I submit for your evaluation, more evidence that Baby G may in fact be my daughter.
We recently learned that our Globug is allergic to eggs. We don’t know for certain that she has any particular reaction, but it’s certainly possible that her eczema is triggered by her allergy. So starting about a week ago I cut eggs from my diet, and we’ll be waiting on introducing eggs to hers once she starts solids.
In the meantime, I’ve been researching egg substitutes for various baked goods, and more importantly, breakfast items like pancakes and waffles. The substitution depends on the recipe, but I found recommendations like applesauce, mashed banana, or adding a bit of baking powder and oil.
This morning, Kenny whipped up a new eggless waffle recipe, devised by synthesizing a few recipes he found on the web. The waffles were delicious and unbelievably light and fluffy, thanks in large part to one secret ingredient: sparkling water (thanks mom, for the Sodastream you got us for Chanukah – it’s proving to be even more useful than anticipated!) It’s good to know that my favorite trick for producing light, fluffy matzo balls can be applied to other recipes as well.
I assume one could substitute more oil for the butter and soy milk for the cow variety to make vegan waffles.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup corn meal
- 1/2 cup white flour
- 1 tbsp butter, melted
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp sparkling water
- 1.5 cups milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Pinch of salt
Optional: add 1/4 cup granola and/or 2-3 tbsp coconut
Directions
Mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients, combine. Follow waffle iron manufacturer’s instructions.
This week was full of excitement and smiles. Gloria experienced her first Chanukah and enjoyed lots of walks in this unusually sunny winter. She also took part in our annual Cuban Christmas dinner at Tio Gio’s, and greeted Daddy on his birthday with her new squealing skills.
FEED ME
Gloria’s first Chanukah candle lighting – she was trying to sing along for the blessings
Mommy, I want to stay up and play, it’s Chanukah!
Glowing on the winter solstice
Playing with her Chanukah present from Grandma Helene
Still zero interest in trying solid food
“Happy birthday Daddy” squeals
Gloria’s nursery décor ran a few months behind schedule. When she caught us by surprise a few weeks early, the room simply had a dresser, a cabinet, and the crib that we had assembled a mere three days prior to her birth. While we had been planning to use the subsequent month to build out the safari theme we had envisioned for the nursery, we were instead thrown into the rigors of new parenting. The only sign of our intentions was a giraffe coat hook on the wall, left here by the previous owners.
By mid-August we had the basics of parenting under enough control to start planning on how to give the giraffe hook some company. We first acquired a quilt to hang on the wall. Of course, once we finally got around to unpacking the quilt we realized that it can’t “just go on the wall” (oops, I blame new parent sleep-deprivation). So our next task was to figure out how to unobtrusively hang the quilt.
Neither of us come from a quilting family, but the trusty interwebs came to the rescue. After considering various options, we ordered a Quilters Hangup to use as a sleeve. We also purchased a Hang it Dang it to use as a quilting rod; we were suckers for the branding, and the neodymium magnet worked exactly as advertised!
A few weeks later we commenced what was to become our most involved nursery project. Since we didn’t trust ourselves to paint an attractive wall mural, we ordered a set of large vinyl decals from Etsy. The scene included a six foot tall yellow giraffe in savanna grass, a brown monkey hanging from a tree, and a set of orange birds.
The decals arrived in a large tube, and the adhesion process was more involved than I expected. For some reason I had pictured a single decal each for the monkey in the tree and the giraffe. I now know that each piece of contiguous color is a separate decal, which meant one really big yellow decal for the giraffe background, another 49 smaller brown decals for his spots, two white decals to complete the eyes, and a few more for the feet, tail, ears, and nose. All told, we had six sheets of decals in different shapes and sizes to arrange on our wall.
Included in the tube of decals was a set of instructions that described how to apply the decals. There are three layers on each decal sheet: transfer tape, the decal itself, and backing paper. The goal is to remove the backing paper, rub the remaining two layers onto the wall, and finally remove the top transfer tape layer. To get your feet wet, the artist enclosed a free “practice decal.” My first attempt was slightly misaligned, but if you don’t press too hard on the decal initially, you can peel it off and readjust.
A little bonus for Gloria’s closet
For larger decals, the instructions highly recommended using a “hinge” technique. In addition to a textual description, a YouTube link was provided for further viewing. First you tape up the decal, and then make a hinge at the decal’s midpoint.
Then you untape half of the decal and remove the associated backing paper, cutting the backing paper at the hinge. The decal will naturally fall into place (since you have the other half taped up correctly). Rub the decal in place, and then repeat for the remaining half.
