Parking on the Westside

First a little disclaimer, I'm not complaining I'm just reporting.

I just calculated that we have spent over $20 in the last two weeks alone on parking not including any change I have put in the meters.

Here's the breakdown:

$6 Venice Beach Parking

$4 Gymboree parking

$7 Long Beach Aquarium parking

$4 Seaside Lagoon parking

$2 valet tip at playdate

Missing My Dad

My dad passed away a little over two years ago. Now that I'm a mom I remember and appreciate the day to day details of growing up with my dad.

My dad would make whatever anybody wanted for breakfast. I can recall him making cheesy eggs, pancakes, and french toast all at once like it was no big deal.

I made pancakes for Ethan this morning and it reminded of my dad and his seemingly effortless love for his family.

Baby Silk Sunscreen Towelettes

Yesterday on the way back from the Seaside Lagoon (which is sort of a salt water lake next to the ocean) I decided to squeeze in an errand and stopped at the Right Start store. As I rushed through the store with Ethan hanging off me like a monkey in the Ergo I came across these special wipes with sunscreen. Ethan hates it when I put sunscreen on him so I was like "great at last a solution to the daily sunscreen meltdown." Keep in mind too that my little monkey was trying to grab things and fly off me while I was shopping - so I wasn't paying too close attention to the shopping part.

So, this morning I was packing up for our daily activities and I was going to bring my fancy new wipes for our pool adventure, however, I realized that 1 single wipe is about $2 . $2 for a 1 wipe - this is not a typo (the pack of 15 wipes costs $25.99/ with tax aprox. $30). I could go through 2 or 3 wipes with just my 1 kid and what if one of his friends needs some sunscreen? Then you are looking at $6 to $10 in just sunscreen wipes.

So, I can't tell you how great they are because I couldn't bring myself to use them.

New Toys = Break for Mommy

I'm finding that when your kid gets new toys, it's a little like how teachers feel when it's spring break (i.e. they look forward to it just like the students).

Last week we had a relative in town for business. Earlier that day we had discussed whether or not to get a babysitter or make dinner and decided to make dinner.

Sometime after this decision, I went to run a few errands and went to Toys "R" Us. Like any new stay at home mom I had seen the toys many times but had been too frugal to buy them. However, on this day something inside me snapped and I broke down and bought all of the toys I had been thinking about.

So I got home and took out one of the new toys and assembled it. Ethan was so excited to play with his new toy I was able to clean and prepare. When our guest arrived we were able to talk and little Ethan just nicely sat on the floor playing with his toy. His new toy was my present.

Finger Foods

Ever since we started giving him real he discovered whatever we are eating is infinitely better than what he was eating. So now I need to create family dinners. Luckily for Ethan, mom is a very healthy eater.

I took two things I make for us and modified them slightly for Ethan.

Turkey Taco's:
Gave him pieces of onion and spicing turkey, sprinkled shredded cheese on his tray, and gave him a whole wheat tortilla that I had heated on the stove. He loved the spicy turkey pieces.

Chicken Noodle Soup:
I boiled the bullion cubes to make broth per directions. To save time I bought already cut up celery, onion, and carrots from Trader Joes ( these were small pieces and were the perfect size for him). Then I cut up organic chicken breasts into small pieces and then added whole wheat spaghetti noodles. I froze a bunch of this soup for future meals. Ethan gets really excited when he sees that I'm preparing the soup for him.

A friend of mine told me about some great recipes on Wholesomebabyfood.com. Here are some of the ones that I have tried so far.

• The number one recipe is the sweet potato fries. Tom, Ethan, and I love these fries. I made a huge tray and we gobbled them up.
• I highly recommend the broccoli nuggets. It's a great food to bring on outings because he can munch on a nugget like a piece of bread but he's getting some veggies (from the broccoli) and some protein (from the cheese).
• I also like the Apple Turkey loaf. We eat that last night together as a family. I love that you can use some of your pureed baby food. Unfortunately, my husband didn't like it as much as Ethan and I.

He also loves the teething biscuits, puffs, organic O's, and bananas halves.

http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

With Ethan being at the age where he wants to put everything in his mouth the sandbox is extremely stressful for me, but soo fun for him. I'm having to take him on walks and to the park earlier now because it's so hot. Just after I took this picture he crawled up out of the sandbox and it was so hot on the surface that he almost got burned. Luckily mom was right there to scoop him up.

4th of July

For the 4th of July we went to a Parade near our house in Westchester. This parade is a yearly event that we never knew existed. It's amazing how parenthood opens your whole world.

We ran into a few friends. Some old friends and some new friends from the MOMs Club.

This picture is Ethan intently watching the Parade.

Flying With Baby

The weekend before the 4th of July, Tom, Ethan and I flew to from LA to Minneapolis. We had a great time. Since Ethan doesn't like the car so much I decided we would stay downtown and utilize the public transportation system they call the "Light Rail" (in LA we call we call it the "Metrolink").

We could only bring what we could carry so I managed to pack of our clothes, toys, etc. into one suitcase. I bought those space pack bags and put all of our clothes in separate bags. This not only saved space but it also kept things really organized. You can even space savor pack diapers.

Now that Ethan can eat real food, traveling is much easier and much more fun. Just trying new foods is entertaining. The hotel had free buffet breakfast every morning. In the morning he eat a boiled egg yolk, a waffle, and a little banana. At lunch and dinner we would give him some bread and noodles. I would try and feed him some baby food vegetables from a jar. However, he quickly discovered that our food was much tastier than his jarred baby food.

Our Mia Moda Cielo stroller worked great. It folds into a little bag and can be stored in the overhead comparment on the plane. It's very lightweight (only 9 pounds) and you can snap it open with one hand. They don't seem to sell the exact one that we have anymore but here's a link to one that's very similar:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3121415

I also used the Ergo baby. I highly recommend the Ergo for anyone like myself who has had back problems. Ethan is now about 22 or 23 pounds and I was even able to carry him around for a couple of hours in the Ergo.

We kept Ethan on the same sleeping schedule. Since Minnesota time is 2 hours ahead, we simply put him to bed at 9:30 (which would be 7:30 California time). He did have a harder time falling asleep and I'm not sure if he was just testing us to see if the same rules applied on vacation or if he had a harder time falling asleep in a new environment.

I decided to buy premixed formula for the trip and I highly recommend this. It can be a pain finding bottled water and I'm not sure if you can even bring it through airport security. Plus, the bottled water in our room was $4 a bottle and at that price it's much more economical to spend $2.5o for a premixed can of formula. They even have one that you simply attach a nipple to, however, Ethan is already using the sippy cup so I decided to go with the cans.

I ordered everything I needed for the trip from Diapers.com. The prices are much better on the diapers and formula than anywhere else I shop. According to friends Costco has the best prices, however, I end up buying a bunch extra stuff that I didn't know I needed - so I don't shop there. We do not have a Walmart in LA. I shop at Toys "R" Us or Target.

Ethan was really excited about the window shade on the plane. The shade entertained him for about an 1 hour throughout the trip, which is about 1/3 of the flight. So, make sure you get a window seat when flying.

I'll probably edit and add to this post but I just wanted to go ahead and publish it because I have a lot more things to post and write about.