I had a lot of things planned for Mila and I to do today. Of course, she had an agenda of her own when we woke up.
She ran straight to her closet and picked out a dress. Not unusual if you know Mila, but…
This is the dress she chose. Today she is Princess Mila.
I brushed her hair all out and put her in a little ‘crown.’ We found the most perfect princess shoes. Then, we put it all together and she wanted to take pictures with her ‘beast.’
So, we did just that.
My biggest tips for moms is things don’t go exactly as planned. Just try to roll with it.
It might not be what you wanted, but these unexpected moments can be just as wonderful. You never know when you’ll have the beauty and a beast in your house. Or a fire fighter, police officer, chef, or dance teacher.
Embrace these moments. They go too quick.
What’s your child been pretending they are lately?
Sometimes you feel like you’re close to the top of the world. Just when you’re right at the top, you come tumbling down.
That was metaphoric, but yesterday that’s sort of what literally happened.
With a day off and a long to do list, I was running all over the place. I worked, planned a lot of things, and wanted to take pictures for my plant page. The latter is what got me.
There was something missing for my picture, but it was on the shelf over my bed. I had just grabbed a few things off of there and didn’t even think twice about doing it again. So, off I went.
When I stepped up, I put my foot between the bed frame and the mattress. Then, I lifted my other foot up…
Obviously my footing wasn’t as good as I thought.
I fell, heard a crack, and then felt pain and numbness all throughout my ankle and foot.
Mila witnessed it all and I felt so awful. I got my phone and told her to call Gigi (my mom) because I I needed help. She did so amazing.
After evaluating it and not being sure if it was broken, I went to the ER.
Four hours and a few X-rays later, I found out there was, thankfully, nothing broken. I did tear some ligaments though.
It hurts so bad to walk. I’m stuck on the couch today with ice and two amazing nurses. They’re not professionally trained, but they know where the snacks are and love to help.
My mom fail this week was literally the fall, but also thinking everything needed done in twenty-four hours. It was a painfully, humble reminder not to overwork myself.
To every mom who feels like she’s failing, you’re doing the best you can.
I just want to start off by saying, I’m not exactly sure if this should be categorized as a mom fail, but I’ll leave it up to you at the end.
Mila has long, beautiful, thick hair. It’s always crazy to me to see how much hair she actually has. I think a lot of people dream about their daughters having nice hair, but, if you’re like me, you didn’t realize how much of a struggle it is. She’s had to have her hair brushed EVERY SINGLE DAY since she’s been a newborn and still hates it with a passion. Lately, it’s gotten worse because she doesn’t want to sit down and wait for me to do it.
Since it’s long, it gets a lot of knots and tangles. My mom always called them rats and that’s what I’m calling them for Mila too. Every night and morning, our routine is to get the rats out of her hair. I don’t even know if she knows what a rat looks like or whatever, but she knows it’s bad and needs out.
I wake up and go to sleep talking about these rats, but I didn’t know how much it was impacting me.
After our normal rat evacuation, I ended up falling asleep with her. That night, I had one of the most strangest dreams. There were actual rats everywhere chasing Mila and I had to shoo them away. It was like little faces and eyes constantly looking at me and I was trying to throw them out of the house. I felt like I was struggling through the dream to get them all away and Mila wanted no part of it in my dream either. Just the whole entire night/dream, I was getting rats away from her.
You can laugh. I would laugh too.
Let’s just say, the next day I went to go get detangling hair spray to add to our after bath routine. The less ‘rats’ I have to think of and deal with, the better.
I’ve yet had any other rat related dreams and plan on keeping it that way.
Again, maybe not a mothering fail in terms of not providing for Mila, but definitely a dream fail, to say the least. A little tip to not have rat nightmares, buy detangling spray before that’s what you think of before bed.
I’d like to start off saying, this is not switching into a cooking blog. Every post lately has been revolved around food and I’m planning on a recipe post for Monday… oops. It just so happened this one directly linked to food too.
When I woke up this morning, I thought, what a great day for blueberry pancakes. We slept in a little bit and already did our morning routine. Mila and Max has played while I did some things on the computer; the morning was just relaxing. It just like a perfect brunch type of day. I mean, look how peaceful Mila looks in that picture.
Since you’ve most likely read the title of the post, you know there’s something bound to happen…
Mila is the best helper. She loves mixing batters and handing my ingredients when I cook. While I’m cooking, she likes to stir the food and cheers. It’s cute and surprisingly, there’s only been minor messes lately.
For our pancakes, she held the cup while I poured in the dry ingredients, kissed the egg, and already had the work ready to mix it all up. After everything was in there, I beat the egg and had it pretty well mixed and let her continue while I cleaned up.
As I turned to my kitchen counter, I heard a quick ‘uh oh’ and then a clang. All while this was happening, I turned to Mila to make sure she was okay. Then it literally hit me.
She had accidentally dropped the bowl and as I so happened to turn, the bowl hit the ground sending batter all over me and the surrounding area. Mila miraculously was pancake batter free.
Fortunately, there was some batter still in the bowl. It was just enough to make us a few pancakes. So not a completely fail, right?
