MMM...MAMA! : CHOCOLATE CARROT ZUCCHINI MUFFINS EDITION.

the farmer's market was really good to us. so i had to come up with some ways to put the three big zucchinis i got to good use. chocolate carrot zucchini muffins. enough said. i have never made these before today, but they were delish. definitely saving this recipe. it was quite fun cooking with a toddler. a little bit more stressful than the average muffin cooking session, but a lot more exciting. i pretty much let rorie in on everything i was doing and there was a lot of little hands in the mixing bowls. so, these may not be the cleanest muffins, but they were made with love and she really had a good time. we will definitely be cooking more together in the future.

the recipe can be found here.

ingredients:

1/3 c. boiling water

1 1/2 c. shredded zucchini

1/2 c. shredded carrot

1/2 c. coconut oil

3 eggs

1 t. vanilla

1 1/2 c. flour

3 T. ground flaxseed

1/2 c. cocoa

2/3 c. sugar

2 t. baking powder

1 t. cinnamon

preheat the over to 350. mix the zucchini, carrots, and boiling water together in a large mixing bowl. stir in the eggs, oil, and vanilla. in a smaller bowl, mix the dry ingredients and add as a whole to the zucchini mixture. stir until well blended and scoop into muffin tins, filling each tin 2/3 full. bake for 30 mins or until firm to the touch.

MMM...MAMA! : BABY EDITION.

so we've done a lot of experimenting with rorie in the food department. baby girl loves to eat, but she's got some tummy issues. 

issue #1: acid reflux. she regularly spits up after eating. bottles, solid food, whatever-she spits it up. and it's painful for her. not only the act of spitting up, wet burps, and the like, but the aftermath. her spit up is full of stomach acid which burns when it comes up. solution #1: ranitidine, better known as zantac. doesn't 100% solve  the issue, but makes it a heck of a lot easier on her little body.

issue #2: milk protein intolerance. so this means absolutely no dairy. because her tiny body can't break down the protein that is in milk. so she spits up and gets no nutrients. awesome. solution #2: alimentum formula. this also means absolutely no food that contains any trace of dairy. which is hard to do. i've been avoiding dairy because i'm wondering if i have an intolerance as well, and i can tell you- it's hard to avoid.

issue #3: soy intolerance. and this is  the kicker- the one that we've been trying to pinpoint and i think we have. not only is baby girl unable to have milk, but it seems as though soy is also something that irritates her tummy. awesome! and gives her eczema. double awesome! so when manufacturers avoid milk products they usually add soy. great. and then there's soy lecithin. which is pretty much found is every single thing on the market. including Gerber's baby rice cereal and oatmeal. and almost all other baby foods. solution #3: buy expensive baby food that doesn't contain soy. baby girl is much happier.

right now little miss loves to feed herself. well, she's practicing. and every baby cookie out there is off limits. except for Ella's Kitchen Apple & Ginger Cookie. which are great, but can get expensive. so in my search to find milk and soy free baby food i found a recipe for baby cookies. here's what i found:

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 c. finely grated apple
1/3 c. oil
1 c. + a little more flour
1/2 t. baking powder

DIRECTIONS:

peel apples and grate finely. add oil, flour, and baking powder and mix. you can roll it out and make cookie cutter shapes or hand shape into whatever you want. bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes (more if you want a drier cookie for younger babies... my advice for myself for my next batch).

rorie loves them, they're cheaper than store bought. i know everything that's in them. mama score. also they are ridiculously easy to make. mama score take two.

ALI-WHAT-TUM???

it's been a long hard road with rorie. one of the hardest thing for me, being her mother, has been feeding her. it was so easy at first. she was the most wonderful baby. minutes after being born we tried breastfeeding and every nurse was surprised at how naturally she nursed. it wasn't stressful or painful and she was always happy. that didn't last for long. at home, the pain of the beginning of breastfeeding set in and the lack of sleep made my attitude toward nursing very negative. i remember yelling at aaron after he told me i could take a break. all i saw was an entire year ahead of me of non-stop nursing- there was no break. and at that time it seemed like a jail sentence. oh silly me. to be able to go back to that time and savor it more. the time when i could comfort my child with nothing but myself. now we search for "paci" and rush to make bottles.

