Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Breastmilkin’ it

So, breastfeeding.  I may have mentioned it here in passing, but that doesn’t accurately reflect something that’s been a pretty major part of my life for the past eleven months.  Here we are, and I’ve almost made my goal of breastfeeding for the first twelve months.

In the beginning
Since the Cesarean birth was completely unplanned, I didn’t have much time to worry about the negative effect that it could have on initial breastfeeding.  Gabriel and I has a few minutes of skin-to-skin time in the OR, while I was being sewed, cauterized, and stapled back together, but he did not have the chance to latch on immediately.

When we were reunited in the recovery room an hour later (I’m not really sure how much time passed — I know Matthew was really fighting to get us together immediately), Gabriel snuggled up and latched right on.  With a bit of help from the lactation consultants in the hospital, we were off to a good start, despite our separation while he was in the NICU.

While there was some initial discomfort, I made the transition to breastfeeding fairly easily.  As for Gabriel, well, we never got around to it, but we wanted to make a custom t-shirt with “Born to Suck” printed on it.  Sir liked his mama’s milk.

Back to Work
I headed back to work when Sir was fourteen weeks old.  We intentionally chose a daycare that is literally located right across the street from my office.  With the exception of Monday when he stayed with grandma, I walked across the street and fed him during the day instead of pumping.

I honestly can’t say that I would have continued breastfeeding this long if I was pumping all the time, and my hat is off to those work-outside-the-home mothers who do so (and to those moms who stay home full time, because I don’t think I could do that, either!).

Six months and beyond
We introduced solids, using BabyLed Weaning methods, just after the six month mark.  It was a slow start, but Sir gradually became as enthusiastic about grown-up food as he was about milk.

By the time he was nine months old, we went from five to four milk feeds a day, plus three solid meals, which is where we currently stand.

Bumps in the road
My breastfeeding experience overall has been smooth and positive.  I credit the initial early help from the hospital lactation consultants and the support I received at La Leche League meetings for that.

I have had a few bouts of mastitis.  The first, and probably the worst, prompted a visit to the doctor, where I accepted, and even filled, an antibiotic prescription.  I gave myself twenty-four hours to start feeling better without the antibiotics, and, sure enough, my body cleared the infection on its own.

We’ve also gone through some rough patches with frustrating nursing strikes, mostly due to teething, I suspect.  I was tempted to call it quits during some of these periods, but I’m glad I stuck it out.

Then there was the wondering if my dairy consumption was giving him problems.  My dairy-elimination trials were inconclusive — at this point I would say that either dairy wasn’t the issue, or he outgrew it.

While breastfeeding has been a good thing overall for my mental health, I struggled at times feeling tied down, frustrated with the inability to do anything that took me away from my baby (or my breast pump) for more than three or four hours.

Size Doesn’t Matter
Though I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about my lack of cleavage (“nearly” A-cup, to be specific), I always thought I would have babies and breast feed and never really worried that my small breasts would be a problem.

Turns out, my “too small” breasts produce more than enough milk to adequately nourish a big, healthy baby.

The Future
I remember going through rough patches in the early days, telling myself that I could make it to the six month mark and then reevaluate.

Now that I’ve almost made it the full twelve months (my original, long-term goal), I’m pondering next steps.  While I won’t go cold-turkey at the twelve-month mark, neither do I see myself nursing a five-year-old.

A story from a friend inspired the title of this post.  She found her nephew (who sees her breastfeeding her baby) with a stuffed animal held to his chest.  When asked what he was doing, he replied, “I’m breastmilkin’ it.”

One dish kasha dinner

What’s kasha, you ask?  Well, it’s something that’s been sitting around in a jar in my pantry for far too long.

For a more illuminating answer, kasha is made from crushed, roasted buckwheat grains (AKA buckwheat groats).  I buy it in the bulk aisle at WF.  If you have plain buckwheat, you can essentially make your own kasha by toasting the grains in a dry skillet.

