My Vegetable Garden

When we moved to our new house, I was very excited about this small patch of dirt that was filled with weeds.  I envisioned a beautiful vegetable garden growing there, filling our table with delicious produce all summer long.  Well, it was a lot of work to change that dirt patch into a garden.  I basically hand tilled the entire patch of dirt, and I dug up about a thousand rocks.  I should take a picture of my rock pile to show you.  I also dug up a razor blade, random bits of metal, a spring, a plastic tarp, and an army man.  I guess I should be grateful that anything has grown there, considering the state it was in when we moved in.  So I have attempted to have a few plants: tomatoes, jalapenos, basil, eggplant, green beans, and marigolds.  After planting my garden, I found out that not only am I competing against rocky soil, but also against bunnies with a voracious appetite.  They ate all four of my green bean plants and one of my eggplants before I could even get started.  But I have persisted and now have a little pile of vegetables to show for it.  The jalapeno has by far done the best.  Maybe it is too spicy for the rabbits to eat?  The eggplants have done ok, although most of the eggplants I pick have a little nibble taken out of them.  Then the tomatoes have been growing really well, but as soon as they are close to ripe, either a bunny or a bird eats half of it!  Just half though, as if to taunt me and say "Look at this delicious tomato.  Too bad you didn't get to eat it!"

My garden.  The big open dirt patch area was where I had green beans planted.

Eggplant

Notice how the nice ripe red one is the only one with a bite taken out of it!

Getting close...

We have probably gotten 4 dozen jalapenos from this plant.  I have bags full in the freezer and some drying on the counter.  As David is the only one who eats them, I haven't made much use of our abundant supply.  David however has been putting sliced jalapenos on everything that I cook.

We got one before the bunnies did!

My pickings for the day.

I have been looking for recipes that use up the veggies that grow so well in our garden.  Well, really, just recipes for eggplant and tomatoes.  Poor David, I never make him anything spicy with the jalapenos because I don't like it.  Except I did once make him jalapeno cheddar scones, which were really good!  Even with two jalapenos, they weren't really spicy and all three of us ate them.  Tonight I made a baked eggplant and pasta dish, which used two eggplants and three tomatoes.  Perfect!  I thought it was pretty good, but David didn't love it.  He doesn't always appreciate my adventures in vegetarian cooking.  Unless it is eggplant parmesan.  Yum!

The garden is nice, but these are the best things I have grown :)

Sleeping through the night, or not

Yay!  William slept through the night last night!  He went to bed a little before 10pm and didn't get up until 5am (when David's alarm went off - darn you residency and your busy schedule).  However, last night, Eliana did NOT sleep through the night.  Figures.  She woke up at 2am because her bed was wet for some inexplicable reason (darn you potty training).  Oh well.  Maybe one night soon both of my children will sleep through the night.  :)

Indy Time: Day One

While David is on his very busy Acute Coronary Syndrome inpatient service, I decided to take the kids to Indy for a while to stay with my parents and visit some friends back home.  To start off the trip, we actually traveled to Batesville, IN to my mom's family farm.  The initial drive went better than I expected.  If you drive straight through from our house to the farm, it should take about 2 hr 15 min.  We made the trip in 3hr 30 min with two potty stops and a meal break for William.  Ah, traveling with a baby and toddler, so fun!  But I am really proud of my big girl for staying dry the whole time.  This is the first long car ride that we have attempted in underwear, and she was great!  Although she figured out near the end that if she said she had to go potty, we would stop and get out of the van. So she started saying she had to go potty all the time.  Very tricky!  We saw lots of family at the farm, and Eliana had a great time playing with all of her little second cousins.  William spent lots of time in the kitchen being held by the "old women" (their phrase, not mine).

Allie, Anna, Jeremy, and Tommy.  Jeremy was so proud of the tree he knocked down.  He carried this around for most of the afternoon.

William with my Aunt Dorine

The "old women": Aunt Barb, Aunt Ceily, my mom, Aunt Rita, and Aunt Karen.  Sorry Aunt Dorine, you didn't fit in the picture.

Eliana on the teeter totter.  I love this picture!

Swinging with friends

Uncle Raymond holding William.  The oldest Retzner with the newest one.

Or is this technically the newest Retzner?  My little sister's new hubby.  I think this picture looks like an advertisement for Workday At The Farm.

The farmhouse

This is how I get to spend my days!

