Healthy Mum, Happy Baby

We’ve gotten into the habit of having breakfast for dinner once a week and we all love it. The kids think it’s funny to have pancakes for dinner and we love it because it’s easy and we both like restaurants that serve breakfast all day long. We usually have oatmeal pancakes, heuvos rancheros or, our guilty pleasure - fries, poached eggs, sausages and peas. We get the fries from Alexia so they’re at least trans-fat free. . .at least that’s our excuse and we’re sticking to it!

The oatmeal pancake recipe we use is in Healthy Mum, Happy Baby (of course) but this linked version is from Epicurious - I haven’t made them though, so I can’t vouch for them, I did choose the recipe with the highest fork rating however. The sausages and eggs are pretty self explanatory and I couldn’t find any huevos recipe that was as simple as  the we make it, so here’s a rough version of how we make ours - this isn’t in the book - and there are lots of recipes for them online too:

Heuvos Rancheros (serves two grown ups & two kids)

You’ll need:

• 1 can refried beans (we like Eden Organic)
• 6 corn tortillas
• 2 cups shredded lettuce
• 6 eggs (try omega-3 eggs for an added omega punch)
• handful grated monteray jack or cheddar cheese
• 4 tablespoons salsa (we like Fresh is Best)

1. Heat corn tortillas in oven according to package instructions.
2. While the tortillas are heating put the refried beans into a saucepan, add a few tablespoons of water and heat over low heat.
3. Poach the eggs - I use the poaching recipe from How to Cook Everything as I need help with basics like this. Here’s an eHow how to on poach eggs just in case you need it.
4. Wash and shred the lettuce. Grate the cheese.
5. If you’re feeling energetic then heat up the salsa in a saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, otherwise use cold.

Assemble by layering in this order: tortillas - lettuce - beans (make a little indent in the top of the beans to hold the eggs) - eggs (two for adults, one for each child) - cheese and finally top with the salsa.

For younger kids I usually cut the tortillas into triangles, put some beans, some shredded cheese, a well-poached egg and maybe some chopped tomato on their plate as it can be hard to eat for them otherwise.

Actually, none of us willingly picks (or creates) a picky eater, but if you have a child who is one, or think you’ve got one developing, April’s Today’s Parent has an article called Whining & Dining (gotta love the name) that has some handy tips. The article is taken from an upcoming book by the same name.

I was talking with another friend with a one-year-old and a three-year-old last night and she said, “Parenting is relentless!” And she’s right. She was talking about the bedtime routine, night after night, day in, day out. I was thinking washing the high-chair tray at least 3x a day, every day…I think it’s a cumulative thing too - with your first you have more energy (ie. less accumulated sleep deprivation) but by the time your second is into their second year, you’re worn down.

Hence my going on about The Balanced Mom and Breaking the Good Mom Myth. We can’t take care of our little ones if we don’t take care of ourselves! Another great book I was reminded about last night is the Three Martini Playdate - one of my favourite chapters is titled along the lines of Children’s Music, Why? Although I’d never have discovered Elizabeth Mitchell if it wasn’t for Madeleine. . .

Speaking of parenting tomes, I have found a great book called Breaking the Good Mom Myth: Every Modern Mom’s Guide to Getting Past Perfection, Regaining Sanity, and Raising Great Kids by a Canadian called Alyson Schafer. She’s a psychotherapist, parent coach and parent educator who’s attitude towards the whole parenting thing is that if we can let go of the need to be perfect and accept we’re not and ease up on ourselves we’ll get a lot farther. Rather like Healthy Mum, Happy Baby’s premise is that if you don’t take care of yourself you can’t take care of your baby, her book’s theory is similar (ie. self-care isn’t selfish!) but it’s on a larger parenting in general scale. I’m not all the way through it yet but I’d totally recommend it. And I got my copy at SuperStore where it cost $12.99 Cdn instead of $17.99.

And again, on parenting tomes, if you check the comments on that entry you’ll find some great suggestions from another mother.

Someone also pointed out to me that whole “how to comment thing was a bit unclear” as you actually have to click on the “no comments” link next to the post to add a comment…I’m going to see if there’s any way I can change that.

…I am holding a real copy of my book! It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it live and in person in all its glory and it’s very exciting! It’s so weird to think that months (okay, years) of work have resulted in this slim little book that soon will out in the big wild world for feedback. I still can’t believe it’s real! It looks almost exactly like the cover in the right-hand margin except it has a great quote on the front:

As a family physician who has been delivering babies for twenty-five years, I have no hesitation in recommending this well-researched book to my patients - Healthy Mum, Happy Baby should attract an appreciative audience.
Dr. Janet Green

And on the the back is a quote from Ann Douglas (quite possibly my favourite pregnancy and parenting guru - and she’s Canadian!):

Baby’s getting fed thanks to your on-board milk factory, but what about you? It’s hard to come up with meal ideas let alone healthy meal ideas when you’re living in the new mum zone. Fortunately, you’ve got Annemarie Tempelman-Kluit on your side, ready to help you come up with menus that are easy to prepare with a baby on the breast. She’s got the recipe for breastfeeding success!

Ann Douglas, author of Mealtime Solutions for your Baby, Toddler and Preschooler

Thank you Janet & Ann!

