The carrots, salad, and ham can be finely chopped using a salsa chopper. They should be 2mm pieces. The onions should be chopped regularly as they will soften during cooking.

Saute’ all onions in medium saucepan in part of butter until slightly clear and golden. Add chicken broth, carrots, salad, two dashes each celery salt and garlic powder, lemon juice, and soy sauce. Bring to simmer. Add rice and lime juice. Bring to low boil until rice is cooked very soft. There should still be a slight amount of water left. If desired, add beef powder for a richer flavor. Add remainder of butter, and saute’ until rice is only wet. Remove from heat. Serves 3.

Ingredients:
1 c cooked whole and long grain mixed rice, cooked with some butter

4-6 popcorn shrimp
2-3 broccoli florets
About 2 baby carrots, sliced or chopped
abt 1 tbsp (2 lg pinches) cooked fresh bacon crumbles
Shredded cheddar/mozarella cheese (optional)
Lemon juice

Directions:
Squeeze lemon over cooked rice, maybe 1 tsp worth.
Place all other ingredients except cheese in salsa chopper. Chop in 5 second intervals until thoroughly chopped, then chop continuously until it pretty much looks between pre-chewed and 3rd step baby food. (Very small!)
Mix this into the rice, which it will stick to like a paste. Steam or heat a little more if desired, and melt cheese over top of dish if desired.

Serve! This is so good that mommy can sneak a couple bites, too! It can be served as a family dish if you make enough. You could also substitute chicken or beef or another meat in place of the shrimp, but the bacon really accentuates the natural rice flavor. Personally I will continue to use seafood in this dish.

Ingredients:
Handful chopped green bell pepper
1 sliced carrot
1 sliced medium stick celery
Handful sliced celery leaves
1 sliced green onion
2 tbsp minced onion
1 tbsp garlic powder
Large dash hickory smoke liquid
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 can 14oz black beans
1 cup water & 1 pkt chicken ramen seasoning (*1 cup chicken broth)
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 pkt dried vegetables (optional, substitute extra celery, green onion, parsley, and basil or oregano)

1/2 c sour cream
1/2 c cream cheese

Mix all ingredients except the creams in a pot. Heat on medium until tolerably warm. Pour contents of pot into blender and chop until consistency is roughly equal to 3rd step toddler food. Pour back into pot and heat to boiling. Add sour cream and cream cheese, simmer low for 5 minutes. Serve.

(For a sweeter flavor, use minimal hickory and garlic, and do not add creams until after cooking. Suggested to use more cream cheese.)
(For softer vegetables, boil the chopped vegetables until desired softness before adding to recipe.)

Serves 2-3.

via Kylee coming home Video by Kari/Krystil/Annie Pinlac – MySpace Video.

[18 Jun 2009 | Thursday] 08:37:    Here’s another thing I love. My DAUGHTER!!!! Shes getting so BIG! Holds her own bottle, tries to feed herself, sits up, we were taking pics the other day b4 going out with a friend to dinner and it was so noticeable the way I was holding her how long she got! She’s growing up so fast I don’t know what to do. I told her stop doing everything herself cuz then what am I supposed to do? LOL.

And here’s that loveable face!

[29 Jun 2009 | Monday] 21:01:    kylees first time at the pool. man shes got so many filipino friends that kylee just gets handed around and i dont get her back until we leave! we went to a cookout two days ago and the same thing happened. kylee is picking up on the tagolog quickly. im picking up where i left off apparantly. and since the water makes you mre weightless kylee was pulling up to a stand in the pool yesterday, and today she sucessfully stayed on her hands and knees for a long time, almost 3 minutes!  but when she lifted a hand to crawl, she could lift her hand, but not move forward without falling. its going to be any day now shes going to be booking it across the room. and she ate a whole rice rusk today all by herself. the whole thing. shes feeding herself!!!

shes crawling!!! (with video) Category: Life That’s right! Today Kylee learned to crawl forward! By tonite she’s crawled all over the living room! She’s got a bit of rugburn on her knees I had to put ointment on but she’s so happy she can move around she didn’t care. I got video of her first actual crawl! Thank God for technology to capture all these first memories! Got tons of video. Its time to childproof!

[04 Aug 2009 | Tuesday] 13:25:    got here june 26 and she was almost 7 month old, still wearing 3-6 month clothes. Maybe two weeks and she was in 6-9 month clothes. Its been two almost three more weeks and she only fits the biggest 6-9 month and regular 9 month clothes. She got two inches taller and three pounds heavier. When she has a growth spurt she puts a lot of effort in it! And she's talking and crawling and trying to stand on her own... She's growing up too fast! And I miss Ken a lot, he's only getting to see thru pics and videos cuz he's not back yet...

