For the past year, I have been learning to deal with the added restrictions and allergies of feeding my daughter. I began on the journey of adapting recipes that were baby-friendly, and also free from 5 of the most common allergens: nuts, dairy, soy, eggs and legumes. Keeping in mind that baby-friendly also means sugar-free. If you loved the banana muffins recipe I published a few months ago, you are going to want to add this one to your try list!
There are so many emotions attached to that statement, which I have left for another post (all about my first year of motherhood) so this one can be all about Little Miss and her birthday celebrations. She welcomed her best buds over to play while the mamas caught up on things, she thouroughly enjoyed opening her gifts, and by golly did she ever stuff her face!
Even though we both chose to have a baby, to create a tiny human, there are bound to be things we don’t want to do. Things like dealing with tantrums, shitty diapers, cleaning bottles and endless laundry… So the best way with dealing with everything is to actually not deal with every single thing—divvy up the tasks and it’s like you’ve only got half the crap to deal with. Literally!
I cannot remember the last time I got to enjoy the deliciousness of a banana muffin–between the keto lifestyle I had to follow for a few years, the dairy-free for my breastfeeding child’s allergies, and the no-nuts for my mine, this really limited my opportunities. So, now that I am back on a simplified regime, I decided to adapt a handful of recipes into the perfect sugar-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free banana muffins. This one is pretty darn close, if I do say so myself!
Even before becoming a parent, there were always never enough hours in the day to complete everything that needed to be done and still do things that I want. Becoming a mother stretched that time out even further, but I make it work.
As a work-from-home boss, I can tell you that more often than not people assume I do all of the housework. Umm, no. I work from home, which means I have actual work to do while I happen to be home, and that does not include the laundry or the plumbing. Do I try to plan that type of thing into my schedule? Yes. Is it a priority during work hours? NOPE. Since having a baby and earning my boss mama badge, the assumptions and opinions have only gotten worse. Working from home with a baby is hella hard, and cuts into my work time like you wouldn’t believe!
This year we celebrated our first Christmas as a family of three. While it was different in so many ways, our beloved traditions lived on. Through the allergies, the nap schedule, the foiled plans because of contagious family members, and the food-poisoning (happy holidays to me!), we made it work!
Part of me knew years ago that my child’s photo albums would have mostly pictures of them alone or with their daddy, and very few with me. I didn’t plan for it, but that’s the life of a professional photographer. We are always the ones behind the camera and carriying a tripod and remote around everywhere is not exactly feasible (especially with an infant!), which means that we are often left out of the photos. So it should come as no surprise that this shoot, and many before it, did not even have one with me in it.
Having a baby in January, in Canada, is extra hard because you don’t want to go outside and also you probably shouldn’t cause it’s cold AF out there. Fast forward a year later, and now you pretty much neeeeed to get out of the house to avoid going stir-crazy with your little mover (however old they are!). Finding things to do can be a challenge, so I’ve compiled a list of kid-friendly indoor activities in Ottawa if you are looking for alternate options. Spoiler alert! One of those activities is finding some workshops to participate in–some are a one-time thing, and others are a weekly activity over the course of a month or two. This post is all about one of those workshop classes I recommended, to learn to speak & sing French with your baby, to hopefully help you decide if this one is right for you and your little one.
This post is about all of the wonderful mom hacks and awesome products that I have discovered after having a baby in January, in Canada. If you were hoping for ideas on what to do to avoid going stir-crazy, I’ve recently compiled a list of the top 10 kid-friendly indoor things to do in Ottawa during the winter so that you can adventure out into the wild without worrying about hanging out in the frigid Canadian cold. If you prefer to stay inside and avoid the cold altogether, scroll to the end of the post–I got you! Let’s start with that list of gear.
I don’t even like chicken. But I made my husband cook this for us two nights in a row, with leftovers for lunch both days. He said no the third day. Yup, that’s how good it is!
In case you didn’t know, I am a work-from-home mama. I also exclusively breastfeed my daughter, which has been somewhat of a challenge, to say the least.
When baby refuses the bottle, shove it in their mouth. Sort of. The milk, not the bottle. Let me explain the background on this one first. When my little girl was a month old, I was running on no sleep, no energy, and my husband was back at work. So, when he offered to do one of the night feeds for me so that I could get 4-6 hours of straight sleep instead of only 2-3, I begrudgingly agreed and bought myself a Haakaa to collect some of my milk. It went great! Fast forward to just over a month later, and bottles were apparently poison. Seriously, the screams coming out of this child sounded like death was imminent. As time passed, mama needed get back to work, which meant bottles needed to happen. Hundreds of dollars spent later on different bottles and nipples, we finally found the solution. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.
This is my life now. I feel like this thing is always attached to me, and to escape it means my daughter might go hungry. My breastfeeding journey has been easy for me (minus a few minor issues along the way) so I had no idea that pumping would be this hard.
You probably read the recent blog post about how I got my husband to let me post all the things on the internet, so it may come as a surprise that we decided NOT to share our daughter’s name on the internet at all. There is a rather simple explanation for our choice, but seeing as it seems to conflict against our share-everything policy, I wanted to share that reason with you.
Marriage is hard. Marriage after having a baby is harder. Marriage when that baby is cranky, won’t sleep, learns to scream on purpose to get your attention, and you’re living off little sleep and lots of caffeine…feels impossible.
