What's for Dinner? - Bratwurst Hash

Last night's dinner was a fun and quick, so here's sharing.

Bratwurst Hash

3 bratwurst - cut into rounds
1 medium red potato - diced
1 medium gold potato - diced
1/2 medium zucchini - diced
1 green onion - sliced
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup cheddar cheese - grated

In a large frying pan combine 1 Tbsp butter and raw bratwurst. Cook until done through and remove from pan. Add more butter and potatoes and cook for 4-5 minutes until half done. Add zucchini and onion and toss together, cooking through. I generally add a little water and clamp on a lid to steam the veg a bit. Add cooked brats back to hash and toss to combine. Top with cheese and serve. Yum.

This is one of those recipes where you can toss in whatever veg you have on hand: peppers, squash, onions, sweet potato, lots of stuff is good. It's an easy easy dinner and pretty healthy all said and done and easy to do on a budget!

A Year at the Pump, When Breastfeeding Doesn't Work

I grew up as the oldest of six children and following the example of my mother and aunts and cousins and just about everyone around me I always planned to breastfeed my children. At that point it was just a matter of what you did. Baby needs to eat, you have breasts that's just how it works. As I got older and became more aware of the benefits of breastmilk to babies I only became more certain of this idea.

Now, as well as believing this was a good idea I also came in a shape that one would think would make for ideal breast feeding. From the time I was a teenager I was gifted with...to borrow from Monty Python...vast tracks of land. And having lugged the girls around for that many years, paying for the uber expensive and boring bras and enduring the catcalls, they should really be good for something.

So fast forward a while and a lot of other issues and I am pregnant with my darling daughter. The girls leap into action and by about month 7 I'm an additional two cup sizes larger and dripping at random moments. Yay me. By month 9 I'm painfully huge and convinced that not only will I be a breast feeding champ for my child, but also produce enough to feed some small village somewhere. I can donate to causes and all with the vastness of my production.

Then came Little Girl. And Little Girl is about the most precious thing in the entire world, even born, as all babies, red and wrinkly. After some snuggling she's wisked away by the nurses and we see the first inkling of trouble. When the nurse checks LG's suck reflex LG bites the nurse. Nurse blinks and looks at my dear husband and says, "Huh...she's biting me." After a while they got LG to suck, but it was an odd moment.

So they bring LG in to me for our first feeding and LG bites me. There is no sucking. LG does not want to suck. LG doesn't like something about the taste of breast. We try everything that I, dear husband, the nurses and the lactation gurus can think of and we get LG to nurse for about five minutes. The hospital offers me their industrial strength, rip-your-nipples-off breast pump and I go for it because I'm in pain and I'm desperate for LG to eat something. She is also desperate because dang it she's hungry.

This process becomes the status quo for the time in the hospital. Try to feed the kid, fight to feed the kid, get a few drops in the kid, burst into tears, pump, feed the kid with a syringe, kid sleeps soundly and is happy. She wants the product, she just doesn't think it has attractive packaging. (Dear Husband thinks she's crazy).

Home time changes nothing except that we buy a medium strength suck your flesh off pump of our own, which becomes my baby buddy. I fill bottles and put them in the fridge. I feed the baby from the bottle and then she sleeps next to me on the couch while I pump. I am determined that even if I can't get her to latch she's gonna get the best I can offer her.

I pump on the couch. I pump in bed. I pump in the walk-in-closet of our room because I need the light on and don't want to wake up dear husband. I pump in the car. I pump at my mother's house. I pump at friend's homes. I pump in an airplane. I pump in the empty ballroom of a hotel. At a certain point I feel rather like a Dr. Seuss poem. 'And I can feed her here or there and I can feed her anywhere.'

It's nice that all this pumping means that Dear Husband can be more involved in feeding time. Even the teenage older brothers can snuggle LG and feed her, and those are some kinda amazing moments.

And maybe it's never really easy or convenient, but she's growing like a weed so I'm pretty content. Even when I don't make enough milk to save a small village and I have to add some formula to get by, things are still pretty good. I have a happy, healthy, amazing child and I really can't ask for more.

I kept with the pump for almost 14 months before moving her to moo juice, which she drinks by the gallon and fortunately the cows have an easier time keeping up with her appetite.

