pulling for results (hopefully)

Oil pulling. Have you heard of it? I had a few times here and there on natural living blogs, but never seriously considered trying it. Until last week.

My tooth was hurting a little bit. I opened my mouth and looked in the mirror. I'm pretty sure I have like, 3 small cavities. I don't think I've ever had a cavity before. I also haven't been to the dentist in like 4 years (hangs head in shame). 

I was browsing Facebook the same day that I found those little black spots and saw that one of my Facebook friends was starting to oil pull. And I thought, "ok, maybe I should give this a go." Then I saw this blog post http://trinaholden.com/healing-cavities-a-true-weve-done-it-story/

and decided that maybe this could really help 

me out.

I'm using coconut oil and I have to admit that 

unless you melt your oil prior to putting it in 

your mouth, it's kinda gross.

You have to chew the oil to melt it...it's weird. 

Anyway, you swish the oil in your mouth for 15-

20 minutes (in the morning, before brushing).

And don't spit coconut oil down the sink or it 

will clog when it cools down!

You can use pretty much any oil, but I've heard 

that coconut tastes the best and olive oil can

 leave a yellow film on your teeth, and nobody 

wants that.

Also, don't swallow the oil! It's pulling out all the

 yucky toxins and bacteria from your mouth and

 you don't want to ingest that...gross!

So lets hope this works! I should get Seth to try 

it out too...he really needs to jump on my 

healthy living bandwagon.

Avery is 4 months old!

It's been a third of a year. Can you believe it?! Baby girl is still so teeny...I can't believe she's 4 months old!

Avery is still a peanut: 12 lbs 3 oz (25th percentile) and 24 in long (50th percentile). And she got more shots today (we cried together).

Avery is always smiling and happy! She wakes up at 5 am with the biggest smile on her face and it makes my day, every day.

She laughs! It's so cute! Laughing gives her hiccups, which makes her laugh harder. Things that make Avery laugh: saying boo!, her puppy-brother, Auto, daddy fake laughing, kisses from her piggy and monkey toys, and when mommy tips her backwards.

Avery is a big flirt. She will smile and bat her lashes - and it works. Everyone is in love with her.

Avery went to urgent care for the first time on August 9 - her left eye got red, puffy and leaky so we thought there was something in it. She had a blocked tear duct, so nothing serious, but we have some eye drops. Her eye was better by 2 days later.

We have switched to "big girl bottles" because Avery is sometimes eating 6 oz of formula and her little bottles only hold 4 or 5 oz. 

Cloth diapers are still working great! We do need to get some more though...

I've put away almost all of the newborn sized clothing. Except for a few things, Avery is able to wear most 0-3 month and 3 month sizes. She's still such a little peanut. 

Gramma and Grampa Ash bought Avery an exersaucer for their house - and she loves it! The toys are easy for her to play with because they are stationary and she gets to do her favorite thing - stand!

Oh yeah, standing is Avery's favorite thing to do. She can even take steps (being held of course). We are in trouble.

Avery has discovered that technology is a wonderful thing - she loves our phones! She loves to watch videos of herself, cartoons and music videos.

Um, Avery loves the Miley Cyrus song, "we can't stop" and also loves the creepy, skanky video that goes along with it. Oops. 

We have installed Avery's "big girl" carseats - all in ones. She still uses the infant carrier but having multiple carseats makes it a bit easier when we are dropping off and picking her up at Gramma's house every day. Is it weird that it makes me teary to see her not in her infant car seat?

Avery loves mommy's hair - when she is tired or frustrated, she likes to grab a big handful and rub her face with it. 

 

Avery loves faces - she will lay her little hands so sweetly on your face...then proceed to rip off your skin with her razor blade nails.

To soothe herself or help herself fall asleep, she pats or rubs mommy's arm - I love it.

Avery's bedtime routine is still going really well, but she has started going to bed earlier - around 7:30 pm, and sleeps through the night (unless she wants her paci, then we just get up to give it to her and she goes right back to sleep). 

Most mornings, Avery gets to snuggle in bed with us for a bit - she will wake up, then go right back out as soon as she is between mommy and daddy. It makes for some pretty sweet Sunday mornings :)

Auto still doesn't really like his sister...hopefully he comes around soon.

starting slow and starchy

So, here's the deal:

I think about 2 years ago (?) I tried to be vegan. It lasted about 3 months. I didn't do it right. I mean, I'm sure there's not a right or wrong way to live a healthy and compassionate life, but I didn't go about doing it the right way for me. I tried making separate meals for Seth and I (he is an omnivore), I got over-ambitious, and I bought a lot of meat substitutes, etc. instead of focusing on healthy, whole foods. I also didn't have a real personal reason for adopting the vegan lifestyle other than it seemed to be the right thing to do. 