Tummy Time

The other afternoon, we made a tent out of a couple of chairs and a blanket.  Eliana made a little nest underneath with all of her blankets and wanted her brother to come join her.  "#1 Little Brother"

I think she is patting his head to comfort him?  She loves him so much!

Hard work being a baby

This blanket was made by my neighbor Dee for William.  She had a really neat German word for it that means take along blanket or something like that.  Anyone know what that word is?  I think the blanket is beautiful!

I must love taking tummy time pictures.  And I love dressing William in overalls.

Newborn pictures

As I mentioned in my previous post, I attempted my own newborn photo shoot with William.  I tested out a bunch of different settings on my camera.  I thought the pictures came out ok, but definitely won't be confused with a professional.  So here are my attempts.  He was about a week old in these pictures. Warning: William overload coming up!

He wasn't so sure about this at first.

But then he fell asleep...

Big yawn

Ok Mom, this is pretty weird.  Are we done yet?

Eliana and daddy

I was very fortunate that David was able to take two weeks off after the baby was born.  A lot of that time was spent as special Daddy and Eliana time.  They would go off each day on a different adventure together, leaving me in peace with William for lots of newborn snuggles.  They went to storytime at the library, to the park, to the pool, and even to the zoo.  Eliana was very excited about that one and asked to go back for days after.  It was really sad when David had to go back to work, as I could see how much Eliana missed him.  She kept asking where he was and when I told her he was at work, she would ask "why?'  What a really great thing though that they got to spend that time together.  I think it did a lot to ward off any jealousy on her part, as she got lots of attention when William first came home.

At the Columbus Zoo

What is this?  An anteater?

The Heart of Africa is a new exhibit that just opened at the zoo and has giraffes and zebras, among other animals.  Eliana was most excited to see those, plus the elephants.  She also wanted to see hippos, but we don't have those at the zoo.  Oh well.

Eliana saying hi to her brother after her trip to the pool.  They came home while I was attempting a photo shoot with William. 

One Month Old

Time is flying!  Can William really be a month old?  He is definitely a growing boy.  At his one month check up today, he was a whooping 12lbs!  That's 92nd percentile.  He was also 21 3/4 in long, which is 56th percentile.  So he is a little wider than he is tall :).  William also has seborrhea like his sister did all over his face which is looking pretty bad.  So Dr. Littleton prescribed him a cream and also started a reflux medicine.  He seborrhea is getting irritated by his constant throwing up.  Plus we are hoping the reflux medicine helps with his fussiness and grunting at night.  We'll see.  He immediately spit up his first dose this afternoon...

I am amazed by all the similarities and the differences between my two children.  I have to admit, it took me a little bit to fall in love with Eliana.  Of course I loved her the moment she was born, but it was different.  I think I was so nervous about everything and being a mom was so new to me that I couldn't fall completely in love with her right away.  Everything felt so unreal.  Like I was pretending to be a mom and after a few days and nights with her, I would have to give her back.  I just didn't know how to be "mom" yet.  It was a more gradual process, falling in love.  Now I take delight in everything she does.  The funny things she says, her inventive imagination, her little jumps and swirls to dance, the way she hugs my arm or hand or leg (whatever she can reach) and kisses it, the way she points to her face and declares "do you see the smile on my face?  It's because I am excited."  She is a joy every day and "the spark in my heart."  But with William, that deep love came right away.  I wasn't as nervous, so there wasn't anything getting in the way of loving him.  From the very beginning he felt like mine and like he was always meant to be a part of our family.  Both of these children are such a blessing in my life.
The other difference is with breastfeeding.  Eliana was such a champ.  She was a born eater and was breastfeeding perfectly within moments of being born.  I had no problems imagining breastfeeding her until she was a year old and beyond.  William, however, is not a very good breastfeeder.  It took him longer to figure things out and he still requires a lot of support.  He pops on and off, needs help with his latch, and sometimes bites when he gets too tired to nurse properly.  Back when I was going to La Leche League meetings with Eliana, someone once said something I didn't really understand then but do now:  When you think of your breastfeeding goals, it is good to hope for a year or six months or so on.  But sometimes you can't think like that.  When it is hard, make your goal to breastfeed for one more day.  That's it.  Just one more day.  You might think, boy there is no way I can do  this for another six months, and you feel too overwhelmed.  But a goal of one day at a time is manageable.  Celebrate each day of making your goal of one more day.  Because each day IS a success.  No pressure, just one more day.  I'm not saying that I am going to quit breastfeeding William tomorrow.  Obviously we are doing something right if he weighs 12 pounds already!  But he really makes me work for it!