Laundry detergent

I use Tide Free. It doesn't have any dyes or perfumes in it, so it's pretty gentle on baby skin and healthy for me (I'm semi-allergic to perfumes.)

You can get it on sale at Ralphs for $5.99, which isn't too bad.

quick dinner

tuna pizza melts

-put tuna and diced tomatoes on tortillas. Top with shredded cheese (mozzarella is nice), some oregano and sprinkle with olive oil. Bake in oven till toasty.

mmm!

-Jess

zoo who?

So Lettie, Emily and I want to go to the zoo for sure. Anyone else?

(come, come, come!)

-Jess

Dreft

Dreft is fun. I've also heard good things about hypoallergenic ALL.

This time around, I'm washing our baby's stuff in Dreft, until the box runs out. Then I'm switching him over to normal, since he's showing no signs of skin allergies. It's a middle-of-the-road approach, that lets him have less irritation when he's really little, but doesn't cost us more than one box of special detergeant.

You can also, generally, use less normal detergeant than is recommended on the side of the box and still get your clothes clean. I think it leaves less residue.

-Jess

Soapy situation

I'm trying to decide whether I should wash my baby's things with special baby detergent or just put her clothes in with ours. What do you do? My mom never used Dreft or anything like it, so I'm inclined not to, but my mother-in-law says regular detergent can cause allergies (or something like that, I don't remember specifics). Also, if I should use it, shouldn't I use it on all our shirts as well as her clothes? Her little face is going to spend an awful lot of time squished up against our shirts. :)

Healthy, easy dinner

Chicken veggie soup

Boil chicken in just enough water to cover it. (I used a 3 quart pot and about four "tenders" of chicken.)
When done, take chicken out and cut up in bite sized pieces.
Add chicken broth base to water (to taste), or I imagine you could use salt and spices instead.
Add one onion, chopped, and two carrots, chopped.
Boil until almost tender.
Add about 14 ounces of crushed tomatos and the chicken chunks.
Simmer until ready to eat.

I served this with green beans and whole wheat muffins. Healthy, easy, yummy. :)

Torrey 10 year

Are any of you going next weekend to the Torrey event? What are you doing with your kiddos?

Won't be there today

Sorry ladies, something came up and I won't be able to make it to mom's group this week. Have fun!

Bubbs

Is bubbs down, or is my computer just going haywire?

Re: yummy dinner ideas

Anyone who wants it, I have great quick recipes for Broccoli-Tuna Casserole, Microwave Tuna/Squash Casserole, Sweet & Sour Meatballs, and Tuna Salad. Best way is to email me, or I can bring them to the park. Just let me know.

Also, George does a couple really quick meals. One consists of sauteing onion and peas and putting them in spaghetti with olive oil. It's really good, especially with lots of cheese on it. He also does one with a can of cream of mushroom soup, chicken, olive oil, and mushrooms. I don't know the proportions. I can ask him if you'd like--he kind of just played around to get it right. Also, a good really really quick meal is what I call "knocked-up" ramen. When the ramen is boiling, put in 2 eggs and some peas (frozen works great). Let them boil like 2 minutes - however long you boil ramen. It is actually really good and the only way that I will eat Ramen.

Oh and sloppy joes from a packet - very easy. Meat, tomato paste, water, and packet then simmer. Very good.

...and we stayed all day...

We just got back from a lovely afternoon at the Santa Ana Zoo. Small, but beautiful. It's the ideal sort of zoo for toddlers, lots to see, lots of space to run around, a little playground, some adorable climbable statues... and not much trouble to get into. Seriously, we had NO discipline problems there. Because always the right thing to do coincided with the plasant thing to do... it was great.

It's mostly monkeys. But oh, my, those monkeys. Actually, it was the gibbons that were the most fascinating. Seeing "Curie Geor" in real life like that was sublime for the boys.

It was only $6 per adult, and the under 3 crowd gets in free.

And it's about 10 minutes from our place. Although unfortunately in the opposite direction from the rest of you.

Anyway, it was a great experience, and we would love to go back there again.

zoo zoo zoo

Sounds good to me. Same date? Which zoo? Anyone else going to come?

you can come

too, too, too...

I like the idea of a zoo. At the moment I'm a little daunted by the thought of ANY outing, since Jonathan is being tweaky with his naps. Today's nap count: zero. Today's crankiness register: off the charts.

But this can't last forever, right? :) And I do like the idea of a trip to the zoo.

goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo . . .

how about you, you, you?


So, here's an idea: what if we changed our Getty outing into a zoo outing? As I've been thinking about it, I've been more and more intimidated about wheeling my two kids around a museum where the watchwords will be "don't touch" and "shh, shh, it's okay, don't cry, baby."

A zoo though! A zoo would keep the toddlers happy (REAL elephants) and zoos usually have nice, park-like places where you can sit and nurse, and they're open air, so you don't have to worry so much about crying babies. The more I think about it, the more taking a museum as our first outing seems . . . ambitious.

Would anyone be interested in maybe trying the zoo first instead?

-Jess

yummy dinner ideas?

So I'm completely unmotivated to make dinner. This is the third night in a row. Last night we got a $5 pizza. The night before that I made rice-a-roni. :(

Ideas? Preferably things I could make in about an hour or less, and preferably without lots of pre-made ingredients.

Thanks!

Mom's group this week

I won't be at mom's group this week because the doctor told me to stay in bed for a couple of days. My blood pressure is very high and I spent two afternoons in the hospital during the past week to have it monitored. All my test results have come back normal so far and I don't have any toxemia symptoms or anything, (actually I feel great) but they're still a little concerned. I'll keep you updated!