Well, I've grown up since then and I've now decided to give it another go: I will not create a food rift between myself and my husband - dinner will be vegan meals that he will enjoy or that he can easily add meat/dairy to; I have a good reason - polycystic kidney disease with a future transplant and a diagnosis of gestational diabetes makes me at higher risk for the disease; I know better - meat/dairy subs are ok, but not the healthiest - healthy, whole foods are the way to go; oh, and a video of freed dairy cows running and rolling around like puppies, yeah.

I'm planning on taking this slow rather than jumping right in - cold-turkey vegan is hard. If I allow myself the space for small setbacks, I think I will be more successful in the end. I'm also more educated this time though, so it may be easier to avoid those setbacks. 

This week is the first (of hopefully many) weeks of vegan meal planning for dinners (I only needed very minor adjustments to my food that I bring to work). To start, I made a meal plan of all things that I felt confident that Seth would enjoy. He is supportive of my choices but he's also very picky so in order to eat healthy together, I need to do lots of research and recipe altering. 

Our first all vegan dinner was a success! I chose a recipe that incorporated 2 of Seth's favorite foods: potatoes and bell peppers.

Here's the link to the inspiration for our dinner:

http://cookingstoned.tv/recipe/mashed-potato-stuffed-bell-peppers/

I obviously altered the recipe for the mashed

 taters so that they would be vegan.

Mashed Potato Stuffed Peppers

3 lbs Yukon gold potatoes (I have leftover mashed taters for later in the week now!)

3 large bell peppers 

4 green onions, thinly chopped

1/2 cup unsweetened plain almond milk (at room temp)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tbs nutritional yeast (optional, as it really didn't add flavor, you could add more I guess)

1 tsp powdered thyme

2 tsp garlic powder

Fake bacon bits (I think most are vegan)

Salt and pepper to taste 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. 

Cuts tops off peppers and remove insides and seeds.

Place peppers in a baking dish and bake for about 20 mins, or until wilting and slightly browned.

While peppers are baking, cut potatoes into quarters, leaving the skins on.

Add potatoes to a pot and cover with water. Boil until a fork can pass through a chink of potato easily.

Drain potatoes and return to pot.

Mash first with a masher, then whip with a hand mixer.

When your potatoes are almost at your desired consistency, add all other ingredients besides peppers and finish whipping.

Fill each pepper with mashed potato mixture.

Bake another 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are slightly browning.

If you would like cheese, I think melty cheese on top would be divine :)

Enjoy!

 

hormones are such little bitches

You know what? Some things are just absolute bullshit. Like, I'm trying to lose pregnancy weight, shouldn't that be enough? Nope. 

3 months postpartum ALL OF YOUR HAIR WILL FALL OUT. I mean, I have bald spots. WHAT THE MUTHAFUCKING FUCK?!? 

Apparently this is normal and all of those online baby community boards will tell you so. Those WebMD articles will just tell you it will pass.

Cut your hair, they say. Try out a new part, they say. Wear cute headbands, they say. It only lasts a few months, they say. 

A few months?! Bitch, it's been one month and I don't have hair left to spare for a couple more months! 

You know, as women, we have enough crap going on with hormones that we don't need to add more bullshit. Those little bitch hormones get all happy and built up during pregnancy and will give you a false sense of "omg I'm so pretty and luscious and glowey glowey" when they really just plan on leaving you high and dry after baby is born. 

During pregnancy, your hair gets so thick and pretty because the hormones cause most of the hairs to remain in a resting phase, not falling out at the same pace as they normally would. So when those feel-good-look-good hormones plummet after you birth your kid, those resting phase hairs just fall out. In chunks. Leaving you looking like the fucking Crypt Keeper with all of your bald patches and thin, stringy, dull zombie hair.

There needs to be a support group for postpartum hair loss, I swear. It's making me crazy.

Anyway, here I am, near hairless, and I'm telling you guys that this is bullshit. But it's normal. And it will pass. 

But in the mean time: go treat yourself to some cute-ass headbands because you're gonna wanna cover up that thinning hairline.