The upcoming move puts me in a “use it up or throw it out” mood, and I don’t like throwing away food, so I headed to the internet for some recipe ideas.  In the process, I learned a thing or two about buckwheat, and I’ll be keeping this food in my kitchen arsenal.

Did you know that you can eat kasha raw?  I crunched some grains while I was cooking and added a bit to my granola the next morning.

Searching for inspiration, I found many interesting breakfast-y recipes, but I needed something for dinner.  In the end, I used Meghan’s Buckwheat Sweet Potato Burgers as the inspiration for my creation.

Kasha, Lentil, & BUtternut Squash Bowl

Recipe by Melissa
Serves 6-8

Ingredients
1 1/2 c. kasha (roasted buckwheat groats)
1/2 t. salt
3/4 c. lentils
1 small butternut squash* or two medium sweet potatoes
3 T. good balsamic vinegar**
3 c. shredded or finely chopped cabbage
1 medium onion, diced
Olive oil, for sauteing
1/3 c. almond butter
2 T. soy sauce

Directions
Peel and dice squash or sweet potato and steam until just tender.  Place steamed squash in a large bowl and pour the balsamic vinegar over the warm squash.  Toss to coat.

In the same [now empty] pan you used for steaming the squash, cover the lentils with water (use enough water so there’s an inch above the dry lentils).  Bring to a boil, and then simmer for 20-30 minutes.  You want them tender with just a bit of bite, not mushy, so start checking after 20 minutes.

Drain the lentils, reserving the cooking liquid.  Add the lentils to the bowl with the squash, and sprinkle 1/4 t. salt over the lentils.

Add enough water to the reserved lentil cooking liquid for a total of three cups.  Bring this to a boil, add the kasha and 1/2 t. salt, cover, and simmer until the liquid is absorbed, 10-15 minutes.

While the lentils and/or kasha simmer, saute the onions in some olive oil.  After 10-15 minutes, add the cabbage to the onions with a bit more olive oil, and saute 5 minutes, or until the cabbage is just tender.

Mix 1/3 cup almond butter, 2 T. soy sauce, and 1/3-1/2 cup water to make a nice, thick sauce.

Once the kasha is cooked, combine the grain, lentils, squash, onions, and cabbage.  If either your original pan or bowl are large enough, use this and avoid another dirty dish!

Serve warm with a spoonful of the almond butter sauce on top.

*The last of our winter squash 2011 harvest.

**The balsamic was a last minute idea, and I wasn’t sure how it would work.  I used our favorite balsamic, which is quite sweet and has relatively low acidity.  I wouldn’t recommend just any balsamic here.


Three years

I started this blog with a post about strawberries.  Fast forward three years, same date, and strawberry season has already come and gone, thanks (ha, ha) to the abnormally warm spring and summer-like month of May.

Despite infrequent posts for a few months immediately post-baby, writing here has been a nice constant in  a crazy, unpredictable twelve months, and I’ve also enjoyed watching readership grow.

Facts and stats thus far:

  • 575 posts and counting (over the past three years)
  • Moved to my own domain in November 2011
  • March 2012 was my best month ever

Ahead in year four:

  • Provide entertaining and useful content
  • Grow readership
  • Continue pondering name change
  • Move to third party hosting???

Birthdays gone by:
One year
Two year birthday

The housing hunt comes to an end — Part 2

And now, for the rest of the story . . .

The first part of this saga ended with finding a good apartment prospect.  After not so much deliberation, I wanted to submit the rental application, along with a deposit to hold the place while they processed our application, and be done with this agonizingly long and drawn out apartment/house hunt.

Matthew felt we’d put the time and energy into looking at houses for sale and wanted to make an offer on a FSBO house we’d looked at a couple of times.  I wasn’t excited about the place, but I agreed to make a low offer.

So last Friday morning, I biked over to drop off our rental application and earnest money and Matthew made some phone calls that ended with making a verbal offer on the house.  Because why have just one place to live when you could have a house AND an apartment?