So why do I tell this whole story? Because it was hard, but we can do hard things and to encourage mothers who are struggling to decide what to do when it comes to all the options mothers are given and all the pressure we all feel.

So to the Mom who is trying to decide what to do and despairing, because of criticism, because of difficulties or because of self doubt... You are wonderful. You are Mom. And you will find your own way. Embrace it without shame or fear. The years when they are little are so fleeting, don't miss the moment worrying about the right way to Mother. Breast, formula, pump or some combination of the above doesn't matter. Just get in there and do it. You got this.

Self Clean This...

When I was growing up I loved the Jetsons. If you don't know the Jetsons was an animated show about a family living in the future. It was mostly ridiculous which was part of why it was fun, but my favorite part was all the cool gadgets: flying cars, robot maid, rocket shoes...and all the stuff in the kitchen where you could just button push and things got clean or made or whatever.

As an adult I can acknowledge the ridiculous nature of the show and of many of the neat things that just aren't practical. And there is something to be said for making meals and the satisfaction that comes from a job well done. However... I still don't want to do some jobs. Like cleaning the oven. I hate cleaning the oven. It's an awkward space at an awkward height and the fumes of oven cleaner can make you both giddy and sick all at the same time. Now...there is this thing called the self cleaning oven. I have one of these marvels. However...

It lies.

All lies.

The say this thing 'self cleans' is by spending nearly four hours getting rocket hot and turning anything that has spilled anywhere int a charred mess of ash and goo. Then when it's done you STILL have to crawl in there and wipe it all out and scrub off anything that didn't destick under huge heat. I suppose it's still somewhat better than without the 'self cleaning' run, but it fails to match my daydreams of opening the self cleaned oven and seeing the light glisten off of the truly clean surfaces.

Ah well...maybe one day, at least we're still getting rocket shoes. Right?

How UPS Stole Christmas

I'm not going to do this in rhyme.  I considered it, but I'm too angry and would start rhyming naughty words, so we'll stick with non rhyming rantage.

My husband and I are products of a technological world.  We are online or otherwise connected most of the time and neither of us really loves malls or crowds. This means at Christmas time we spare ourselves the crush of people, and spare them our attitudes, by doing much of our shopping online.  Generally, this is a very pleasant way to do things as we can get exactly what we want and just wait for the pretty boxes to arrive.  They come by a variety of methods, USPS, UPS and FedEx and we've never had a problem...until this year.

Going back to November Bunneh had a melt down of one of his favorite tech toys and I decided as he had been eyeing an upgrade anyway this would make for a good Christmas present.  I made all the arrangements and ordered said item just after Thanksgiving, figuring this gave us several weeks for delivery. The order went through without a hitch and was scheduled to arrive via UPS on December 4th.

December 4th came.

December 4th went.

No box.

There were other boxes, but not this box. The box I needed to be here to sign for so had rearranged schedules to be here for the bleeping box.

So I was patient.

A few days later I called the nice folks I'd purchased the toy from.  They were very kind and looked up statuses and came up with "the weather delayed UPS and it's out for delivery today".  Yay for out for delivery, and I could understand weather delay as there had been ice storms all over the place.

So again patience.

Again a rearranged schedule to be home.

Again no box.

Another call to the company.

A call to UPS.

Another 'out for delivery'.

Another schedule change.

Another no show.

By this time I'm seriously starting to lose my patience with the whole thing. Other packages are arriving without a hitch. Even other freaking USP packages are arriving, but not the one I'm most concerned over.

So another call to the company.

Another call to UPS.

Another 'out for delivery'.

Another schedule change.

Another no show.

Tonight I check the tracking again.  Now they say they cannot find my freaking house number.

Are you @#&@#($*& kidding me? What kind of excuse is that? They can find my house number with other packages. FedEx, USPS and the newspaper boy can find my house number. I think someone just didn't want to have to make one more delivery tonight and gave up, choosing something at random from the 'problems we can blame on someone else' file to keep it from being 'out for delivery' but never got around to being delivered AGAIN.