[02 Aug 2009 | Sunday] 17:17:   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v9TvTH7aXw
filmed this while i was still pregnant, it says uploaded june 15 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/user/naughtyangel132003
link to my youtube channel that has my vid on it and the five vids i made in the past three days of kyle learning to crawl and stuff.

Birth: First off, labor was not that bad. I mean, it didnt feel good, and I had amazing help, but it really wasn’t that bad. I was even in low labor for three days, 1 cm dilation, not even considered stage one yet, so when I had her I was EXHAUSTED already. She was induced with a tablet in the cervix. It dissolves and causes your cervix to dilate and efface the rest of the way. I had it in at 830 am and had her at exactly 2pm. I think I only did about an hour total of sitting and laying down. (Not including toilet time, like half an hour more.) I had an enema so I wouldn’t shit in the water or on the midwife. I had to piss over, and over, and over, and over. I had a glucose drip inserted because I couldn’t eat without yaking, so it gave me energy. I had two shots of some meds, idk what they were but it helped. They were like 2 hours apart, maybe 2 and 1/2 idk. But it was like a really really bad period up until the half hour before I pushed her out. I walked around the labor wing,, which had rails on all the walls, did lots of squatting with all the contractions, just knees apart on the floor, lots of deep breathing, there were ropes on the ceiling in every room and an exercise ball, which was used with a ceiling rope, and then the tub was last because they only want you in there an hour so they time it right. I never lost my head, I never called my husband names, I never yelled at the midwife, although there was one time maybe fifteen minutes before she was born that I begged for another shot (transition phase) cuz I thought it was going to get worse, and I even gave up for a couple minutes because I just wanted to sleep so so so sooooo bad. There was one time I almost broke Kenny’s hand, because I reached out for the grip on the tub to hang on and push when I was told to finally start pushing with the contractions, and he thought I was reaching for him… his hand was sore and limp for a day or two. I really didn’t mean to.I am so glad I had a Water birth. I didn’t feel the tear, I didn’t even feel her crown, all I could feel were the contractions because the water relaxes your skin and makes it more elastic (which is good cuz even so I had three stitches). When I had her, I had closed my eyes for that final push. The first two or three big pushes didnt do anything because I was just using my vaginal muscles and uterine muscles, as if that did anything. She didnt even budge. But, I had pissed already, I shit, so that final push I pushed with everything I had below my tits. But I closed my eyes to do it, and it took my last ounce of energy. They put her on me as soon as she was out and I almost dropped her back in the water because I was so dizzy, I was blacking out and nobody even knew it. Next thing I know Kenny’s yelling in my ear, wake up, hold your baby don’t drop her! And I realised I had her. He got that surprize look on camera pretty well. Then he almost dropped it when they clamped her cord because he thought they were going to cut it, and he reached out to stop them cuz he wanted to do it. After he cut it, my first reaction was oh shit, here comes the three hours or so of afterbirth. At the second I thought that, the midwife goes, oh wow, and yanks on the cord. Pop, out comes the whole bag with one hole in it where she came out. They said later that the water seperated the placenta from the uterus so she was moved into the canal in the bag, but they way they were holding me it kept the placenta inside the canal so she was born coming out of the bag. She let my husband take a quick shot of it, and then they took her from me.

After birth, the first couple days:  They took her in the other room, he followed, it had been like thirty seconds maybe a minute, and shit was moving at rapid speed all of a sudden. I was left in the tub with a couple assistants, it was draining, they were showering the blood and baby vernix off of me, helped me on the table, I got local anesthetic liquid and three stitches. I didn’t think I was going to make it into the next room where the baby was, but about five minutes later, the midwife had weighed her, bathed her, swaddled her, and handed her to my husband. So I walked in right on time. They had a new bed ready for me to move into the recovery room / nursery wing. I got to hold her and try to let her suckle for the first time. It didn’t work. She tried but I didn’t quite know what I was doing. They tried to help but I was weak and she was so gentle that we agreed to try later. The next morning, they wanted me to walk around! I wanted to move around, but that meant to the bathroom and maybe around the room a little! Not around the wing! OUCH! The made sure I walked a certain amount of time each day. I looked like a penguin.