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

I think a notebook sounds like a great idea. Nice and simple.

That's a good point, Emily. I guess it hadn't really occurred to me to make it generally open. I don't think it should be a formally church-related thing. As we get to know other moms in the church, we could invite them to join us... But yeah, that could lead to potentially awkward situations.

As far as the Getty goes, I'm all for it. The only thing is, my mother in law may or may not be here on the 11th, so I'm not quite sure what we're up to.

Re: Babysitting Exchange

So, Google is my friend. It produced lots of information about babysitting exchanges. Check out the rules to MIT's exchange here. They use the stick method - like Uno cards. Here uses the point method, but it's slightly confusing. This is also a good site using the point system that is a little less confusing. For more ideas, I would recommed googling "babysitting exchange". I hope this helps.

Also, I don't know if I will participate or not since it would be rather hard for me to babysit others because of the distance issue. I'm still thinking it over though.

On other subjects:

• I'm still up for the Getty, but we need others to go.
• I think we should have links to things that we think are worthwhile and field trip sites. People can get to our blogs via our profiles if they'd like so it might be a bit redundant to list them. Maybe sites that have good books, cooking, nursing outfits
  (like you emailed us Jess), etc. Should we send them to Jess to have them posted or post and debate about which ones to add?
• Probably categories would be a good idea because it is already getting a little confusing, though I kind of include everything in one post - making life difficult! :)
• Should we maybe include/invite past members of Mom's Group like Jenn and Kat?
  

Babysitting exchange

Ok, I'm a little confused as to how this would work. In theory, this would be open to any mom in church, yes? But let's say that I'm not comfortable leaving my kid with Mom X. Mom X, however, is entirely comfortable leaving her kid with me. What happens then? Also, if we're all in a point system, how do you know who it's ok to redeem your points with? For example, what if we all really like the way Mom Y babysits kids. So I babysit Moms A, B, and C's kids, rack up a bunch of points, and then redeem them with Mom Y?

I'm probably just completely missing the point. ;) Can someone help me out here?

Electronic point-keeping system?

A physical "cash" system seems like one more set of small objects to try to keep track of. (WAY too many library cards in my wallet!!!)

I vaguely remember somebody posting a link to a really cool site designed for keeping track of this sort of thing. It was geared toward roommate issues, but if I remember correctly, it would be just perfect for something like this.

Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the site.

Can anyone help me out, here?

Getty trip

So are we doing this on May 11?

-Jess

babysitting points

One point for one kid for one hour seems to make the most sense. It'd make it easy to keep track of everything.

Do you actually make, like "point cards"? Do we mark an Uno deck and deal it out?

-Jess

Babysitting exchange

So... from yesterday's forum, it sounds like a babysitting exchange is a great idea.

A "points" system seems to be the best way to do it.

How best should we deal with differing family sizes? Watching a single small Speckperson is a very different thing from, say, watching three Johnston-wuggies. Should it be done by straight "baby-hours," where watching one kid for three hours is equivalent to watching three for one hour? Or maybe it's two points an hour for the first kid, and an additional point/hour for each kid thereafter? I'm not sure what's the best way to deal with this, but one way or another, we need to be upfront about it.

What did your mom's babysitting group do, Ashley?

Re: Also

I could be wrong, but I don't think blogger can sort into categories like that. Wordpress does, though. I think it's a good idea.

Re: Church shower

I'm planning to go, but since it's scheduled for two days before my due date, I can't guarantee that I'll make it. :)

also . . .

I've seen blogs that archive their posts in categories. Do we want to do that? Then it'd be really easy to, say, find a recipe that was posted a month or two back.

-Jess

more church showers

I've been to three or four of the church baby showers now, and they are very cool. I asked the question though because the last one I went to was, well, sparsely attended (I hosted a table, and so did my sister, but we could have both not and there still woudld've been plenty of seats for everyone. It was too bad too, 'cause Rho did this gorgeous Japanese-themed table, only none of the old ladies wanted to sit on the ground Japanese-style. Heather did though!)

Lettie, if you're an honoree, you can expect gifts, expect Rinn to be cooed over, expect to be asked questions about the pregnancy and delivery and such. Good food too, at least at every one so far.


And yes, it's very pink. I think I chose it because Adam and my blog is so very brown (which is classy, but I didn't want it twice).

Ånd the blurb on top can certainly be changed; I just didn't want to leave it all naked.



As to links: maybe we can have different categories? i.e., "members' blogs", "health sites", "babycare sites", "field trip sites", etc.

-Jess

Now I feel stupid

Ok, I never though it would be Stay At Home Moms. I feel very dumb. Silly me - yey google!

Re: Church Shower

I am planning on going. I have never been before though...what should I expect??

This page is quite a shocking pink! :)
What links should we have on the side?? Mom related ones? Any suggestions? Maybe our blogs?

Also, what is SAHMS? South American Harley Motorcycle Society? Strong Amazingly Huge Monster Scorpion? Silly And Humuorous Mom Singers? Maybe I should just google it.

Re: church shower

I'm going - I got asked to co-host a table. You should come, Jess. There are something like 10 babies being invited to this shower, so if everyone came it could actually be really fun. You can sit at my table. :)

church shower

so I'm still hemming and hawing about attending the chuch baby shower. Are you folks going (i.e., will there be people my age there?)?

-Jess

welcome!

Well, ladies, what do you think?

-Jess

p.s. Consider responding with a post rather than a comment, because it'll be easier for those of us addicted to our RSS feeds to see that someone is contributing to the conversation!