And naturally the UPS 'live chat' service is closed. The phone lines are too stuffed with call volume to let me talk to anyone and email disappears into the great beyond. If they can't figure out what the number is supposed to be they'll return the box to the sender and we'll be starting all over again, which means there is no way this box is making it by Christmas.

What the hell UPS?

During all of this our normal mail has solidly come every day, rain, snow or shine and our USPS packages were here on time.  For all the crap USPS takes they do the job.

I can't say as much for the United Parcel Service, and given the option I'll choose non UPS carriers.

Maybe we'll have Christmas in January this year.  Hopefully the package will have shown up by then.

Merry Christmas, honey.  Here are some nice socks.

When is Too Old to go in the Restroom with Mom?

This may come as a surprise to some people, particularly the menfolk out there, but many things go on in the women's restroom which have nothing to do with actually going to the restroom.  There's the fixing of hair and makeup.  There's gossip (come on, like this is a surprise?), and there's a a lot of fixing of...things: nylons, bra, etc, etc.  In general once women are inside the restroom we kinda expect that if we flip our skirts up to fix something we won't be causing any trouble.  Then again...we could be wrong.

Recently I was in a restroom doing said fixing and had my skirt hitched up much higher than it would ever be in public when a boy somewhere around 7 or 8 years old wandered in with Mom right behind him.  His eyes got big and he stared (which was either because my legs were cute or because he could see just past mid thigh. maybe both) and his mother got all indignant and bustled him out of the room, while giving me death glare.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't doing anything that women don't do in front of the restroom mirror all the time. Kid and Mom are just lucky no one was rearranging their boobs, which folks do all the time.  So this brings me to my question.  At what age do you stop taking junior into your restroom and just stand outside the men's room while he does his thing and returns?  In my brain if they're old enough to head off to school they're plenty old to dart in, pee, wash hands and return.  If they're old enough that they're walking and talking on their own maybe bringing them in could be okay, but with a yelled warning...or find a store with a family rest room, which seem common enough.

Thoughts?

~J

Leggo my Eggo...Seriously?

A couple weeks ago I started noticing a new Eggo commercial, or at least one I hadn't seen before.  In this commercial Mom and Daughter are sitting down to a nice breakfast which looks like some effort and nutrition went into it (a breakfast casserole one day and something with pretty sausage patties on the side the next time) and Son walks into the room, MC Hammer music picks up, and Son does a full dance in the kitchen while wagging his finger and declaring "Won't Touch This".  He then dances out of the room.  This goes on for at least two breakfasts before the enterprising Mom serves Eggo Waffles and says "Stop, Eggo Time."  Kid tries the Eggos, loves them and breakfast is saved...and presumably he eats Eggo Waffles for the rest of his life until he's in college and can't have a toaster in his dorm room.

This commercial drives me NUTS.  Not because it's an advertisement for Eggos, which I've tried a few times and just never developed a taste for, or because of the cheesy music...hey...I grew up in the 80s and had parachute pants, thank you very much.  No, it drives me nuts because of the attitude, and it's one seen a plenty.  Kid is picky.  Kid is allowed to be picky, disrespectfully so, and Mom folds to pickiness of kid. What happened to the idea of trying new things, discussing likes and dislikes and appreciating the work that goes into feeding a family?

It's not like the kid has an allergy or intolerance, either.  He just doesn't like ANYTHING Mom comes up with, and I see this all the time in families which aren't on TV.  My kids saw the ad and laughed because they knew they'd NEVER get away with such behavior.  Yeah, I encourage them to tell me when they don't care for something or really love a food.  It doesn't mean we'll never have the food they don't like again, or that they won't be required to at least manage a few bites in the name of good nutrition and a balanced diet, but I do respect their opinions and we try to figure out what they don't like and see if we can make it better.

Maybe I'm the only 'eat it or else' Mom left in the universe, but I have yet to see my kids suffer from empty bellies and over time many foods once on the taboo list have become family favorites with a few changes to spices or presentation. No, I'm never going to get Bunneh to eat jello with bits in it or shredded coconut, but that's part of the compromise too. Sometimes the compromise is mine and the menu gets changed for the future.

However, the first person that says "won't touch this" while waggling a finger at me better be willing to become MC Cooks the Food as I dance out of the room.