emmadilemma's Profile

I've never seen anyone mention "Miss Rumphius" before... although in my mind, the book is called "The Lupine Lady"! A lovely story, I'm now looking forward to reading it when we're at Grandma's house for the holidays :)

Sort of off topic, but this brings back wonderful memories! My mum, a professional quilter, made me a sewing basket when I was probably 7 or 8. It had all the basics (needles, a few spools of thread, a tape measure, pins, seam ripper, etc.) but the best item was a small pair of Durasharp scissors - they are sitting in a basket a few inches away from my keyboard as I type this, 20+ years later!

All this is to say, this could become a very dear (and useful!) gift for your daughter, especially if she grows up associating sewing with her mother, so take care to make it a durable and pretty kit that will last a long time!

Whenever I roast a chicken, I make stock overnight in my crockpot - just throw in the carcass, add a couple of carrots, some celery (there's almost always a couple of limp stalks in my fridge), an onion and a bay leaf or two. Fill with water and cook on low overnight -- voila! Stock with close to zero effort. Love it.

I was JUST thinking about this yesterday! But thinking maybe it was just me, not being particularly resourceful. Glad to see others find this as challenging.

I am one of those people who needs a shower to mentally start their day, but usually I don't get one until my kiddo's afternoon nap. Then I always feel like I "wasted" the nap. And I feel like a total slob until 1pm, which is not a great way to spend half the day.

I'm thinking I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and start getting up at 6am or whatever and shower before he wakes up.

I asked my mum about how she did it and she said she wound up doing just that, because even thought she hated getting up any earlier than she had to, it gave her the sense of freshness and readiness to face the day.

Ha! My friend and I were just commenting on how easy it would be to cover up the licensed characters on these little chairs... this looks fantastic! Agreed, baby in slippers - way too cute.

I work from home with a little one, so I totally know what you mean. Even boiling water can take too much time. You need a meal that's ready to eat straight from the fridge.

I second the suggestions for a quinoa salad. Lots of protein and veggies - a nice balanced and filling meal in one bowl. I love this one from Canadian Living:
http://www.canadianliving.com/food/gluten_free_quinoa_salad_with_creamy_tahini_dressing.php

I often make a batch (which makes at least 6 generous servings) of this salad at night, and we eat it throughout the week at lunch. The nice thing is that it tastes better when you make it ahead of time, so that the flavours meld. You could definitely add nuts or switch around the veggies as you please, but the recipe is great as is.

Oh boy, this is a tough one. During my first trimester, I was nauseated all the time and protein was especially offensive - I had to turn away when pizza commercials ran on TV! All I could stomach was starchy carbs. I felt the same sense of internal conflict, too - I love to cook and know the importance of eating healthily at home. But ultimately, I figured out that you just have to get through it. There were lots of dinners where all I ate was potatoes and a tiny piece of plain chicken.

What really worked for me was to continually graze all day long on stuff that didn't make my stomach churn - whole wheat bread, muffins, crackers, nuts, fruit. If I felt like eating a bag of chips for lunch that's what I did. At mealtimes I wasn't ravenous since I'd been basically eating all day, so I just ate whatever I could handle. I didn't cook much during this phase - my husband fended for himself a lot, and just had to make do (good practice for after the baby comes). You'll get through it - with any luck, it won't last for your whole pregnancy, and in no time you'll be hungry all the time and won't be able to cook fast enough! (Hard to believe, eh?? Hope that didn't make you even more queasy!)

Oh my gosh, I have been wondering, too! Crazy!!!

This is awesome! I actually just found a cool phonetic alphabet print for my office at Winners. Gotta add this one to my wishlist - maybe I'll start a collection.

These are definitely adorable, but I agree with Supergaijin. We shouldn't have to apologize for babies being babies. You can clearly see when a parent is doing his or her best to calm a baby on a plane. Unless it's a young child repeatedly kicking the back of my seat while the parent is zoned out watching a movie, I'm pretty tolerant of youngsters on flights.

I have always felt more sorry for parents of screaming babies on flights than I have for myself for being close to them, since it's clear how trapped and limited in space and options they are -- and that they are abundantly aware of how much everyone on the plane wishes the baby would quiet down.

I'm not sure what I'd think if someone handed me one of these bundles. It probably wouldn't make any difference to me, but if it lets the mother go into the situation feeling a little less anxious or worried or guilty, then more power to her.

Incidentally, there was an interesting discussion about this on Motherlode recently, where a mother recognized herself and her child in another's comments about a screaming baby in business class.