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WFMW: Fiber-iffic Fun!

You all know I LOVE talking about poop so I’m happy to have a poop-related post to share with you for Works for Me Wednesday. Even though Joshua is fully potty-trained and has been for about six months, he still has pooping issues from time-to-time. He has a history of being, uh, “plugged up”, if you will and recently that tendency has reared its ugly head, or more appropriately, tail. So, it’s been taking the kid 10-15 minutes to push out a poop. I don’t know why, but he always has to have an audience for the great event to occur (I am really, really, really hoping he outgrows this soon. This could have serious repercussions later in life!!) and so until recently, I’ve had to cage Sophie via Pack-n-Play or exersaucer every time her brother has to lay a deuce. So it goes like this: I run back and forth between the boy on the john and the screaming baby (did I mention she hates to be restrained in any way?) for ten minutes or so until Joshua is finally able to move his poor little bowels with me cheering him on and singing him songs. By the time his ginormous rock-hard turd hits the crapper, we are all exhausted.

Last week, I decided this had to change. Joshua is a very picky eater, and he obvisously wasn’t gettng enough fiber in his diet. So I took a cue from my friend Jill at the Diaper Diaries, who loves her some fiber, and I put a couple fiber-tricks in motion to get Joshua on his way to happy, healthier pooping. The first thing I did was head to Trader Joe’s to get some ground flaxseed. This stuff is great! It’s ground very fine, packed full of fiber, and easy to conceal in food. I put it in Joshua’s oatmeal, cinnamon-and-splenda toast, grilled cheese, and peanut butter sandwiches. He never even knows it’s there! I put it in dinners I make too – soups, casseroles, anything he won’t SEE it in. (I tried putting it in his ketchup once – no dice – he could see it.) The second trick I implemented is prune juice. We don’t drink much juice in our house, mostly milk & water, so juice is a treat for Joshua. Still, it’s a little much to ask for a three-year-old to down straight prune juice, so I mix it with reduced-sugar grape juice, about 50-50, and he gulps it down. Finally, I’ve found two snack crackers he really likes that are fiber-full. One, on Jill’s recommendation, is the Kashi TLC cracker. Yum yum! He loves them! The other are the All-Bran Snack Bites. I used to get these at Kroger’s, , but I’ve recently found them at Big Lots for a bargain price – just in time to get us through this Poop Crisis! They have a yummy cinnamon & brown sugar taste and 5 grams of fiber per serving! Yea!

Happily, we saw results in Joshua’s bathroom time within about four days. He now poops about every-other-day instead of twice a week, and he can dispatch a giant turd in about 15 seconds instead of 15 minutes! Yea for Fiber! Adding it surreptitiously to your child’s diet takes the drama out of bathroom time and it works for me (and Joshua!)

For more great Works for Me Wednseday ideas, head on over to Rocks In My Dryer.

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Princess Who-What??

My silly son Joshua, at three-and-a-half, says something to crack me up just about every day. The other day we were watching his new favorite PBS Kids show, Super Why. He is IN LOOOOVE with it. He loves to sing the songs and really cracks me up singing them with gusto while he watches the show. The show is about reading; it’s kind of a Little Einstein’s rip-off but it’s cute and educational and not very annoying, so I’m cool with it. The kids who solve problems on the show are called the Super Readers.

So as we were watching it the other day, I said, “Joshua, are you a Super Reader?”

He looked me right in the face and said, “No, I’m a boy, remember?”

I cracked up. I couldn’t help it! His reply was so innocent, so matter-of-fact, so black-and-white. It just tickled me! So, I was cracking up, and he started giggling, because he loved that he had made me laugh, even though he wasn’t sure why what he had said was funny. We giggled back and forth for a minute, and after we quieted down, a character came on the show named “Princess Presto”. (She has the power to SPELL! Rock on!!) Joshua was quite excited to see Princess Presto. He jumped up from the couch and pointed to the TV.

“Look Mommy! It’s Princess RECTO!”

I totally lost it.

I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. Joshua started giggling again.

“What’s her name, honey?” I asked him. I really wanted to hear it again. I am a bad mother.

“Princess RECTO.”

“Ohh, Princess RECTO. That’s a good name. (Especially if her super power is to shrink hemorrhoids or dispense Tucks pads or Preparation H).”

We giggled some more. I asked him her name about five more times that day. Once for my husband’s benefit, once for my mom’s, and several times just ‘cause it’s FUNNY! I think I am going to be making Princess Recto jokes for many, many years to come.

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Cake Makin’ with a Manic Mama

It has recently hit me that in less than two months my baby girl will be ONE YEAR OLD! Aaah!! All the recent birthday hoopla has gotten me thinking about that milestone for her, but I’ll be honest, I’ve mostly been obsessing thinking about the birthday cake. I am one of those mothers who feels that I must personally make my children’s birthday cakes or my Mom’s Club membership card will be revoked. Now, I don’t feel that all mothers should do this, just me. Why? I can’t answer that question! But I’ve already started to get b-day cake anxiety about Sophie’s big day. First of all, I have no idea what kind of cake I should make. I mean, she’s gonna be one, so she’s not really into anything yet. For Joshua’s first birthday, I made him this sailboat cake, because his daddy races sailboats.

sailboat-cake.jpg

Not too shabby, huh? It was easy – just a rectangle cake cut into pieces to form the sailboat. The hardest part was the icing. Although I do make a very tasty buttercream icing, I’m not much of a decorator. Still, it doesn’t help me with what to make Sophie. I mean, the only thing I’m really into is reading and blogging, and I am not gonna make a book or laptop-shaped cake for a one-year-old-girl.