Breastfeeding: Now Germans give the babies sugar water to make sure they have energy for their first few days while mom is producing milk. They also have this thing I called the tea from hell. I thought they were being nice and bringing me tea, I didn’t know that a day later I was going to wake up and wonder why I couldn’t see my toes again! I just had that baby, shouldn’t I see my feet? I thought the fucking Himalayas had grown on my chest! It’s called Stilltee or Stillsaft (milk-bearing tea or milk-bearing juice). So the first couple of days I had still failed at getting her to suckle, because she had went straight to chewing after that first time. They even tried to give me nipple shields. After a couple days they finally gave me the breast pump and let me feed her my milk out of a bottle. This end of the second day where I woke in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe because something had grown on my chest, I didn’t know what to do with it! I pumped and pumped and they kept growing! I had TOO MUCH milk for her to drink in the first three months. Those first two weeks, I was crying on an hourly basis, because I would empty, and not even an hour later they were so big it was painful. My husband was on the phone and someone heard me starting to whimper, and they asked, and he looked over and said, dude, they’re growing before my eyes, I’m watching them get bigger!

Coming Home: We got video of her coming home. She was so tiny! I had her on a Friday and she came home Monday morning. Another thing the German docs do is make sure they show you how to bathe baby, clother her, take temps, hold her right, clean her nose and eyes, and make sure you know the basics before you even leave. So when we got home we were pretty confident. Until we opened the door and found out the dogs had shit EVERYWHERE. Not the first thing we wanted our daughter to breathe coming home. So we rushed her into the room and tried to keep quiet about it on camera. It was a nasty mess to clean. But the animals took right to her. They would even “watch” her. They still do.  Now everyone says its crazy how the baby is okay at the hospital until you take them home. Not with us. We knew what to expect, so right off the bat we read her cues. Even sleep deprived in the middle of the night, she didn’t have to cry to be fed or changed. We heard the first cues and got right to it. For the first two months, while Kenny was given some leeway cuz we just had a baby, he traded out nights with me, fed her when he could, gave me time to heal, made sure I had three meals (healthy ones), made sure I was hydrated, warm, and we were both well taken care of. Month three when I went back to work, unfortunately a lot of that wore off. But he was such a great help for awhile. (He still is but it’s become more of a typical mom does most rule. Such as I solely get up at night for her now. Work or not.) It’s helped alot by doing that, because now, she feels very secure, and she doesn’t cry unless she goes too long without getting what she wants or something is hurting her. We never let her see our stress, we stayed happy around her, while talking to her, playing with her, etc. and it paid off. She yells at you until she gets you attention. It’s cute.

Things I would like to tell other new moms:

1. When the book says air your breasts out 10 minutes, it means minimum. And breast pads should only be used when you start leaking, not as preventative protection. The pads suck out the moisture into them, making your breasts soggy and wet nonstop. I wore them for almost two months, sore, cracked,and wet. I tried chapping ointment, lanolin, you name it, it didn’t work because I thought they were supposed to keep you dry. I went ONE DAY without them, didn’t even leak even though I was pretty full, and my nipples got better. Keep them in your pocket until you start to leak, THEN put them in. And for the first couple weeks, forget about shirts. You’re not going anywhere anyways, and you just gotta take them on and off every two hours anyways. What’s the point of wearing one? I walked around without a shirt for a week and wished I’d done it from the beginning. Maybe then I would have been able to breastfeed instead of breastpump.

2. Stop being so gentle. Babies are delicate, but they’re not glass. I do things that most people would NEVER do with a baby. As soon as she could hold her head up, we were throwing her in the air (Okay we werent playing basketball with her, we were careful and progressed as she got older), twirling her in circles… it built her trust. Maybe a little too much, cuz now when she falls off the couch she knows mommy’s always gonna catch her. And from day one, she LOVED it. The smiles we get roughhousing are almost bigger than ticklefests! (Now be reasonable about this. We waited until she had the motor skills to hold her head up, have some balance, and not get whiplash from this!) What this did is help her build her trust and security with us. She knows we won’t drop her. Now when someone else tosses her in the air, the first time she gets scared because its not mommy and daddy and she doesnt know if shes going to get hurt or not.  This kid’s gonna grow up to be a fighter pilot in the Air Force or in NASA as much as she loves feeling weightless.

