A Day in the Life - Link-up Party!

At the insistence of my sweet sister over at Living with Renewed Strength I've decided to try out this link up thing. :) I'm linking up with Holly who is hosting this little "Day in the Life" shin-dig.

So, the idea is to give you all a peek into my life here at The Hemme Haven on a normal day for us, so here goes!

*edit* I could not get the button to work :( but I linked back to your blog above Holly. :)

6:15am The Hubsters alarm goes off and Sadie, our 4 year old Corgi jumps up for a cuddle.

7:30am John wakes up, so I drag myself out of bed and go get the happiest kiddo on the planet out of bed. Diaper change and into the highchair. I brush John's teeth and he get's some medicine that is pretty much nexium for babies and has to wait half an hour before he can eat after taking it. So I turn on Leap Frog Phonics Farm. While he's watching that, I weigh myself, brush my teeth, let the dogs out, back in, and feed them, then I get to drink my protein shake. Sometimes I have to wash bottles from the night before.

8:00am John get's his first bottle of the day. I usually make his first bottle of the morning 1.5cal/ml but since we are trialing sweet potatoes right now, I make a 6oz 1cal/ml bottle with about two tablespoons of pureed sweet potatoes in his morning bottle. We watch Leap Frog Number Land while he's eating to keep him distracted enough to eat with out thinking about it. It takes him about half an hour or so to finish a 6oz bottle.

8:30am I turn on our favorite Pandora station, Raffi, and John plays while I check my email, Facebook, and get John's cloth diapers ready for the day.

10:00am On Tuesday and Thursday John has therapy from 11-12 so on those days I start getting us both ready to leave which involves brushing my hair and finding clean clothes for us both, a diaper change, packing John's bag, and any food we are trialing.

10:50 Walk out the door to go to therapy.

11:00am-12:00pm John is in therapy with his Occupation Therapist who we LOVE. She has brought him so far with his oral aversion and things are improving every week. She usually uses a Z-Vibe off and on through out the session. She works with him drinking water out of  a cup. Works on gross and fine motor skills. If we are trialing a food, like we are right now, she will work on getting him to eat that food with a spoon. The last 10-15 mins she lets him play in the gym. He loves the ball pit and the swing.

12:15pm Back home for a diaper change and a quick 1 cal/ml bottle of Elecare Jr Vanilla, then it's NAP TIME! My most favorite and least favorite time of day.

12:30-2:30pm John naps. I, however, eat lunch, usually left overs from dinner the night before, pick up the living room, vacuum. Do dishes, clean the counters, whatever laundry needs to be done, and general tidying up. If there is any time left I might sew, crochet, update the ol' blog, and/or Facebook stalk. Some days I even indulge in a nap for myself!

2:30pm John starts to wake so I get his sweet potatoes into a bowl, then go get him. Change his diaper again, and try to get him to eat a little bit. Depending on how much he ate of that I might make a small bottle since it's only been a couple of hours since he ate last he wont eat much.
The rest of the afternoon is pretty much just spent doing whatever. Playing around the house, going to the park, going shopping, whatever we are in the mood for. No real schedule, except John's feeding.

4:00pm John gets another bottle and another diaper change. 1.5 cal/ml OR 1cal/ml with sweet potatoes.

5:00pm Hubby comes home and I start cooking dinner while he get's some one on one time with the boy. I love hearing my son giggle while I'm cooking, knowing that he is thoroughly enjoying his Daddy.
When we eat depends on what I cook but John sits in his highchair watching a movie while we eat.

6:30pm Not every night, more like every other night, The Hubs gives John a bath. Every night, he gets more medicine. Feed the dogs again.

7:00pm One last bottle for John, usually an 8oz 1.5cal/ml.

7:30-7:45 John goes down for the night.

8:00-11:00pm The Hubby and I watch TV, talk, surf the internet. We both clean up the living room and kitchen. Hubs get's all he needs for work the next day ready to go. I throw a load of cloth diapers into the wash and then it's off to bed!

And there you have it! A day in the life of The Hemme's

Sorry I don't have a bunch of cute pictures to accompany my play by play. This was a last minute post and I've not documented most of these things before. Maybe I'll do that one day. 

I hope you enjoyed your peek into our life. 

Retrain your Brain

Last night, I really really really really wanted to give my son a hot dog. I mean what kid doesn't love hot dogs? They are like a childhood staple!!! I wanted to give it to him so bad that I found myself trying to reason with myself about how it might not be so bad if I were to just let him eat it, this one time! I had a moment of wanting to just say, "I'm done with this disease!"

I just want John to be able to enjoy his childhood. That's the main thing. What I need to realize is that he does NOT need food to have an enjoyable childhood. At least not in the sense that I'm referring to right now. I need to focus more on making his life full of memories that don't involve food. I want to make my life that way too. Looking back on my childhood, my best memories involve food! Mac'n'cheese with my siblings and cousin at our Grandmother's house during the summer, Grandpaw walking us to Mc Donalds, Sunday night's after church at Cancuns, Thanksgiving's at Granny's, the family dinner table.

I've got to be creative in making memories for my child that don't involve food.

My husband and I have been on a diet for a few months now. We realized how much we abuse food. It's about a life style change more than a diet. Learning to listen to our bodies. Thinking of food as sustenance, not a social activity. I wish society, as whole, would get into this mind set. We would no longer be the most obese country in the world! And it's not just about portions and only eating when you're hungry, and stopping when you're body is satisfied... it's about being more conscious about WHAT you are putting into your body! Read the ingredients list on the back of your favorite snack or lunch. How many of those ingredients can you pronounce? 

I would love to go back to the hunter/gatherer life style. Minimalist! One day. :) When we have land and can grow our own food. 

Speaking of growing our own food. I've decided that whenever John passes a food trial, we are going to make a big deal out of going to buy that foods plant or seed, planting it in our yard and growing it ourselves.

Let's hope our first planting is a sweet potato!!

Yesterday I started the trial and John was refusing to eat it with a spoon. :( I did some polling of the AMAZING girls in my support group and came up with  the plan to put a few table spoons into his bottle of formula. This morning and last night John had sweet potato milk. :)

This way I will know that he's getting enough of the sweet potato in him to call it a trial and if he does okay, then I'll put in the hard work of getting him to eat it! We are still trying to get him to eat it with a spoon but not pushing too hard until we know if it's even safe for him. 

Sweet Potatoes

We are trialing sweet potatoes now. We started today!!

Same process as with the apples. I bought an organic sweet potato from Earth Fair, it's as local and fresh as I could get, next to the farmers market or growing my own.

first we peel

then we slice

then we steam

see the steam??

good grief I love this kid!

look at that face!!!

watching the steam from the potatoes cooking

my lovely food processor!

I want some!

So far he's acting like he doesn't like the taste. I'm hoping that it's just because it's new and things will get better. I'm going to try adding some sugar to see if that helps with the flavor any.

It's so hard to know what's learned behavior, (food makes me feel bad, I don't like food), what is that he just doesn't like the flavor of this particular food, and what is actually an allergic reaction!

I will report back in a week or so with how things are going!

Wish us luck!