Breakfast, Snack & Dessert: Baked Oatmeal Goodness!

Because Baby E is having digestive problems (they think she is allergic to milk, soy & possibly wheat/gluten) and I'm breastfeeding, I've been off the above-mentioned ingredients for several months now. Let me tell you, from someone who once went on an ice cream diet (to gain weight), this sucks! I'm starving all the time. Sure, I'm happy I now fit in all my pre-pregnancy clothes and don't have to go shopping (I hate shopping, but had planned to hang onto 10 pounds so I figured I might need some new clothes). But, oh what I would do for a piece of cheese! Real cheese. Don't get me started on that stuff they call a "dairy-free, soy-free alternative". I'd rather eat caulking. They do have some breads, muffins and crackers that are edible (I've even found some muffins that I'd actually call "pretty good") but everything is so bad for you! The salt content it through the roof. You'd think this would be "healthy eating" but not unless you make everything yourself (as is so often the case).

So, I'm having to search for new recipes to try. It's a bit time-consuming and requires we change the way we eat (goodbye pizza) but so far I've made a few delicious discoveries! I promise to only share the ones I like enough to continue eating even after I'm allowed back on "regular" food!

This week, I came across Oh She Glows Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal. It's wonderful! I ate the whole pan myself (almost... I did let my mom and husband try it) in a few days. It's great for breakfast if you want to give some "oomph" to your porridge, has replaced my bedtime bowl of cereal... really, it makes a great snack at any time. It even served as dessert (I warmed it up in the microwave and used the left-over dairy-free icing I had made for Baby E's baptism cake to sweeten it up a notch).

I replaced the honey with maple syrup and upped the raisins to half a cup. I'm wondering if I could make it overnight in the slow-cooker. If I do, I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out.

Bubble Wrap Astronaut Suits? I'll Take 2 Please!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Coco gave herself a black eye before Easter when she hit her head on the corner of the coffee table. She isn't having a good month. Yesterday evening, I was upstairs (just about to start finishing my taxes so I wouldn't be submitting them at the last minute!) when I hear my husband yell "No, no, no" followed by a loud BOOM! followed by several exclamations of a synonym for "poop" that we try not to use around Coco so she doesn't integrate it into her vocabulary. I run down to the kitchen to find the high-chair tipped over backwards and blood everywhere. She'd been colouring at the table while my husband was making supper. I guess she got bored and decided to try a new game: "See if I can tip my chair". Well, lo and behold, she could.

Here I had thought that the chair (one of those portable high chairs you strap onto a chair) was a pretty safe place. I've been sitting her in there beside the table with a pile of books while I'd go shower for some time (I'm now giving up showering when I'm home alone with the girls... besides, showering and bathing are overrated... that's what I keep telling myself).

Back to Coco, she's okay. She had to have a 2 cm gash glued shut at the Children's Hospital (they are definitively getting a donation from us this year!) and she was so good. The doctors couldn't get over how quiet she was. She didn't cry once and was happy and smiling the whole time. She thought the visit to the hospital was a fun outing where she got to colour and they gave her stickers (she even climbed down off my husband's lap to go looking for the sticker lady for more). Thankfully, she doesn't have a concussion and everything should heal nicely.

How can we avoid these things happening? The solution is simple: go around and get rid of every single thing that anyone could possibly get hurt on, with or by. Minimalism is the new black, right? Who needs furniture? Those 'Monkeys jumping on the bed' are a serious warning (oddly enough, Coco was very marked by that song and goes around talking about the "Monkeys bobo tête"... my bilingual daughter)! And really, you can trip on a toy so we should get rid of those too. Bathtubs are death traps; I still  remember my little sister falling in the tub and bleeding all over me when we were kids (I told you bathing was overrated). Toilets... don't get me started on them (Coco's first visit to the hospital a year ago). Anyway, this is getting ridiculous so I found another solution: bubble wrap! Oddly enough, when I entered "Bubble Wrap Astronaut Suits" in the Pinterest search engine, nothing came up. I'm surprised. I, however, have a drawer full of the stuff so I'm sure I can come up with a suitable pattern. I'll let you know when they're ready for sale.