Andrew’s thrilled because now he can start using the book as a cookbook instead of pulling 8×11″ unformatted print outs of the recipes out from a ratty old folder in amongst our cookbooks.

If there are any other fans of Milly Molly Mandy* out there, or who at least remember her fondly from their childhoods they’ll remember she spent a lot of time going blackberrying. Which in light of recent research is apparently good news, as blackberries may be the healthiest food around.

* I’m scared that if I reread MMM I’ll find it hugely unPC, rather like Noddy (although apparently they have or are sanitizing it), or Curious George or even the newly released Peter Pan on two disc DVD. We just got it for Madeleine only to discover it’s got some horrible stereotypes in it and Tinker Bell’s just nasty, which hasn’t seemed to lessen Madeleine’s fairy fixation. . . It’s not that I think kiddielit should be all happy and lovely, and I had no idea what I was reading when I was little, but still…It’s kind of like when you reread the Narnia books when you’re older and suddenly you get all the biblical stuff. Anyhow, this was supposed to be about blackberries.

I’m a big fan of parenting books, I figure I can use all the help I can get, but last night I realized that a good solid 12 hours a day spent parenting should be followed up with chocolate and a glass of wine (and cleaning the kitchen, and sorting laundry and packing diaper bags to you can start the morning running) but spending all evening reading about parenting as well as all day doing it is adding insult to injury - which is in NO way to imply parenting is an injury. . .

Obviously I need a happy medium which is what? Only some nights spent reading parenting books, or being more selective in my reading?  I picked up two books from the library the other day. The first, Sippy Cups are not for Chardonnay by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor is kind of like Chick Lit parenting (maybe Mummy Lit/Parenting Lit?) light & fluffy but without enough info or helpful advice to be worth reading. The second, Mother Styles, Using Personality Type to Discover Your Parenting Strengths by Janet P. Penley (with Diane Eble) seemed more promising. Her premise is that there’s no one “right” way to parent and we have to accept our strengths and weaknesses and work around them rather than try and be perfect. So far, so good. But then you had to spend about three dense chapters figuring out your Myers Briggs personality type and maybe your partners’ too (I didn’t get that far) and how you related to each other and your children and OMG I didn’t have the energy, time or inclination. Admittedly I’m a bad sleeper and I have a three-year-old and a one-year-old so maybe someone more rested than I would have jumped at the chance but it’s not that I’m not willing to put work into my parenting, but not that kind of work.

I think obviously I need to be more selective, so I’m open to suggestions. Use the comments section to let me know what books you found helped with with parenting - which could be everything from sleep issues to discipline.

And at least I did take away the thought that none of us is a perfect parent or even can be a perfect parent and we’ll all parent differently according to our natures.

For those of us who are no longer pregnant (nor planning to be again) it’s too late for us to take advantage of new research finding that mums who eat fish give birth to brainier kids but the info about mercury found in tinned tuna is still useful. And here’s a link to a whole host of info on Omega-3’s in fish oil and their benefits to breastfeeding & pregnant women.

And if you’re trying to get more oily cold water fish into your diet, here are some links to some delicious sounding ways to prepare salmon:

• Roasted Salmon with Maple Glaze from the Mayo Clinic’s Healthy Recipe section
• Monte Cristo Salmon Sandwich from Dr. Weil’s Healthy Kitchen section
• Serving suggestions for Wild Salmon from Whole Foods

Hint: All these sites have heaps of great health information and Whole Foods has a great section on maternal health and feeding kids as well. Speaking of Whole Foods if anyone knows when the Cambie location will be opening up please let me know, my pocketbook will shrink but my tummy will be happy!

Other book titles that I considered but were rejected by me (or my publisher) for reasons that will be obvious. It’s hard to try working the word breast into the title of a book and have it not sound like porn! Mind you that might sell more copies…

• Milking It
• Milk Made
• Got Milk? (are you sensing a theme here?)
  
• Boob Food (this is my sister’s suggestion and we all love it but for some reason it just didn’t fly)
• Best of Breast

This was one of the first recipes to be included in the book and it’s still one of my favourites. Tina and I gravitated toward each other in prenatal yoga class because our due dates were one day apart. We both went hugely overdue and our kids were born two days apart (and two weeks late). Her big fear was of tearing during labour, mine was having a C-section. She tore, I had a C-section, we both survived…

1 can (19 oz/540 ml) chickpeas
6 tbsp virgin or extra-virgin olive oil (with olive oil the more virgin the better!)
4 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (or concentrate is fine too)’
1/4 cup tahini
4 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
Cayenne to taste
c. 1/4 cup water

Drain and rinse the chickpeas (apparently with tinned beans when you rinse off that gloopy, opaque liquid they’re packed in you’re also rinsing off a lot of the salt, which is good). Place the chickpeas in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Add oil, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, cumin, salt and cayenne, and process until smooth, adding water until you reach your desired consistency. Makes 3 cups.

Variations: You can totally adapt this to your taste, we’re big garlic fans in our house so I’ll often add extra. You can also try a splash of hot pepper sauce or substitute black beans for the chickpeas.

Hummus is super versatile. Use it as a dip for baby carrots, celery, pita bread or corn chips. Try is as a sandwich spread, or spread inside a pita bread stuffed with cucumber, tomato and lettuce. I also like dipping cheese toast into hummus.