.::still blinking::.

:: the baby type ::

:: the graduation type ::

We had my brother and his wife over yesterday for dinner. They brought their doggies.
This Travis and Sammie.
Darth Weiner or Frankie.

I am also very proud because they picked up all the doggie doo their pups left. Thanks.

:: this guy ::

:: flowers from this guy :: petal pots he made while in college ::

:: strawberries ::

:: orange puree from The Sneaky Chef::

:: this flickr set :: this danish blog, beauty doesn’t have a language ::

As many of you know I am NOT pregnant, nor do I want to be anytime soon. In fact, that is one part of life I would like to skip completely from now on. However, I feel like there is another little person that needs to be added to our family. I feel guilty because I do not let myself get pregnant, and there are so many people who cannot get pregnant and would give anything to be able to do it.

I hate the person that I turn into for six month before the baby is due and a year after. I love the kid. I think he is amazing. I don’t trust myself to be ok with a baby that I make. I understand the thoughts that go through extreme post-partum mothers, I do not excuse it, but I empathize. I have had awful thoughts before, I don’t want to expound. It makes me feel awful.

I think if a baby was given to me now, in my current state of mind, I would be fine. We could all be happy. I would not have to have someone come and check on me everyday. I would not have to abandoned my children at the neighbors while I try to figure out how to escape my life. If I was given a child today I would adapt, I would love it. I would not go crazy.

While I was pregnant with Gentry I tried to escape. I would lie in the tub all day long, crying and trying to figure out what jj was going to do with an infant and without me. I was not going to kill myself, just leave. When it got to be 4 in the afternoon I would get out of the tub and put myself together and pretend I had been productive.

I did not tell jj about all this until about a year after. I was so ashamed. I should have been on some sort of medication and next time I will do it better. If there ever is a next time of being pregnant.

The more I think about it, the more I think I want to adopt. I don’t know if we ever will, maybe medication would do the trick. I am not yet ready to try. I like our life the way it is now and I still remember the pain that I felt from having a baby. Not the physical pain, but the pain of being sad and anxious.

As I have mentioned before, I have a son who is beyond picky with his eating. I have a really hard time getting him to eat anything that is not corn chips or fruit. He usually has big plates of air for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I received The Sneaky Chef in the mail on Friday. I have made three recipes from it and the boy has eaten them all. He has had garbonzo beans, avacado, wheat germ, spinach, and blueberries all cleverly disguised in foods he loves. It is amazing.

These are brownies that have spinach, blueberries and lots of good grains in them. I was very skeptical of them, but they are actually quite good. I do feel like they need frosting, but that would kind of defeat the semi-healthiness of them. By semi, I mean that they still have chocolate and sugar in them, but a lot of the sweetness comes from blueberries. There is actually very little sugar and you cannot taste the spinach.

I would say this is 5-star recipe and I think that this is going to be my brownies of choice from now on.

We got up early and went for a hike with my mom and her boyfriend and Tazia. The hike was Adam’s Peak and it is near Cherry Hill, is that Ogden? Maybe Layton. Anyway, I carried Gentry in the pack on the way up. He was really cute and kept yelling to everyone. “Keep going.” “Big rocks.” “REALLY BIG ROCKS!” One time he yelled to my mom and asked what she was doing, she told him that she was hiking. She asked him what he was doing, he said, “I’m a backpack.” At the top of the hike we sat and ate and let Gentry play around a little bit, but it was really steep and there was a river right next to us.


One the way back down, jj carried Gentry. jj is a mountain goat. He practically ran down the mountain, like Cronk with Yzma (eezma) on his back. Spinach puffs anyone. He practically had his own theme music.

Later we had friends come over to eat dinner and die eggs. That was fun. They have a cute little girl a year younger than Gentry. They fought and played and played and fought. Normal kids. Gentry did most of the fighting, she just wanted to follow him around and do what he was doing.



We made bunny eggs. It was Martha’s idea.

Peek-a-boo.

Easter baskets with lots of treats from the Asian Market. Happy Easter

I found this funny. A friends impression of Sanjaya.

I saw an accident on the freeway today. It was right behind me. I think it was one of those dart in and out of traffic drivers and they clipped the front edge of one car, flipped around and got hit on the front of the passengers side. But I was driving away and I did not stop. I would not have been any help anyway.

Lately when bad things happen I get sick to my stomach. When I cut my finger I had to lie down for a while and I could not look at it for two days after without getting nauseas. The same thing happened today, my stomach tightened up and turned into a ball of nerves.

It made me think of how blessed I am to be safe and protected so much of the time. I am grateful for being watched over.

:: being safe ::

:: naps for me and the boy ::

:: remembering one year ago ::

:: and two years ago ::

:: learning to be an adult :: trying to be a good and smart parent ::

:: pulling out the summer clothes :: basking the the just warm enough sun :: leaving the windows open :: digging :: finding rocks and sticks all over the house that little hands have brought in ::

:: singing about alligators :: ernie on the moon :: itsy bitsy spider :: bumble bee :: rubber ducky ::

:: new friends for me and gentry :: watching to little bodies run around the yard ::

:: this suitcase ::

I packed a Mr. Bento lunch for jj yesterday.

In jj’s lunch there is edemame with a small container of soy sauce, sushi pizza, dried mangoes and Carob Fudge that is to die for, and a sliced apple.

Mr. Bento is a Japanese lunch box. It comes from the Japanese way a cooking and compartmentalizing different foods. You can view here, here and here.

Mr. Bento is especially nice because it has four different containers that you put in a larger stainless steal container. We put the stainless steal container in the fridge over night and it keeps the food that we put in it cold all day long. It also makes you feel very on top of things to have lunch prepared the night before, you can just grab it and run out the door. The smaller containers each have different purposes, there is the rice container, the liquid container with a rubber ring around it to keep things in or out, and then two smaller container for what ever else you would like.

We initially only bought one for jj, but I go out occasionaly and felt left out. So we got me one also. Usually jj just rotates between the two. When I need one I fill it with food for me and Gentry to take. The other day we went to Discovery Gateway, up where they have the helicopter on the deck we pulled it out and ate it. I had a spinach salad with raisins, cashews and blue cheese dressing. Gentry had his usual of corn chips and salsa. We shared an orange and some mango slices and were ready to go and play some more. It was also nice because it fit in the backpack that I had with me and I did not have to pay the astronomical McDonald’s prices for the food that was in the museum. The food was also nice and cold, like I had just gotten it out of the fridge.

We are a bento family, always on the lookout for good things to fill our bentos with. You can see what people are doing with their Mr. Bento’s here.

Carob Fudge (from Simple Foods For the Pack)
1 cup sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons carob powder (I just used cocoa powder)
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon water

Put seeds in a food processor and grind to a powder. Add remaining ingredients and blend well. Store in a lidded container.

Optional: Add 1/4 cup shredded coconut.