And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise!

Does anyone have an opinion regarding white noise machines and babies sleeping well? It's a debate I have. Many peeps swear by them. CB usually sleeps for about 8-9 hours and then wakes for a snack and then sleeps for 3 or 4 more. Not bad. No complaints. But sometimes he doesn't. Usually his naps are 1.5-2.5 hours, but sometimes they're only 30 minutes and he's sad and is a tired dogg. So I wonder if these white noise machines are all they're cracked up to be. Also, I have a big problem with all the energy they would use/waste. I mean, it would a machine turned on for about 15 or so hours a day. It seems like a waste. And it seems like a contradiction since we keep our air conditioning at around 75, compost our waste, recycle like mad, and buy local produce. Thoughts?
P.S. Try to be the first to name the movie the title of this blog comes from and you'll win a prize in the mail from me. :)

Baby Backpack

Does anyone have a favorite baby backpack that they love and would recommend? I'm looking at the Kelty Frame Carrier 1.0 but know nothing about it. I'm open for suggestions...

DeSwaddle Success!

before

Since CB was a little tiny baby (I guess tiny is debatable since he was 8 lbs 3 oz when he was born) we have always swaddled him like a little burrito. A Chuck-arito as T likes to call it. So for the past week or so he has awakened a few times each night only needing to be reswaddled and then being able to go back to sleep. Since his nursery is upstairs, it is very tiring and taxing to climb those stairs at 2am and 5am to reswaddle him so we decided we needed to do something about it. I read various sites where people put their 2 cents on how to teach a baby to sleep without a swaddle. Mostly people said just lay them down and they'll cry, but they'll learn. As I've said earlier, I don't let him just cry and scream in bed, so I wanted a different option.

I decided to just lie him down and see what happened. And thanks to our video monitor, I could watch his every move to see how it went. First he played around in his bed, most likely surprised at his freedom of movement. Then, after about 15 minutes, he decided he wasn't a fan and started fussing. So I went in there and rubbed his face and tummy and he started shutting his eyes. This happened about 3 or 4 more times until he dozed off. Success! So now he's sleeping without a swaddle and it's so cute how his little hands are up by his face. We'll see how it goes tonight, but I think this combined with the No Cry Sleep Solution technique that we're using is working well. :)


after

Yum!

Also, we just ordered CB's high chair since he just started eating food yesterday! We waited until he was at a little over 6 months old and we skipped rice cereal and went straight to our favorite, sweet potatoes. He was a big fan. It's so darling to see how stoked he gets about food. I bet he'll be even more stoked to eat it in this:

Nighty Night

I'm constantly checking out kid/baby things to try to find the coolest stuff out there and this definitely qualifies. This artist makes fabulous glass night lights that are so darling. There are mosaics, bugs, fish, etc... CB's nursery will definitely house one when he gets old enough to be scared of the dark.

Farfar och Morfar

We just got back from a fabulous vacation and we're happy to be back on our schedules, but sad that we live so far away from all our fun family. We first went to Salt Lake and CB got to meet his Great Grandma & Grandpa Nilsson and his Great Grandma and Grandpa (Oma & Opa) Muelleck. It was fun to take some 4 generation photos:





One of the many things that is great about Swedish is the names for grandpa and grandma are very informative. So for my grandma on my dad's side, CB would say mom's dad's mom. It makes it easy to tell which one you're talking about without having to differentiate by last name or another code name. Since we mainly speak English though, our parents got to pick out their preferred name so we have: Opa & Oma Belt, Grandpa E & Grandma D, Opa 3 and Gma, Opa & Oma, and GG.

Egg-cellent Cookies

Did you know that many things can be substituted for eggs? Here was the scenario:
Sunday morning, wanting to make cookies for T to take to church for his Sunday School class, have every ingredient except 2 eggs. Blast. T suggested we go borrow 2 from our neighbor. Seemed like a hass. So then I thought, what about vegans? They don't eat eggs and I'm sure they still eat cookies. So I started looking on the trusty world wide web to see what kind of things work to substitute. Different websites said different things, of course, but in general, in cookies the eggs serve as a moistening agent. Nothing more. So some said you can just add water or milk, but that seemed gross. Many places said to substitute a banana. Some said substitute 1 T cornstarch and 1 T water. So I tried a little of this and some of that; I used half a banana and 1 T cornstarch with some water. They tasted even better than before, I thought. The banana gave them a little depth of flavor and a little added sweetness. So what could possibly beat JG's delicious chocolate chip cookie recipe? A lack of eggs which lead to great experimentation. What fun