Maybe I shouldn't save these PJs for the next baby...

Normy

Georgie

Pictures from today...

Lordy, he loves the train.

Endlessly sweet.

My latest knitting. Who says tassels are for kids? Actually, it was supposed to be for Georgie, but my gauge swatch was obviously WAY looser than my actual knitting. Yikes!

50 Reasons Why I’m Glad I Married Smoochy

1) He makes the coffee for me in the mornings if he’s not running late.

2) He can read my moods, and is sensitive about my emotional needs.

3) He asks my opinion.

4) He takes my advice.

5) He backs me up on my crusades: homebirth; eradicating polycarbonate plastic from our lives, eating whole healthy food, cloth diapering, etc.

6) He doesn’t complain when I spend money on the above-mentioned crusades.

7) He looks good in his jeans.

8) He looks even better without his jeans.

9) He likes my cooking and brags about it at work.

10) He compliments me on our tidy home.

11) He is a very involved father.

12) He cries when he watches Remember the Titans; every time.

13) He is a MASTER of the grill/smoker.

14) He doesn't mind that I don't like to snuggle when I sleep. 

15) He has very large hands.

16) He is a very hard worker.

17) He is easily the most logical and methodical person I know

18) He is one of the most intelligent people I know

19) His favorite way to spend time is playing with the kids.

20) He loves his mother. 

21) He loves my mother!

22) He worries about his siblings, and wants them all to do great things.

23) He is a good provider, he always thinks about our future.

24) He is very good at reading people.

25) He makes beautiful babies.

26) When I met him he didn’t have cable, and we still don’t.

27) He is an electronic genius, and I will always kept abreast of the current technological trends.

28) He has an amazing belly-laugh.

29) He isn’t intimidated by anyone or anything.

30) He couldn’t care less about being in-vogue or in the in-crowd.

31) He puts a premium on personal responsibility and making your own opportunities.

32) He tells me I’m beautiful.

33) He makes me feel beautiful.

34) He surprises me all the time… not with things, but IDEAS.

35) We look forward to when the kids are both in bed so we can be alone together.

36) He’s my best friend.

37) He is a great communicator and conversationalist.

38) He calls me a couple of times a day just to say “Hi!”

39) We miss each other when we’re apart.

40) He admits it and apologizes when he’s wrong.

41) He’s not often wrong.

42) He can fix anything.

43) He taught me to love country music

44) He can and will dance.

45) He is brimming with self-confidence.

46) He always kisses me first thing when he walks in the door.

47) He never goes drinking with the guys after work.

48) He doesn’t hold a grudge.

49) He is a straight shooter

50) He loves me unflinchingly, faithfully, and unconditionally.

Happy Anniversary, Smoochy! I love you to the moon!

The Story Of Stuff

My dear friend Holly, turned me on to The Story of Stuff. Please go watch the video in its entirety. Please. For most folks, the information isn't new. But, to see the big picture put together so concisely is mind boggling. Smoochy actually watched it first and brought it to my attention as a 'must see' and something he could really "get behind." As for me this is the gentle nudge I need to to better. Sure I recycle... some times and cloth diaper when it is convenient. But the truth is I could do a lot more.* I'll be continuing to post about the changes that are going to start happening around here.  But for now, just go to The Story of Stuff, and be reminded for yourself why changes are doable and satisfying. 

*I know by reading this some of you (...ahem... Charile) are going to think, oh no, not more hippy-crap. But, please check this out. If even for the chance to make fun of me offer a rebuttal. I'd really appreciate it!

Can toddlers subsist on air? And other randomness.

No kidding, she's already getting on her hands and knees and rocking. Holy cow, isn't that a bit soon? She still can't sit up for longer than a minute, and yet she's so close to mobility. In other achievements, she says, "Aye-dee-dee!"; "Da-da"; and "Ba-ba." I expect she'll be able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and the Gettysburg Address by the end of the month. 

We're having trouble finding clothes that fit her. I hit up a yard sale and scored tons of cute fall clothes for her.  However, all the 6-12 month pants I purchased were WAY TOO SMALL. In these  photos she is wearing 18 month pants. Of course they are a little long in the legs... but look at her stomach hanging over the top! 

The look on her face says it all. "Um Mama, who designs this crap?" I don't know Sweetie, but they don't have fat-bottom girls like you in mind, that's for sure. Killer thighs and bootielicious butts run in our family but this is ridiculous. Aunt Kate has been having this same problem for years when it comes to finding pants. She said, "Poor Georgie, at least she'll be used to it early!" 

OK, now for the question that has been baffling us for weeks: How can Normy have such boundless energy when his entire daily intake consists of a handful of grapes at breakfast, three bites of his sandwich at noon, and nothing but milk and threats at dinner? Smoochy is not the type of parent who often repeats himself, but at every evening meal you can hear him proclaim, "Just one bite. Just one bite! JUST ONE BITE!" I know this is all perfectly normal, if also perfectly infuriating. Thank God for the old stand-bys. He will ALWAYS eat grapes, shredded cheese, and scrambles eggs. Oh, and anything that he can dip in ketchup. Thank god Hy-vee sells a brand that's HFCS-free! ;-)

 

Ok, We now return to our regularly scheduled cute baby pictures...