3. Stop listening to comercial tradition. Especially with when to feed your baby. They looked down on me for it, but I started food at four months. Actually, three months and three weeks. She was showing all the signals. She didn’t spit everything out, she was imitating our eating, she was drinking four ounces AN HOUR… she needed sustenance.  I started her with rice cereal, her first non-cereal was carrots then green beans, she had juice early, and the only bad reaction she has had was with bananas (which rrelates to her latex allergy).  I fed her veggies first and she still hates her greens. I get the lucky green been day here and there, but she wont eat her peas for nothing. Peaches are too sweet. HEr favorite food sticks with her first, carrots. Then apricots. She loves watermelon too, but I didnt know it tears up baby intestines so I quit letting her have it.   Now shes on her second foods already, cuz there’s not enough of the first foods to fill her up anymore, and her classmates her age are all just getting ready to have their first cereal! Age timelines are GUIDELINES, not RULES. Our baby could stand and sit earlier, had sign language earlier, had five words at four months!  And knew what they meant! Don’t hold your child back. They’re not a doll that has rules, you have to have it two years before you cut its hair, etc etc. This child is not LIKE you, it IS you. Treat them as such. Hell I treat my animals the same way and they think they’re human. They even talk in their own way.  Treat as you want to be treated.

4. Public daycare if good for kids. She is a socialite. She is always happy, always interacting with the other kids, picking up on their talking, their eating, everything. It is helping her move along at a quicker pace than if she just sat at home all day staring at the same walls and toys. I pay them so that they have something to do every week, like paint or go on walks, give her time to play with many playmates and toys I can’t afford. They notice illnesses quicker than I would because I’m new at this, so it helps get her to the doc quicker. And the illnesses themselves, her immune system is going to rock, because she’s already only got sick once and it wasn’t even serious. It was a two day low fever and some fussing. She even gets fussy if she goes more than two days without seeing her friends. She gets all happy when she recognizes a couple of them.

5. What the fuck is crying it out? Now, we let her fuss a little, but she’s a 6 mo. old baby for sakes! If they’re like a year old and know when it’s bedtime, okay. But not our child. She fusses or yells a little, we tell her just a minute, or hang on baby. But if she’s honestly crying, if it takes more than ten seconds to get to that child do i need to get you an electric dog collar to get u off your ass?!? Docs are impressed with our baby. She’s miles ahead of everyone else. She’s happy. She’s communicative. But she’s far from spoiled. Yeah, she wants attention sometimes and that’s all, but she’s a BABY. Crying it out is NOT for infants. The daycare workers even say they know who sticks their baby in a corner to cry and who raises their baby the way baby is asking. Our baby usually gets angry if she wants something. I mean, she gets that face that reminds me of when my dad was ready to whoop some ass and she yells at you with wide eyes and flexed arms like the Hulk! Wouldn’t you get mad if you wanted something and you were yelling for it and everyone was ignoring you, and you couldn’t get it yourself cuz you were stuck in this chair andyou cant stand yet? Exactly. When babies cry, they are upset and sad. If you are not giving them what they need, and they are upset and sad, do you really want them to feel that way? They don’t know why they are all alone and not being cared for. Wouldn’t u be sad too, all alone and helpless in the world?  If something is really wrong and she cries with that brokenhearted, why am I all alone cry, I make a point of running up to her loudly, grabbing her up quickly as I can, letting her know I’m sorry baby, are you okay, kissing her all over the face , holding her as tightly as I can, and whatnot. She quiets down so fast because she feels secure, she doesnt think she was forgotten or alone anymore and shes okay now. It keeps her happy. Think if it was you, you couldnt talk, walk, you sat in your own shit all the time, someone else had to feed you… they are human you know. They arent just like you, they ARE you.

6. One thing I hate is when I see a kid in the grocery store, crying in the cart, 4 months or 4 years, cuz mom is telling them quiet down shes busy. Now, when youre that young, all that colorful, different stuff would intrigue you wouldnt it? And you get to sit there all bored while mommy looks at all the pretty stuff and yells at you when you keep asking her what it is. Well, theres so much stuff she gets that you’ve never seen before! So right from the start, when she started to fuss looking all around her, I held her up to the shelves and let her play with whatever.  She shops with mommy already. If I need something, I hold her up to it so she grabs it, then I run over and hold her over the cart before she drops it. (Cans are okay, and boxes. ) Already she thinks its a game. She knows cold, hot, plastic, paper… she’s just curious. Kids are that way. So when I see a baby in the cart fussing with mom’s back turned, I get a little irate. I dont say anything personally though cuz it irks me when people tell me what ot do with my kid.