rorie didn't continue to be good at nursing and it was so confusing to me. what was i doing wrong?! her latch became on and off and she started to take in a lot of air (something that we continue to deal with now). all this air had to get out somehow- so her burps were painful and the air that continued down in her tummy caused her to have horrible stomach pains until she was able to release them as gas hours later. she began to spit up like it was her job. sometimes it was projectile, sometimes it just came out dripping. either way- it was too much and it was painful for her and for me. i felt like breastfeeding her was pointless because she wasn't getting anything. and she wasn't. she got to the point where she wasn't gaining any weight and she was officially called "failure to thrive". exactly what you want to hear as a first time mother. i tested her once. i burped her over a bowl after giving her 4oz of breast milk. 3 oz came right back up. that's bad news bears. to top it off, she also had acid reflux. awesome. not only is she spitting up too much, but it's burning her throat as it comes up.

well, that brought us to a GI doctor who had us put her on elecare. A $50 a can formula for babies with severe cow's milk protein allergies. awesome. now we have a sick baby and the only way to feed her is to drain our bank account. the formula is special because the milk protein is partially digested so it's almost impossible to be allergic to it. it took a while for it to work, but it finally did.

this is when i stopped breastfeeding. i did this cold turkey. the pain emotionally and physically that came with it is comparable to the pain of giving birth to her. i didn't plan to do it this way. no. and i wouldn't wish it upon anyone. it was not how i wanted our breastfeeding to go. my poor skin and bones baby developed a cold. a runny nose and severe congestion paired with spitting up constantly meant that i could not put her down at all. she ate and slept in my arm. i held her constantly for 15 days straight. she had to be held upright in order to be fed and in order to breathe. horrible timing. for this is when i was supposed to be pumping in the hopes that i would be able to get all the cow's milk protein out of my system in order to nurse her. the pain set in and i knew needed to pump to my body would know to keep producing milk, but i could not and would not put her down to suffer anymore. so i held my baby tight and watch the dream of breastfeeding until at least 1 go out the window. i was also on a diet of potatoes and pears- eliminating anything else she could possibly be allergic to. i was a zombie. i'm not sure if zombies are what they show in movies. i don't think there's any blood or gore or any of that cinematic hoopla. i think zombies are just mommies with sick babies.

in the end, rorie is on a less expensive formula, alimentum, and completely bottle fed. i bought her some cute bottles from life factory which make me feel better about having to stop breastfeeding. its a burden on our family financially because we did not see this coming or plan on formula feeding at all and alimentum is still much more expensive than regular milk-based formula.

but i have some wonderful friends. the picture above is my stocked cupboard of alimentum- all from them (and this isn't even all of it!).  i also recieved two cans in the mail from a complete internet stranger who said she was blessed to have a baby who didn't have to have this kind of formula. i am truly blessed. thank you to everyone who has helped us with rorie. thank you. thank you.

i still struggle emotionally with the fact that i am unable to breastfeed rorie. my heart hurts when i see another mother feeding their child. i now have to lug around a thermos of warm water, bottles, and formula. but my baby is healthy- i have to remind myself of that. it hurts me when other mothers stress how important breastfeeding is and that it is "the best". i know that it is, but i know for a fact that it was not "the best" for us and that this is how it was meant to be for rorie. i only wish that mothers who breastfeed would understand the heartache, stress, and pain that some mothers have to go through who are formula feeding their babies. understand that there are even more factors to my story that made it impossible to continue to breastfeed. understand that i didn't want it this way. but i've got to focus on the good stuff. because my baby's pretty spunky. and she's adorably stylish. and her blue eyes will knock you out. and i've got the best friends in the world! they buy me formula (:

RORO FOOD.

Rorie has been eating solid foods for a few weeks now. She's loving it. And it's showing... because she's growing! Last night, Aaron and I were looking at pictures of her when she was sick. We worried for so long about her gaining weight and being healthy.- we are finally there! I can't even believe it, but I am SO glad we are here. Even if it means she's a big girl now.

The pictures above are from when I made sweet potatoes. It's pretty easy and doesn't really take that long. It took me a night and the next morning to complete- only because I started before dinner time, continued after I put little miss down for bed, and then pureed  the next morning. So far I've made: sweet potatoes, carrots, acorn and butternut squash, bananas, and today's task is apples and tomorrow is green beans. Yesterday she tried avocado... apparently it's not her cup of tea. She's also had prunes, but I'm not going to attempt to make those myself right now. I'm ok with just buying those from Gerber (: