount of cinnamon you want directly on your oats. You can leave it sitting there and shake it up later when you make it or shake it up now.

Cinnamon

After Cinnamon Shake

 If you were doing this at home you can make a double batch and have breakfast ready to go for two days. If you are doing this on the go, use a permanent marker to write the heating directions on the top of the tupperware. Permanent marker comes off of plastic easily with dish soap. 

Directions on the top.

 For the Apple flavor I love using unsweetened Applesauce. I add it after the oatmeal has cooked and if you refrigerate your oatmeal for a day and it gets pasty, just add it back in before you heat it back up in the microwave. I used a Central Market Organics Unsweetened Applesauce, but most have similar ingredients: Organic Apples, water. 

If you were on the go this is all you would need to take with you. Just add water.

So we have gone from Instant Apple & Cinnamon Oatmeal with a seventeen ingredient count (water makes it 18) to a more cost effective "Instant" (1.5 - 2 minutes is still pretty instant) Apple & Cinnamon Oatmeal with the following ingredients: Rolled Oats, Cinnamon, Apples, & Water.

A much better way to eat breakfast. If anyone else has some quick, healthy, and easy ways to start the morning, send them my way. Something tells me I am up for some trial and error in the coming weeks. 

Have a great Labor Day Weekend! 

-RT

*The "10 Reasons to Eat Breakfast" used above were pulled from a online article from The Daily Meal and compiled by their special contributor, Lauren Gordon. The full article is available here.

Wait, Brain Cells are Important? Damn.

You know when you want to blog but really can't think of something to blog about? Oh, you don't? Well good for you. Maybe you should guest blog for me. 

This would imply that I am coal. Maybe.

Usually I have some great dinner material stored up in my files that I go to when I have "bloggers block", a term recently coined (3 minutes ago) by S. His advice, keep it real. Those are my words though, not his. So I have a confession to make... I haven't cooked dinner since last week. My grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this weekend and my mom has been on a cooking rampage. We went to their house for the night to celebrate with family and we left the next day with enough food for the week. And it has been fantastic. My mom is an amazing chef and so I have no complaints. The lack of cooking anything but breakfast and some salmon for Landon has left me with zero cooking material for this week. SO here we are. Welcome.

And so I bring you the following things that make me laugh, or LOL if you will. Some of it is dumb, some of it is inappropriate, but that's ok. Because I'm not sure where all of my brain cells went. Maybe I played the fainting game too much in junior high? Or maybe lack of cooking makes dumb. THAT is scary. Please don't bring up that option with S.

That was a nice one to end on, right? To continue with the confessions, I won't be cooking tomorrow night either. Maybe I'll have something amazing ready for you by Friday morning...... If I could only focus long enough to think that through.

-RT

When Reckless Cooking Goes Wrong

I was trying to think of a word the way I cook. Besides "reckless" or "unusual", I was at a loss. If you think of something cooler let me know. Although being reckless is pretty cool. Maybe I'll go buy a van and put a mattress in the back. I totally would, but then where would I put my car seat? Uh, mo babiez mo problemz. 

I got 99 problemz but a snack ain't one.

In the interest of honesty and keepin' it realz (sorry, that's enough Zs for now) I am going to show you an at home try that didn't go so well. It wasn't the end of the world. It's not like I burned a $40 cut of meat or something. It just WAS NOT good. It was even kind of bad.

Here's another fun confession... I still don't know exactly what my ingredient was. I was trying to use a white squash that we had gotten in our farmhouse delivery. I looked up what I thought was information on it online. Most things said it was very mild and very bland. Grilling squash was getting really old so I decided to try and bake it. I was also doing some roasted green beans. That turned out just fine.

Mystery squash and my bag of green beans.

 I decided to slice the squash and layer the slices in a loaf pan drizzling EV Olive Oil and grated Parmesan in between the layers. It started out like this:

Then went on to look like this:

 I hat lots of trial and error figuring out how to slice them and cut them and getting annoyed with this stupid white squash. Those times looked like this:

I'm sad to say this is where the photo story ends. I layered them and put them in the oven at 400 degrees and cooked them for 30 minutes or so. I really only did one thing wrong that caused a whole bunch of other wrongs... I didn't know my ingredient. This squash was not the one I had found online. While it did have bland flavor it also had very tough skin and I probably should have scraped the seeds out before cooking it. The seeds didn't cook to a soft enough consistency as they usually do in other squashes. But then again, maybe if I had cooked it longer the skin wouldn't have been so tough AND the seeds would have been softer. I have no idea.

This was a mess to eat because of my mistakes. The skin was just too tough and it was a mess cutting around the skin and the seeds to find the meat of the squash. In reality, when I actually got down to the meat of this, it was still not that great. It is just a really, really bland and flavorless squash. 

Here is what happens when you screw things up: you LEARN... Wait, what? I know. Write this stuff down, it is life changing information. 

Every once in a while everyone gets a nice kick in the a$$ reminder. My reminder was to really find out what I am cooking before moving forward. I think winging it is fine and easy, if you know your ingredient. That's when reckless cooking is the most fun. THAT is why I LOVE cooking recklessly. You have the basics down and you are just playing with flavors and styles of cooking. When you don't know your ingredient you end up chewing tough skin and swallowing something like a pumpkin seed. Yum. Who wants to come over and eat now? 

You know who else learned something? Whoever made the bottom half of these cupcakes.

Sorry kids, mommy killed cookie monster. He melted in her oven.

My squash tasted awful, but at least it looked pretty. That, my friends, is called optimism. We're all about the bright side over here.