Finally, pull off the transfer tape. Often the transfer tape will pull the decal along with it, in which case you need to pause and re-rub the decal onto the wall.
Pulling off the transfer tape was the most delicate part of the application process
Once we completed this process for the base color, we needed to add the other layers. For some of the pieces, there were vinyl numbers to align, for others we had to wing it. Our guide had a helpful tip to spray the back of the decal with water to loosen the glue so that it would slide over the base layer. Turns out you need to use a lot of water for it to really “slide”, though any water makes it easier to pull off the decal and try again.
We were really pleased with the final product. Even though we didn’t design the decals, the amount of time and effort that we spent applying them caused us feel like we made them ourselves.
To finish the room, we followed up our positive Etsy experience with a mobile order from another Etsy vendor. A grandma from Texas put lots of love and hand stitching into the animals, and diaper changes have never been more fun for our munchkin.
The mobile from our perspective (left) and Gloria’s (right)
Playing with mommy in her jungle lodge
Baby G is five months old today! Happy birthday, munchkin!
My return to work last week has shaken up our lives quite a bit, but fortunately our Globug has finally gotten settled back into her routine at home. After eight nights of very poor sleep for our entire household, things took a sharp turn for the better on Wednesday, when Gloria only woke three times for feedings. And then, on Thursday, she slept through the night again, as though nothing had ever changed. We had switched to a white noise machine that plays continuously on Wednesday night, replacing our Sleep Sheep that times out at 45 minutes. Coincidence? Perhaps, but we’re certainly not planning to switch back.
Courtesy of Asher, we’ve acquired a hand-me-down exersaucer, and Gloria tried it out for the first time the day before her five-month birthday. Kenny placed Gloria in her little pod, and she was enthralled just looking at the various colors and shapes of all of the new toys surrounding her. She wasn’t so keen on actually playing with them yet, but we figured that would come with time. On day two in the exersaucer, she discovered the plastic dog that plays snippets of children’s songs (Itsy Bitsy Spider, I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, Do You Know the Muffin Man, etc.) on the push of a button. Actually, it’s not clear whether she really understands that the button causes the songs to play, but she leans into that button constantly, with an ear to ear grin induced by the music. I’m sure the synaptic pathways are being created though.
Things are quiet at work over the next couple of weeks, so Kenny and I will both be working from home a bunch and are looking forward to lots of play time with our cutie.
Yep, that’s my winkel, thank you very much
Family portrait
Two things Gloria used to hate: tummy time and diaper changes, now combine to form one of her favorite activities
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes
Bumbo + playmat = fun!
Why hello there, baby cake
Fun times in the exersaucer
Eggplant Ginger vs. Cashew Chicken
Yesterday for lunch, Gloria joined us at the Thai Tom counter for the championship match of 2011. She was enthralled by the cooking show and the occasional bursts of flame out of the stir fry woks.
After Match 6, the championship was a little anticlimactic; Cashew Chicken has been bested by Panang Curry in the past, so it was no surprise that Eggplant Ginger also took the Cashews to task. It didn’t hurt that Eggplant Ginger was ordered with tofu, which in my opinion is superior to the chicken at Thai Tom.
Final results of the Thai Tom 2011 Tournament
Gloria wants to dictate the time and place of the next Thai Tom Showdown, when she grows out of her disinterest in solid food. Thai Tom has at long last expanded their menu, so we will have to spend some time researching the initial qualifiers for the next match up. However, I expect it will include these solid contenders:
- Eggplant Ginger (#10)
- Panang Curry (#16)
- Cashew Chicken (#3)
- Pad Thai (#1)
- Swimming Rama (#15)
- Garlic and Pepper (#9)
The next Thai Tom Showdown judge is ready for action!
It’s been quite a long week. We arrived home from Thailand on Tuesday, and proceeded to learn all about baby jet lag. Our route was a difficult one that involved two red-eyes bridged by a 12 hour layover in Seoul. Gloria did great during the flights, sleeping well in her bassinet and cooing during most of her awake time. On the long-haul from Seoul to Seattle, our neighbor across the aisle even offered to pay us for the opportunity to babysit her one night.
We should have taken him up on his offer this week. Our nighttime hours have been destroyed by jet lag. We haven’t gotten much sleep all week, Lauren has returned to work, and the cold I almost avoided got the better of me for a day or two (“sleep when the baby sleeps” sick days helped my recovery).
Saturday night got our hopes up, since Gloria went back to bed easier on each of her awakenings, and she had some longer stretches of sleep (it also helped that neither of us had to go into work the next day). Sunday night completely regressed all of those improvements though. Lauren and I are tag-teaming baby duty this week, and praying that the “one day per time zone” jet lag recovery theory is accurate (as opposed to this being the dreaded “four month sleep regression”). We’ll let you know next week.
