Car Booty and Green Glass finds

A few weeks ago we found out about a MASSIVE car boot sale that happens every Sunday on the road behind us. I have no idea how we have lived here for 2 years and NOT known about this. So we go to check it out and find all sorts of treasures. We bought a stuffed dragon for Oscar, some books for Griff, some books for Oscar, a funky 70's canister for my kitchen, 3 Harry Potter dvds that I needed to replace and a Patsy Cline cd. And of course I had my eye out for some new pieces for my green glass collection. I think the whole morning we didn't spend more than £20 and had bags full.

I found these 2 pieces individually and spent £2 for the decanter and £1 for the salt container. I love them both so much and are great additions for my collection. It's about time to find another shelf to continue on to.

And while I've never thought I would expand the collection to blue glass as well, I found this beautiful little vase for £2 and wanted it. I can't wait to put some gerber daisies in it!

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

The combination of being sick and the weather beginning to feel like fall made me want nothing more than comfort food. All week. So this week we've done an entire menu dedicated to our favorite comfort foods. Fatty? Yes. But totally worth it.

Here is the recipe for Chicken Noodle Soup. Griff cooks this one in our house, and it made me feel so much better! I have gotten a nasty cold (part II) after just getting over one. So here it goes:

Ingredients:

4 cups chopped, cooked chicken

1 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup chopped carrots

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup of butter

8 oz. egg noodles

12 cups of water

9 cubes of chicken bouillon

1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon dried parsley

To Cook:

In a large pot, saute celery and onion in butter. Add chicken carrots, water, bouillon cubes, marjoram, black pepper, bay leaves and parsley. Simmer for 30 minutes. Add the noodles and simmer for 10 more minutes.

It is too lovely! We found this recipe on Allrecipes.com, but as always we sometimes play with amounts (for example this last time there was more bay leaf!). Guaranteed it's better than ANYTHING you can buy in a can.

Down with the Sickness

So far I have really just shared all my new mommy joy. Yes, most of the time it does feel like all sunshine and butterflies but today I wanted to share something that has been hard for me.

Being sick. Being a new mommy and being sick IS HARD. It is the worst conflict ever, because your body wants to stop, sleep and rest and you have this itty bitty person who still depends on you 100% and has NO CLUE that you don't feel well. On top of that, you still want to love and cuddle itty bitty, but you know you shouldn't because of GERMS. UG. It's been a rough week people. I'm ready to feel like super-mom again.

Oscar at 3 Months

I say it all the time, but I can honestly not believe how quickly the time is passing. I know everyone says it happens, but then all of a sudden it's 3 months from the day your baby is born and it's just disbelief.

3 months ago I was meeting my son. It's almost 9 pm here, and it was around this time that we were being settled into a bay to recover and I was having him put on me for the first time and was completely overwhelmed by the sheer perfection of him. It's true that the love you have for your child is so strong and so immediate, there is nothing like it. They don't have to grow on you. Yes, in the coming weeks there's definitely a "getting to know you" vibe going on, but you LOVE them.

So at 3 months, Oscar has laughed out loud for us twice. He smiles ALL the time and acts like he's laughing, but no sound actually escapes. Sometimes he sucks his breath inwards and it's like a froggy laughing.

He's not rolling over yet, but he's definitely trying. He's discovered his hands and arms and concentrates very hard to make them do specific things. He LOVES to be read to, which absolutely warms my heart. I was originally skeptical of reading to him this young but now, I am so glad we started!* He prefers being in the Moby to the stroller and sometimes has a hard time on long car journeys, but can sometimes be pacified by holding Mommy's hand. Bath time is always a winner. He splashes and grins and loves all the goofy songs that I feel compelled to make up at bath time.

I'm becoming paranoid about the things we watch in front of him now too. I really don't want his first memories to be some snippet from True Blood or Dexter...although it is freakin' adorable watching him dance around to the True Blood theme tune.

I do believe we are starting a bit of teething as well. We have massive amounts of drool and bubbles and gnawing on the hands and burp clothes. I even see a bit of nobbley white under the gum. I want to find a teething toy for him, but I'm having a hard time finding one that says it's BPA-free.

And that's Oscar at 3 months. I would say....awesome.

*While typing this Oscar is currently in the Moby being read Isaac Asimov's Essays on Science. Griff is such a cute daddy!

Movies Watched Lately.