I think we're more shaken up than she is. I really think this is the hardest part of being a parent.
We try so hard to keep them safe but we can't seem to avoid the occasional accident or sickness. And we're so lucky... Fine she might have a small scar at the back of her head where the hair won't grow, but it could have been so much more serious... Just like the incident with the coffee table where, a cm over and she could have affected her vision (I'm still debating having a bonfire with that thing). We're so blessed to have healthy children and that we don't have to make regular trips to the hospital for serious illnesses or injuries. My heart goes out to the parents who do... I can only imagine the strength it takes and hope to never have to find out.

Connect 4

Last week was my nephew's fourth birthday and I had asked my sister for a list of present ideas (with 4 kids, it's hard to keep track of what toys they have). On the list was "Connect 4" which I thought was very apropos. On Sunday, I got to see how great this game was for all ages.

M and G (7 and 6 years old) already knew the game from school and played it "the real way" developing strategies to try to outsmart the other. B, the birthday boy, didn't quite get all the rules. For instance he'd exclaim that he had 4 if he made a 2 X 2 square or an "L" despite being shown the 3 ways to make "4" (horizontally, vertically and diagonally). Still a great way to get him counting and figuring different ways to make 4. He was also more cooperative than competitive: "Let's make 4 together!" Though, by the end, with some help, he was learning to block. M and B were also placing the tokens in the grid to create designs and creating colour sequences. Coco and K (both almost 2) had a blast practicing their fine motor skills filling all the slots. They quickly learned how to slide the bottom to send everything crashing down on the table which got a laugh every time.

There's so much more to "Connect 4" than I suspected! It will definitively make the list of "must have" games in our house.

Paper Plate Puzzles

After deciding that we weren't quite ready for glue yet, I searched the web for another craft that might be appropriate for an almost-2-year-old. She loves painting so when I found this activity on Laughing Kids Learn, I thought it would be perfect. I figured we'd paint both sides; bonus, an activity that takes 2 days! Coco likes things to be colourful so no "1 colour per plate" for her but I limited her to 2 colours since I thought it might be easier for her to do the puzzles afterwards.

I cut the plates in 2 figuring I can cut more pieces when she has mastered them. Funny, she had more fun walking around with the plates when they were intact than actually doing the puzzles. She'll get the 2 pieces and bring them to me and say "Maman l'aide" (help). She has trouble piecing them together. So, we painted 3 more plates that I didn't cut for her to build the puzzles in. It works a little better... Plus she now has 3 intact plates she can walk around with like before. She enjoyed painting them but I'm not sure how successful these are as actual puzzles.

Pressing pause

This was an eventful week at our house. Coco is sleeping in her new room, in her "big girl" bed. Tonight is Baby E's first night in her crib. Also, Coco informed us she no longer wanted to wear one-piece pyjamas, they're for Baby E (heartbreak). Time is going by too fast.  Add onto that Coco falling and hitting the corner of her eye on the coffee table resulting in a black eye just in time for Easter (trips to the paediatrician and the wonderful ophthalmologists at the Children's Hospital have confirmed her eye is fine)... Let's just say "Maman" is feeling a little clingy.  So when independent Coco, after getting out of bed 5 times for whatever excuse she could think of, asked me to snuggle and stay in bed with her, I gave in pretty easily. It was a blissful half hour of not caring that I wouldn't be making much progress on my never-ending to-do list, that I might be creating a "bad habit" (not sure that wanting to snuggle to sleep is a bad habit but not always possible when I'm on my own in the evening and have to put both girls to bed). These little moments will be gone too soon. Soon, the little hand on my cheek won't be so tiny anymore so tonight I pressed "pause"... my dryer might be full and my laundry baskets overflowing, but so is my heart. ♥

A pour aligator

So Coco is pretty obsessed with the alphabet. She has been asking us to name letters for months now and knows pretty much all of them (which, at 21 months, is pretty impressive I think!). There are a few that still occasionally stump her like "W"... She turns it upside down and proudly proclaims "M pour maman!" 

I thought it might be fun to try one of those "Letter of the Week" crafts I found on Crystal & Co. You'll find lots of alphabet crafts with free printables on this site. Since I speak French to Coco, I picked one that was bilingual (the site is English). This is the first craft we did so I had no idea what to expect. She ended up gluing about a third of the green squares, drew the eyes and glued the "A"s. She's happier watching me do it than actually getting her fingers sticky.

She was very pleased with the end result though and goes around showing it off and saying "Crocodile!" (I tried...)