There are big things coming up for RT... stay tuned this week to catch all of the amazingness. It's going to be a good! 

- RT

"T" is for Toddlers and Tantrums and Trying to Survive. It is.

"T": it's not just for timeout anymore. Word.

 Remember when you first found out you were pregnant and you couldn't talk about it with anyone who was a real female person so you talked about it with the Internet? (Oh, did I forget to say this is a post for people with lady parts? It is.) When you first get the double pink line, or the cross, or the digital pregnancy message, or your dr's office calls after you go in for a blood test and is like "by the way you are pregnant" (wait, what?) this might be the first step in your relationship with babycenter.com. After surviving my 1st trimester of silence, I was pretty sure that pregnant women didn't ever need to ask the internet questions. And you know how much I love to do that. When you are pregnant internet questions go something like this:

Q: I'm pregnant and I have a cold. Which medicines should I take?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I thought I had a cold. Turns out I had herpes. Go get an STD test.

Q: I'm pregnant and feel like I might be sick. Is this just morning sickness?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I felt sick. It turns out I had cancer. Call your doctor immediately.

Q: I'm pregnant and want to have some coffee. Is that ok?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I had coffee and then my baby had three legs and one nipple. Drink water and only water.

Q: I'm pregnant and accidentally had some alcoholic punch. What should I do?
Internet: OMFG YOU ARE GOING TO HELL AND YOUR BABY IS COMPLETELY F&(#ED!! I'm calling social services.

The Google Devil will eat your unborn child

 Seriously. When it comes to health, the internet is not your friend. You know who is your friend? Your doctor. BUT anyway, before I went off on yet another tangent, we were talking about the center for babies, also know as BabyCenter.com. (Stay out of the chat board things. People are crazy.) They send you these fancy weekly emails when you are preggo talking about how your baby is the size of a Nordic Autumn Fruit (right) and growing fingernails inside of your stomach. Or uterus. Whatever. 

Where does this baby grow??

 What I didn't know when I signed up for these is that they keep going. You get weekly updates about your baby and now I am the lucky recipient of toddler updates. (I know, don't get too jealous.) Ever since L reached 15 months, the theme of most of these emails is tantrums. The timing is spot on. Girlfriend is all about frustrated communication and having an opinion. 

What? The cat doesn't want me to pet it? TO THE FLOOR!!!!

I'm not going to tell you how to fix toddler tantrums. I am in no way qualified to do so. But you know what is an even bigger joke than my upcoming tantrum techniques? The advice babycenter gave me today. 

"My 15 month old, week 4".....When your toddler throws a full-blown screaming fit in the middle of the grocery store, you may want to hide behind the toilet paper display – but rest assured that other parents feel your pain. The most useful response is to take your child out of the store (even if it means leaving a cart full of food behind) and sit with him until he finishes crying. Staying calm and offering lots of hugs and kisses can help. 

The first part makes sense. No toddler in the middle of a full blown tantrum is going to be able to calm down in an overstimulating environment like the grocery store or a restaurant. It's the next part that gets me. In my 6 weeks of tantrum boot camp, I have found that hugs and kisses are like gasoline on the tantrum fire of life. Here are the helpful photos provided:

Love me through it... GET AWAY FROM MEEEEEE!

"Leave me alone you stupid Mommy!"

 Actually, almost anything I try to do does not fix the tantrum. Well, unless the reason for the tantrum is because she wants to be picked up. We all know the final solution to that. Sometimes it is not available. The last two weeks I have employed a different strategy. I talk to L like she is a grown adult, and let her know that she needs to go to her room and have some emotional time to herself. It's kind of hilarious, but I don't laugh. I pick her up (while she thrashes) and bring her to her room. I find a soft and safe place on the floor (she likes to writhe around during tantrums) and put her down. Then I let her know to come find me when she is ready and I walk away. Also, I am not under any illusion that she understands a word I am saying. I just have to say SOMETHING and so I might as well say that.

The thing is, it works like a magic trick. Tantrums are SO much more fun when someone is watching. Like magic unicorn rainbow fun. When someone is not watching.. eh, not so cool. She finishes her cry, then gets up and comes to find me. Like a new little baby who had her emo time and is ready for something else.

This is a tantrum when someone is watching.

It's like a whole new two weeks. Now when a tantrum is near, I just walk away, out of sight. Change of focus, change of direction, baby follows. This has become especially effective when we have to come in from outside. It's 101 degrees outside with 90%  humidity. I can't breathe, but for Landon, we might as well live in SoCal. When we come inside I become the worst person she has ever met in her very short life. But then I walk away and you know what is cooler than being outside?? Finding mommy. 

Really, who the hell knows anything? My life with baby has been trial and error. When I figure something out, it only takes a few weeks for it to stop working or for something new to pop up. That's why "T" is also for Trying to Survive... Kids or not, isn't that what we are all doing on some days? 

The following also solve Landon's tantrums when I don't have time to be a good parent and take her to her room: Elmo, the cat, going back outside, Elmo, the wagon, Sesame Street, the ipad, and especially Elmo's world. Just a quick little 10 minute Elmo break and toddler is good as gold.

By the way, the internet and I made up after Landon was born. We agreed to never talk about SIDS, but we chatted about baby baths, sleep training, rules for breast milk, switching to formula, and our newest BFF diapers.com lives on the internet, so we've all started drinking from our matching mugs again.

You know who got this for me? The internet.

Right now, O is for the Olympics and G is for Gymnastics. Hopefully, T is really for Tantrum free Tuesday with a Toddler. Check it.

-RT