So I've FINALLY been able to take advantage of my LoveFilm membership by watching a movie while breast-feeding during the week. It's been awesome. I get to watch new things and feel nostalgic for school. I miss talking about movies and watching new things. Plus, I get so excited whenever I get a new film. It's like a little mini-Christmas surprise. Score. So here's what we've watched lately:

Revolutionary Road- I was so excited about seeing this. I love Kate. I love Leo. It looked like it would be a beautiful (literally) movie to watch. I was surprised to find out that I was utterly bored by it. It's that same comment made a 1000x over about how horrible suburban life is, especially for the stay at home wife/mother, who has always yearned for something more but couldn't have because of what society expected of her. *YAWN*. I get it, I really do. But I also feel like it's been done and the story I was just...boring. Ironically tho, the performances from Kate and Leo were still amazing.

The Wrestler- I'm a wrestling fan. It's not cool, but there you have it. I loved this movie. It moves with such an honestly about it, that you sometimes feel like you are watching a documentary rather than a fictional story. It's a role that Mickey Rourke's face was made for. I honestly had tears welling up at the end. I am curious tho if non-wrestling fans enjoyed it as much?

The Warriors- You know when you get to a party late, and you're a little worried that it's passed you by but then surprisingly you have a fantastic time? Yeah, that's how I felt when I watched The Warriors. It's so cult and has so much built up around it, I was afraid I might not get it and it would have passed me by. But I LOVED IT. It's fantastic and I will definitely be adding it to my DVD collection. Go watch it.

My Placenta & Me

It's funny how having a baby can take you places you would have never considered before. For example, taking your placenta in capsule form.

Never in a MILLION years would I have thought I would consider, let alone actually, ingest my placenta. But early in my pregnancy I read this article on a website I frequent, Offbeat Mama. I will give you three guess on the words that got my wheels turning. BREAST MILK. If there was even the smallest possibility that this would help my milk production, I was immediately on board.

Like the author, I couldn't fathom actually eating or drinking my placenta in a smoothie, BUT having it dried out, blended and put into capsules. That I could deal with. But how do you even go about finding someone to do that for you? There's not a lot of people anxious to talk about placentas and it's moments like this, you have to be grateful for the internet. Amazingly, there was a woman who does Placenta encapsulation in the UK and lived in the town over from me.

When Oscar was born, my placenta was put into a glass dish that we brought with us and Griff took it home to wash and place in the fridge till Lynnea could come and collect it. She was amazed at how large and healthy it looked and said it was one of the biggest she had seen. I have to say, Lynnea's enthusiasm made me feel even more like I was making the right choice. The woman obviously loves what she does.

So, how did taking my placenta work for me?

I feel like it helped. A lot. I felt like an emotional roller-coaster after having a difficult and long labor that ended in a cesarean. I needed to feel like me again and quick. I didn't want my surgery to prevent me from bonding with Oscar.

Lynnea had my capsules to me with 48 hours of handing my placenta over to her. My placenta made an astonishing 178 capsules! AMAZING. I started taking 1, 3 times daily and then started taking 2 caps twice daily. I had energy to get tasks done and take care of Oscar. I wanted to get out and enjoy the summer. My breast milk came in abundance and within a week Oscar was no longer needing formula supplements. And speaking for vanity's sake, I haven't lost hair like a lot of ladies do.

Would I have had the same outcome even if I hadn't taken my placenta? It's difficult to say. I will never be able to compare. I know people are constantly complimenting how well I am looking and how emotionally well I am for a "new mother". And I do feel good. Yeah, I have a ways to go to lose the baby weight, but hey, it's not a miracle pill.

I do know that I plan on taking my placenta for my next pregnancies. I am now down to my last hand full, and I'm at the point where I only take them when I feel like I need a bit of a "pick me up".

If you are interested here are links for the UK and US for encapsulating. I honestly can't say enough about how much I think it's helped and how fantastic I think it is. Questions? Comments?

http://www.koalatherapies.com/

http://placentabenefits.info/

This is the day, your life will surely change

There are so many things I want to blog about. I mean to, I really do, but it's SO HARD to find time. I want to blog about placenta capsules, our trip to Weymouth, the movies I've watched lately, the books I've been reading, how much cooking we've been doing, how much Oscar is growing and changing....but it's so damn hard! So instead I will post this video:

and promise to return soon with a blog with an actual theme to it! Trust me, I have loads to go on about....