A friend of mine had a KinderZeat (Yes, a KinderZeat not a Trip-Trap Chair, for those who know.) in her garage just waiting for someone to love it... Yes! There was some big savings here, folks! A million thanks, Autumn. This ROCKS. As you can see It has made for some fun meal times. Georgia loves that she can fully participate with us now at the table!

The day after a good rain storm.

Somehow I thought it would be OK for Norm to play in the mud before lunch. I guess it was OK. This was nothing a little soap and water couldn't handle. Plus, he had So. Much. Fun.

So. Much. Fun. Can't you tell by the look on his face?

And for all of you Floridians out there: this is what Georgia wore to bed last night. We actually turned on the heat to keep it from dropping below 60 degrees inside. Amazing.

High-Fructose Corn Syrup

It should have come as no surprise to me that when I Googled "high-fructose corn syrup" the top of the search in yellow (the advertised slot) was this new campaign launched by the Corn Refiners Association: SWEET SURPRISE. (I'm not going to link to it out of principle.) But, if you go looking for it, it won't be hard to find. A better name for the campaign might be "Sickeningly Sweet." The fact that HFCS is bad for you is now common knowledge, and that has corn producers and refiners in a tizzy because they are starting to feel it in their pocket-books. 

Consumers are exerting their power and demanding natural sugars. The corn refiners would like to claim that HFCS is a natural sugar because it is made from corn. Well sorry boys, anything that involves over three paragraphs to roughly explain how it's made isn't natural. Check out this explanation of the process: Found HERE.

"The process for making the sweetener high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) out of corn was developed in the 1970s. Use of HFCS grew rapidly, from less than three million short tons in 1980 to almost 8 million short tons in 1995. During the late 1990s, use of sugar actually declined as it was eclipsed by HFCS. Today Americans consume more HFCS than sugar.

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is produced by processing corn starch to yield glucose, and then processing the glucose to produce a high percentage of fructose. It all sounds rather simple--white cornstarch is turned into crystal clear syrup. However, the process is actually very complicated. Three different enzymes are needed to break down cornstarch, which is composed of chains of glucose molecules of almost infinite length, into the simple sugars glucose and fructose.

First, cornstarch is treated with alpha-amylase to produce shorter chains of sugars called polysaccharides. Alpha-amylase is industrially produced by a bacterium, usually Bacillus sp. It is purified and then shipped to HFCS manufacturers.

Next, an enzyme called glucoamylase breaks the sugar chains down even further to yield the simple sugar glucose. Unlike alpha-amylase, glucoamylase is produced by Aspergillus, a fungus, in a fermentation vat where one would likely see little balls of Aspergillus floating on the top.

The third enzyme, glucose-isomerase, is very expensive. It converts glucose to a mixture of about 42 percent fructose and 50-52 percent glucose with some other sugars mixed in. While alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are added directly to the slurry, pricey glucose-isomerase is packed into columns and the sugar mixture is then passed over it. Inexpensive alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are used only once, glucose-isomerase is reused until it loses most of its activity.

There are two more steps involved. First is a liquid chromatography step that takes the mixture to 90 percent fructose. Finally, this is back-blended with the original mixture to yield a final concentration of about 55 percent fructose--what the industry calls high fructose corn syrup.

HFCS has the exact same sweetness and taste as an equal amount of sucrose from cane or beet sugar but it is obviously much more complicated to make, involving vats of murky fermenting liquid, fungus and chemical tweaking, all of which take place in one of 16 chemical plants located in the Corn Belt."

Did you make it through all that? Yikes. I for one, DO NOT BUY THAT HFCS is natural.

What started my blood boiling is this ad campaign:

When I heard about these commercials it made my stomach hurt. Where's the truth in advertising here people? I'm begging you to watch this crap with a critical eye. Corn is BIG Money here in the USA. When their profits start shrinking, they aren't going to take it laying down. So PLEASE use your thinking skills here folks.

So, when someone wants to know what's so bad about HFCS, you can whip out this factoid:

It's harder on your liver than booze. 

OK,  Here's what Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz Say about HFCS in there acclaimed book, You: The Owners Manual. 

"Hold the Syrup

Your digestive system has two main hormones that control hunger and appetite. Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach and increases you appetite. When your stomach is empty, it sends ghrelin out requesting food. Leptin tells your brain that you're full. When you eat, your fat cells secrete it so that you stop eating. One of the biggest evil influences on your diet is the presence of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a sugar substitute that is found in soft drinks and many other sweet processes foods. The problem is that HFCS inhibits leptin secretions, so you never get the message that your full. And it never shuts off ghrelin, so, even though you have food in your stomach, you constantly get the message that your hungry. The double whammy on our hormones has contributed to our enormously collective enormity..."

That's enough for me. I will continue to make my grocery purchases HFCS-free. Why, I just discovered that Post makes Frosted Shredded Wheat without HFCS, unlike their competition Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats. 

Here's another thought for you: The Deceptively Sweet advertisers make the claim that HFCS "is fine in moderation". How much do you think moderation actually is? And how feasible is moderation when HFCS is in everything from bread, to fruit cups, to breakfast cereal? 

Sorry Corn Refiners Association, I'm not buying it. 

OK Here's what others say:

Washington Post

San Francisco Chronicle

L.A. Times

How HFCS Damages Your Body

Adrew Weil, M.D.

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