Anyway, the FSBO was an estate house, and since our offer was lower than their asking price, they had to take it to probate.

Having done all we could, we headed out to a local winery for a relaxing stressful afternoon.  In the middle of our wine tasting, the trustee of the estate called back and engaged Matthew in an exceedingly long conversation, the bottom line of which was, he would take our offer before the probate judge but would not argue for it, but if we increased our offer by $5k (still $15k below their asking price), he would argue for it.

Hot, tired, annoyed that Matthew was spending most of our winery trip on the phone, and frustrated with (and physically uncomfortable because of) a fussy, refusing-to-nurse baby, I had no desire to enter into negotiations or increase our offer on a house that I wasn’t all that excited about.  So we said they could take or leave our initial offer, and they later called back to say, “no deal.”

With our new lease start-date still a few weeks away, we went ahead and pulled out the boxes and packing tape over the weekend, making an impressive amount of progress in little spurts here and there.  We started to discuss how we would arrange things in the new apartment.

And then on Tuesday afternoon, the FSBO guy calls Matthew and says they’ve reversed course and will take our offer, if we’re still offering.  For some reason, I’d kind-of expected this and was not terribly surprised.

After a bit of discussion that evening, we ultimately decided that this was not the house for us, even at our original offer price, and Matthew informed the owners of our final decision.

So.  Packing continues and we’ve scheduled movers.  In a few weeks, our almost-year-long experiment in living as a family of three in a one-bedroom apartment will come to an end, and I am ready!

Related posts:
T minus two months
Moving day
Two’s company
We ain’t goin’ nowhere
Am I asking too much?

The housing hunt comes to an end

I had the opportunity to write a “green living in St. Louis” guest post for Stacy at Every Little Thing this week.  Check it out here.  Now, on to the housing saga!

Last Wednesday, Matthew and I took some time off work in the afternoon to see another round of houses.  We only had a few on the schedule, so we tacked a recently listed apartment on to the itinerary as well.

Back in April, after over twelve months of apartment hunting, we decided to be a little crazy and throw the option of buying a house back into the mix.  We located a house and made a [very low] offer within a couple of weeks.  Despite offering $40k less than the asking price, we had decent reason to believe that they may accept the offer or counter with something closer to what we were willing to pay.

The house, which was part of an estate and had nothing owed on it, had been on the market for over 250 days this round, and vacant (and probably previously listed) for much longer than that.  While vacant, the pipes burst, and repairing that and the resulting water damage resulted in a $50k insurance claim.  You’d think this would be good reason for the estate’s trustee to consider any that came along.

We sure did, and we were wrong.  The guy didn’t even bother to counter (and apparently he was so “disgusted and depressed” by our offer that he pulled it off the market — at peak home-buying season, no less!).

Within a day or two of having our offer rejected, we spotted a realty sign on an intriguing property — a big, sunny fenced lot with two tiny houses on one edge.  I pass by it regularly and always wonder to which of the two houses the yard belongs.

A bit of research revealed that the property was a foreclosure and included the lot and both houses (each about 500 square feet — like I said, tiny).  We were immediately off and running with ideas of buying it on the cheap and doing a major renovation (which I alluded to here), combining the two tiny houses to make one nice space plus an awesome yard for gardening.  Matthew even drew up some designs.

And then we faced the reality of how much it would cost, both in dollars and in our energy making decisions and dealing with bumps along the way, and the fact that we would probably not be able to get anywhere near what we put into it back out of it if/when the time came to sell.  We decided, sadly, but probably wisely, to walk away.

A few weeks passed, with more houses, a couple more apartments, and nothing that really excited us.  One of the houses that we viewed didn’t have the double lot included as we’d hoped.  Another was somewhat interesting, but seemed overpriced, and while we were considering if and what to offer, it went under contract.

So on Wednesday afternoon, when we saw the apartment that had almost everything we were looking for, I was more than ready to be finished.

To be continued . . .