7. Naps and chores. Keep a routine with the nap schedule. By the time she was three months, she was sleeping twice a day for a two and then three hour stretch, and then slept all night, a full 9-10 hours. At three weeks she was already sleeping through the night, not even waking when she yelled for her bottle. And sleep when she sleeps. When she’s down, I’m down shortly after. I do chores while she’s awake and she does them with me. Who says she can’t sit on the bed while I fold laundry and play with it? Give her a rag and watch her try to fold it or play peek-a-boo with you. She knows how to start a game of peek-a-boo already! And if it’s a chore they can’t help out with, make it fun for them. She loves when I bring home groceries because I play boo with her around the cupboard doors, or when I do dishes I let her watch and splash her with a little water. If they’re not interested, who says they aren’t old enough to watch TV? I know I said that before, but she reacts with sesame street and dora already. Just limit it to pediatric guidelines so their brain doesnt shut down.

 7. Babies are very aware of what goes around them and they copy it. She asks for DADA when it’s about time for him to walk through the door. She growls when she hears the dogs growl. She reaches up and opens your eyes for you if you arent awake when she wants you to be. Watch what you do because one day I was yelling NO at the dogs and she turned and yelled NO at them too. Yes, and she just today turned 6 months. It means as soon as they are born watch what u do around the baby!

8. Don’t stress around baby. If baby hates bathtime, did you get all stressed at midnight and throw her in there a little rougher than you should have, all the while radiating that stressed out, angry attitude? Of course theyre going to see it as a bad experience! Do they not like their saucer? Did you leave them alone in it too long while they screamed for you? Or maybe they hate their playpen because they get shut in it behind closed doors when you “need a break”. Well, damnit, that baby needs you. And when you radiate attitude about doing the things that make her happy or make her feel better, soon enough she’s not going to have anything ot make her feel better because mommy was mad about it! Our baby loves baths. Even those at 2 in the morning when she wakes with a sudden diaper rash. Yeah, I can’t see five feet in front of me, yeah, i have to feel for her new diaper and hope I dont stick my hand in poo. Yeah, i rest my head on the side of the tub while holding her up (not sleeping! never leave a baby in water!) But I don’t get mad about it, and that way she always knows it will make her better.

9. Diaper rash. Alternate diapers. Use one topical application per week. And yes, I splurge on the diapers, because when she has cheap ones on it comes out of nowhere because the wetness stays too close to her skin. Baby powder is not bad for babies if you dont blow it in their face, I mean, how else are they gonna breathe it? Then again my changing table is next to a window so she never breathes the dust. Cornstarch works best, and its good mixed with Desitin.

10. GET OUT! Literally. Why keep the baby cooped up all day? They will never get immunities, never get brain stimulation, never get fresh air and sun if you keep them in your little bubble all day. And I lost my pregnancy weight in three months. I went from 135 to 185 to 132. Now I’m 136 but I have been hitting the gym. I am back in a size 5, no stretch marks (use lotion DAILY!!! while pregnant!!! And dont forget ur butt, I did and it didnt go away for weeks, but with the aid of cocoa butter body butter cream…). I breastfed (well, out of a bottle), which burns calories, I went back to work which took up 6-8 hours of my day, standing up, running around, jumping on and off of bowling machines and running through a hot kitchen. I ate right while I breastfed. I kept ACTIVE. I got out of the house, and so did baby. And drink lots of water and make sure baby stays hydrated too.

Listen. I’m a new mom. I’m not an expert. But I was told do this, do that, do the other, follow this and cross the “t”s. It’s all been uneducated bullshit. Now most meant very well. But labor was not a horror story, I didn’t say one mean thing to my husband; my baby did not get deathly sick when I started her on food when she needed it; my baby did not get shaken baby syndrome when I twirled her in the air and threw her up and caught her, instead her cheeks might have got sore from all the smiling and giggling; my baby has been determined the happiest and smartest baby in her room 0-12 mos. by the Army; she didn’t get food allergies from eating early or hay allergies from sitting and playing in the grass, nor did she get dander allergies from being around the animals; she didn’t die when she picked the paci off the floor and put it back in her mouth (not that I let this happen often!); she hasn’t gone brain dead from watching kid programs; she didn’t suffocate and she sleeps with us regularly (not daily, she sleeps on her own too); she didn’t die of SIDS when I let her sleep on her stomach on top of me the whole night because her belly was gassy and it was the only way she slept all night; she didn’t freak out every time I stuck a taste of my spicy plate in her mouth or a sip of green tea; and she certainly didn’t end up in the hospital when I started alternating american baby food with german baby food (they have so much more variety! Even chocolate!) Oh no, its not FDA approved… yeah well how many germans are alive and well packed int his country and how many ate the same shit when they were born? Okay then. It’s strawberry applesause for sakes, shut up.  But like I said, I’m not an expert, I just listen to my child and what she wants instead of what the rulebook wants.