Once upon a time, Mila was an amazing eater. She would try anything put in front of her and clear her plate. That time is now gone.
Somedays, I’m excited if she eats a handful of nuts and some dry cereal for the whole day. Others, she eats everything in sight so I keep giving her more to store up for other days. It’s a constant battle in toddler world.
Anyways, one staple for Mila is pasta and red sauce with a ton of cheese; she’d eat a bag of cheese a day if I let her. I think she likes it causes it the messiest thing she can possibly eat. It does taste good too, but… One thing I’ve learned to do to sneak some protein in there and fill her (and me) up with less pasta is adding beans.
Beans can sometimes be intimating to cook with or introduce, but when added with pasta, red sauce, and cheese, you don’t even notice them in there. They’re such an amazing source of protein and, again, you can’t taste them.
Before adding them into the pasta, I usually put salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and onion and garlic powder to it. It just spices it up a little.
That’s what it ends up looking liked when it’s mixed. Obviously you can see them in there super up close, but when you’re enjoying dinner (and have a mountain of cheese on it if you’re Mila) it’s just like a typical bowl of pasta.
It’s Mila approved in our house and I’m interested to see if it’s toddler approved across the board. Next time you have pasta, try this little mom tip and let me know how it works for you.
A friendly reminder to parents and a tip for new ones… keep the cardboard boxes. They’re just as much, if not more, fun than the toy or whatever came in them.
Sometimes it’s a struggle to get Mila to sit down and eat a meal. She’s always been an on-the-go snacker, which definitely blurs lunch and snack times so much. We do sit down for breakfast and dinner everyday, but between then, it’s a free for all.
I worry as a mom… Is Mila getting what she needs? Is she eating enough? Is she eating too much? I’m constantly questioning her food intake and it’s honestly something I don’t want to stress about on top of everything else.
A couple weeks ago, I saw some Instagram posts and pins about grazing tables. It’s a way people can have a spread of different kinds of food and be able to eat at their own pace. I was excited to try it with Mila to see how she responded to it.
Top row: grapes, baby carrots, cheese, goldfish
Middle row: pretzel sticks, ham, pistachios, pear
Bottom row: M&M’s, Cheetos, turkey, green olives
I picked things Mila LOVES and asks for all the time, as well as, healthier options that I convince her to eat. Obviously, you can customize the food options to what best works with your child or even themed trays with the cheese and fruit being cut out in fun shapes. I’d love to do a rainbow board!
When Mila first saw her grazing board, she was definitely curious and picked at every item. The longer it was out, she ate her favorites first. I liked that I could pick at it too and since it wasn’t just on ‘her plate,’ she was happier to share.
I think this would be perfect for multiple kids and at all ages. It’s easy to put together and didn’t take long either!
If I get really creative, I’ll have to share if I make a fun board. But the grazing board is here to stay.
One of my favorite activities to do with Mila is her seasonal painting.
Since she was eight months old, I’ve had Mila paint with festive colors. Her first one was Christmas inspired. She had so much fun doing it, I wanted to keep on going. I’m unsure how many paintings I have now, but there’s no plans on stopping. The wall where her paintings hang has transformed into this seasonal activity wall, which is fun to update throughout the year.
The last one we did was for Valentine’s Day and I was up on the air of doing an Easter or birthday inspired one until summer. After I brought my spring decorations up, I figured I could combine the two with my other things.
Mila loves animals and lately (thanks Pets 2) has loved ‘bun buns’ or bunnies. I decided to incorporate a bunny in her painting and use colors that she enjoys so it wasn’t just Easter inspired.
To do this, I cut out a bunny head and taped it on a canvas. I let Mila choose the colors and where to put them on there. After I got the paint out, she brushed where she wanted to as normal. She picked blue, purple, pink, and yellow. After each color, I had her go play while I let the paint dry, so thankful for hair dryers.
Some of the paint did leak through the paper, so it wasn’t a perfect blanked out spot. After I got it dried and pulled it off, I put some white paint to touch it up. It turned out really cute and I like it not being ‘perfect.’ She was so proud of it too and kept pointing to the spot yelling ‘bun bun.’
She did such a good job with it and I really love the layered look. This can be altered to any color and image you’d like to blank out. I think tape would be easier to use, but harder to make a specific shape. This worked best for us and like I said, it’s not supposed to be picture perfect, an almost two year old made it!
I think this would be a great, quick project during quarantine to do with kids of all ages.
We’re doing more Easter crafts this week that I didn’t get to quite finish up this weekend. We’re finally decorating our salt dough ornaments and they turned out pretty good. I’ll be posting about that, my new gardening venture, and some Earth month things!
If you try this painting out, let me know in the comments!
Today was absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside. We had sunshine and warmish weather this morning and afternoon. Mila and I were outside for like three hours and I feel so refreshed. We try to get outside for a little bit every day, but it’s just different when it’s perfect out.
ANYWAYS…
Since it was so nice outside and I needed to get some things done, I knew I had to get Mila doing an activity. We had brunch, the she free played in the yard while I started on my homework this week. It’s like she has this alarm in her head when I get my laptop out. As soon as I started typing, she ran over to me and sat in my lap. It happens and I can’t be mad at her cute face. I asked her to go rake the leaves back in the pile and I’d get a sentence or two done and she was yelling at me.