On the plus side, Gloria’s been a little charmer during the daytime hours. Her nice jet-lag induced daytime naps meant she was full of energy to play. We had a fun splash-filled bath on Thursday, and a special daddy-daughter lunch at Café Flora where she charmed all of the waitstaff while bouncing on my knee.
‘”Recreation Baby” is a play on our Puzzlehunt team name – baby G loved her onesie from Vidya Auntie
Yummy yummy towels
She was still a little angel every morning
A few days before we came to Thailand, I took Gloria to the pediatrician for her four-month checkup. The doctor told me that it would be a good idea to start Gloria on solid food soon. Apparently the new research shows that starting closer to four months than the traditional six helps fend off food allergies, although I did remind him about Gloria’s early arrival and he agreed that we could wait until she hits her adjusted age of four months. This meant there was no rush to start solid food during our Thailand trip, but we could start looking for signs of readiness.
One of the major signs we’re supposed to watch for is Gloria showing an increased interest in our food. And since we’re not embarrassed to admit that a large part of what keeps bringing us back to Thailand is our penchant for tropical fruit and spicy curries, we thought it might be interesting to see whether any of these delicious treats could tempt our little one. Not to mention that mashed banana is recommended as a great first food.
She didn’t appear particularly interested in the yellow watermelon or banana pieces that we showed her at breakfast
Pineapple and papaya chunks were perhaps a bit more interesting, but does she recognize that they are food?
Clearly not tempted by piping hot tom yum goong in Phuket or fresh pad thai sen yai in Mae Hong Son
Perhaps we should wait a little longer before introducing pad prik giang?
I’m not sure she’s ready for pad see ew either, sadly
Looking quizzically at chunks of dragon fruit and mango
My guess is that the Globug will have her first taste of solid food sometime in 2012.
Unlike many a tortured prima donna entering a reality TV showdown, Gloria apparently did come to Thailand to make friends. She couldn’t help it, really – the Thais seem to love love love babies, and it’s probably pretty rare that a farang baby as young as ours ventures from the US all the way to Thailand. Everywhere we’ve been, hotel and restaurant staff have been eager to hold and play with the baby, usually while chanting “cha eh, cha eh,” which we’ve been told is a meaningless baby talk phrase, similar to “goo goo gah gah.” It’s become a common occurrence for the waitstaff at a restaurant to drop off our food and then offer to hold the baby for the duration of our meal – free babysitting, not a bad deal!
At Black Canyon Coffee in Chiang Mai
Mr. Poon’s wife insisted on holding Gloria, singing to her, and soothing her to sleep when she was fussy and jet lagged
Baby holders at our guest house (breakfast) and on the beach (lunch)
Treau and her daughter, at our guest house in Mae Hong Son, both sang Gloria a chorus of “cha eh”s on our arrival
Once the word got out at our guest house that there was a farang baby about, all of the neighbors wanted to meet her
New friends at Fern Restaurant and Son and Mum
Our server at Rom Jinda, and the bowl of green curry that she traded for our first born
New friends at Aum Vegetarian and We’s Restaurant, both in Chiang Mai
Gloria bidding adieu to her friend M at our guest house, shortly before heading to the airport to start the long journey home
Tonight we had Thanksgiving dinner with our Burmese friends in Mae Hong Son. It was their first time celebrating Thanksgiving (they hadn’t even heard of the holiday until we mentioned it last week), and they were honored to be involved. The menu was quite different from our Thanksgiving in India, as there are no turkeys to be had in these parts. Our main course was “snake” in banana leaves, which took the better part of the day to prepare. We also had a side of papaya pancakes and the full set of accoutrements (including lots of chilies, of course). For dessert we had a ridiculous cake we picked up from a new bakery in town. The sweet shop owners asked if we wanted any writing on the cake (they usually do birthday cakes), so we acquiesced to a “Happy Thanksgiving” flourish.
After our food was all prepared, our Burmese friends asked us if we were going to give a speech before dinner or if we had any traditions on this holiday. So we went upstairs, sat around in a circle, and talked about thanks. Lauren gave a brief history of Thanksgiving and then many of us around the circle talked about what we were thankful for. One of our Burmese friends was thankful that we introduced them to Thanksgiving and shared our holiday with them. We’re thankful that we were able to share Thanksgiving with our small but growing family, and our adopted family here in Mae Hong Son.
Special Mae Hong Son Thanksgiving dinner
Our festive dessert