By Joshua’s second birthday, he was into Thomas the Tank Engine, so I borrowed a cake topper from my sister-in-law and copied a picture of one she had done before, which resulted in this cake:

2ndbdaycake.jpg

Nothing too fancy, but again the icing was really good!

Then for his third birthday, even though I had a three-month-old baby as well, I for some reason attempted birthday cake suicide. Joshua was (and is) still really into trains, and my mom had gotten a train cake pan for Christmas from a friend. So, I decided to try the train cake. The problem with this is I had never actually seen the cake pan until the day before the party, and I was planning on making it that night. When I saw the pan and the accompanying picture, I nearly passed out. There were NINE train cars, decorated with all sorts of confections – gumdrops, licorice, jelly beans, etc. And there was like zero icing, so I wouldn’t be able to get away with my “mmm isn’t the icing good” trick.

Crap! I had no backup plan so I ran off to the store to get candy to decorate with. I didn’t know what to get so I got a little bit of everything. M&M’s, jelly beans, licorice, gummy life savers, mini Reese cups – I practically bought out the whole aisle. Then I got home and sent my hubby and kids to a family movie night at my church so I could get to work on this monster. My hubby, sensing my anxiety, sent my friend Luanne, who was at the church movie night also, to come check on me.

What she found was a mess.

I had already made the cake in the pan, carefully filling each train car well according to the directions, but they all overflowed significantly. So I had a bunch of scraped-off train cake muffin-tops in a bowl on the oven, but unfortunately I had also spilled said bowl due to anxiety-induced clumsiness, so there were cake particles all over the floor. Of course I had started the icing while the cake was baking, but my previously mentioned clumsiness had come into play there as well, and I had spilled a bunch of the bag of powdered sugar on myself and the floor. There were dishes and measuring cups and ingredients everywhere – and I hadn’t even begun the decorating yet!

Luanne was a bit stunned by what she had walked into. “Oh my gosh!” she said, “You’re that person.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re that person, like on tv and in the movies that makes a huge mess when they cook, only you really do.”

She was cracking up. Apparently I’m a rather impressive mess-maker.

Thank God Luanne was there, ‘cause she really calmed me down. I got the train cars out of the pan successfully and began intricately decorating, using the frosting to hold the candy on. Lu sat with me and talked with me and gave me suggestions the whole time. By the time I got to the third train car, however, I knew there was no way in hell I was making all nine. It was taking for-ev-er. So, I ended up doing five, and here is the final result:

the-cake2.jpg

I was pleased though exhausted, and Joshua really loved it. There is no way I am doing it again this year though, even though he is still really into trains.

So, now a poll – I still have no idea what kind of cake to make for Sophie, and I’m already being neurotic about it. Emily maintains that I don’t have to make the cake myself, but I say I must make it myself because I made Joshua’s and it just wouldn’t be right not to make hers too. So, what do you think?












My Ballot Box


Should Jenny make Sophia’s birthday cake herself?


Yes, of course, she made Joshua’s first three!!

No, it doesn’t really matter




View Results

For those of you who think I should make her cake (because I am going to), I’d love to hear some ideas for a cute, easy to make and decorate design! After all, this little one keeps me busy enough, I am sure I will not have time for a three-hour cake-decorating session come November 16th!

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Hello, this is Emily. I had to jump in on Jenny’s post, seeing as we have already discussed this dilemma in detail.

As she mentioned, my humble opinion is “buy the damn thing.” I certainly have my own list of issues, but feeling the pressure to make fancy birthday cakes is not one of them. In fact, all of Kate’s birthday cakes have come from the friendly bakery around the corner. They have been lovely and tasted far better than anything I could have made. I have offered to order one up for Sophie, but since Jenny thinks this wouldn’t suffice, I thought I would give her a few ideas.

Jen, here’s the first one I think you should consider, in honor of the Olan Mills picture of you and me in our Strawberry Shortcake outfits.

cake2.jpg

I think you could whip that up with no problem.

But, if that’s not fancy enough, you could go with this one.

cake3.jpg

I’m thinking you should be able to turn that out in about 30 minutes.

However, if you really love Sophie and you’re a really good mom, you could make this.

cake1.gif

Sophie is quite the princess after all.

Or, you could always make a cake with Sophie’s likeness on it, similar to this.

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That one freaks me out a little, to be honest. Can you imagine the discussion surrounding the cutting of that cake? “I want the nose! No, wait, I think the fist has more icing on it.”

Let’s see… by the time my birthday rolls around in May, you’ll have Bobby’s, Sophie’s and Joshua’s birthdays behind you, and much cake-making experience. Since you’ll be an expert by then, will you make me this one?

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