I was looking around at what I could distract her with and all I could see was her water table, which I would 100% recommend to anyone. The big thing with getting the water table is she would have water everywhere and it’s not that warm out.
But I know water works; especially with Mila.
I went inside my house and went to get a big tub from my storage container to put water in. Then, I filled it up like a quarter of the way and had her pick up all the balls in our yard. To make it fun, I put Dawn dish soap in there to make bubbles. She loves swishing water around to make them bigger so that was a hit. I also got different cups/containers, utensils, and her bath baby.
With all the parenting blogs and instagram accounts I follow, they all recommend using tongs to promote fine motor skills. I finally got Mila do use them and she was picking up all the balls. She played with just the tongs for like thirty minutes. When she was over that, I told her to give her baby a bath and to make sure all the balls were squeaky clean. She was occupied for about an hour, which gave me plenty of time to write my discussion board posts and replies. j
Water works! I think it’s so cool how interested toddlers, and kids in general, are so into playing with water. Mila will fill up a cup and empty it in the bath for such a long time. Anytime she’s grump, I’ll put her in the bath or put a towel under a tub so she can play inside when it isn’t nice out.
After playing and cleaning everything up, Mila was ready for her ‘nack’ (snack), watched Moana, and is still napping. I’d say it was a pretty successful morning and afternoon playing in the water.
Peep the Nutella on Mila’s face…
Yeah, my ‘mom tip’ might be pretty weak, but being under lockdown can feel overwhelming for parents and that thirty minutes to an hour can truly make it or break it. Although we did it as an outdoor activity, don’t be afraid to bring it indoors. I’m feeling a lot less stressed today with some me time and checking items off my to do list today.
And I just love sharing how Mila’s growing with you all. If any activities help you as well, then it’s even better.
I hope you guys are keeping sane throughout this madness! As always, if you have any fun toddler activities, I’d love to hear and try them out!
COVID-19 has me stressed out. When I wake up, I’m looking to see if there are any updated, then I feel like I’m waiting for two o’clock to see what Governor DeWine has to say, and afterwards I’m reading articles about it all. While taking a minute to myself today, I realized I HAVE to get away from continuously checking up on what’s going on and focus my attention on other productive things.
As any millennial would do, I’m going to share what’s going on by writing what Mila and I are doing to get through this pandemic. So, thanks for reading along, as always…
In January, I started really researching ways to become eco friendly. I’ve wanted to write about some changes I’ve made since the beginning of the year and now may be the time where I finally get to it. Anyways, one change I kept reading about was having a ‘meatless’ day once a week. Many people do “Meatless Mondays” and that’s what I’ve tried to do too.There’s a lot of information about why going meatless one day a week helps the environment. I could probably list and talk about each of them, but here’s a website that’ll do it for me.
I am not vegan or a vegetarian, so this was a new venture for me. When I decided to go for it, I went to Pinterest for recipes and different ideas.
One really jumped out at me because it looked so good AND I knew Mila would try it all together, but definitely eat the ingredients separately. I had everything in my house, besides goat cheese (which isn’t meatless, I know), but I knew where to get it. The recipe is a smashed chickpea and goat cheese wrap found at Parsnips and Pastries.
A few things I tweaked with the recipe was:
I didn’t use roasted peppers, just fresh.
No mircogreens or sprouts. Spinach!
No basil.
I used different spices as well that I use with almost everything.
Mila ate so many olives, plain chickpeas, and the goat cheese. I just let her eat whatever she wanted and didn’t push the wrap on her. She did like the filling, but preferred to pick and eat like usual. I REALLY loved this recipe and how it turned out. It’s made me excited to try more vegetarian and vegan meals.
I actually made this last week, but am going to try a different recipe tonight. I’m out of avocados right now and am like not wanting to go back to the store, so I’m going to be creative in what I make for tonight. Maybe this with some tweaks.
A little mom/parent tip for those with upcoming toddlers… just know however healthy and tasty of a meal you make, your toddler will probably prefer to something like this instead.
If you have ANY suggestions or meatless recipes you’d like to share with me, I’d love to try them out. Eventually, I’d like to do Meatless Mondays with one meal completely vegan. I’m trying to take stepping stones in doing a vegan day. The three things that are getting me are eggs, cheese, and milk. MIla and I consume all of them everyday. We’ll try to do better, but give us time.
While writing this, I can definitely see why bloggers have a hard time just sharing their recipes. Food invokes wanting to share more. I think during this time of crisis that our world is going through, it’s nice to connect with each other and see how we’re all getting through.
I have some other things I’d like to share with you guys this week! Especially a craft/cause Mila and I are going to do this week. Another thing I’d like to know or get tips on is not being afraid to go to the grocery store to get the essentials. I really just need some fresh fruit and veggies, so maybe I’ll start searching with what I can do with my canned items.
To conclude this ever long pandemic pause, I hope you all are feeling well and are making space for yourself through all of it.
Grey Skies & Rainbow Highs 