Twenty Three Weeks

Naps are good, are they not? They are a wonderful thing, especially when taken by small children that live with you.

However...

You knew there'd be a catch, didn't you?

However, when you have twins there's the slightest, eensy weensiest possibility that they won't nap at the same time. As in, concurrently. Mine, while they are napping (for which I am eternally grateful), they are not on the same schedule. If you follow the clues for one:

Logan tells us he needs a nap.

and put both down to sleep, the tired one will go "Ehn! Ehn!" and then pass out. The more awake one will complain loudly that they are still awake and just what do you think you're doing leaving them all alone in this crib when there's stuff to do/see/chew on?! That will go on for half an hour until either a) they pass out because they've used up all the air in the room or b) they escalate the screaming and you get sick of it and go get them. Generally, this means that you have one baby sleeping and one awake until they swap positions.

Any which way you look at it, you're never without a baby.

Le sigh!

It's been a big week for toe action around here. Chewing on them.

Emma likes her toes.

Logan likes Emma's toes, too.

Grabbing them.

Dude! I've got toes!

Grabbing and chewing.

Baby folds flat for easy storage!
Babies: cute and portable! Who knew?!

The other digits got jealous, so Logan thought he'd give one of them equal time.

Logan is all thumbs.

The twins like to play a lot these days. One of the things they really like is to be turned upside-down.

Whee! Head rush!

This is fine, normally, but not so great when they fling themselves backwards in your arms. There is always the possibility that you'll lose your grip and off they'll go! on a one way trip to discovering gravity and stitches. Kinda makes holding a baby a little more active than just sitting there with your arm loosely curled around them while typing one handed. They're sneaky, too. Just when you think you can relax your vigilance: POW! someone small, with a very hard head, flings themselves backwards and smashes you in the breastbone.

Not that I know anything about bruised breastbones or anything. Except, you know: OW.

Interestingly on the solid food front, Logan has decided that he's done experimenting with solid food for awhile and maybe it wasn't so great, actually.

Emma, on the other hand, has finally changed her mind.

Hey! What is this stuff?!

Ooo! Sweet potato!

I think I love sweet potato! Lemme have some more!

Last night she had her very first helping of solid food that she actually ate instead of tasting, screwing up her face and letting dribble out. She's not as talented at eating as Logan is, but she's working on it.

Logan's foods:

• Banana
• Brown rice cereal
• Acorn squash ("Bleah!" says Logan)
• Apple sauce ("Neh!" says Logan)
• Sweet potato - just a taste ("Neh!" says Logan)

Emma's foods:

• Sweet potato

Emma is also very good a helping Caitlin with her homework.

Caitlin does homework.

Hmm.

Well...she's more of a consultant instead of a Homework Helper. Any questions related to breastfeeding get referred to her. Unfortunately, the subject hasn't come up in class yet.

Before you go, Emma has something for you.

Emma reminds me why we don't sell her for glue.

You know, in case you need a little pick me up.

You Have My Sympathy

Now stop whining.

Caitlin is sick. Yes, again. Yes, the child that doesn't normally get sick, is sick. Twice in two weeks. Running a fever.

She was out all last week and seemed a lot better over the weekend, so we sent her in on Monday. After much whining and complaining about having to return to school and getting dressed and the usual, off she went. Eric hadn't even returned yet from dropping her off before the school called to say she was in the sick room complaining that she didn't feel well. Cruel as I am, certain she was faking it, I asked them to check her temperature which came back normal.

So I made her stay, of course.

Then?

An hour later they called back and she had a 101 degree fever. Le sigh!

So I sent Eric to go get her again.

Today, after several days of a low level fever (they won't let her back in school until she's normal again) and not acting sick at all, her fever has spiked to 103. I insisted Eric take her into the doctor, which he didn't want to do all last week (In Eric's defense, her fever last week never made it over 101 and the doctor laughed when we mentioned it - they don't want to see her until she's really sick.). Finally, after listening to her whine this morning about how she couldn't drink the tea he made her (Too hot! Blow on it! It's TOO HOT! Just blow -- Whiiiiiiine! Argh!) or eat the breakfast he made for her (I'm hungry! Here, eat this. I can't eat that! Why not? I don't feel well! My stomach hurts! That's because you're hungry. Eat. Nooooo! I caaaaaaan't! I don't feeeeeeeel good! Argh!) or put a sweater on (I'm cold! Put on a sweater. Noooo! I'm already wearing a long sleeved shirt! I don't want to get hot! What?! Just put on a --- Waaaaaah! Argh!), we sent her back to bed again.

The whining intensified.

The actual word WAH was employed. The melodrama! The Waaaah-ing. The whining. The making sure we could hear how utterly miserable she was just existing was in play. Yea verily, Death was nigh. The incredible inability to shut her door so that she wouldn't wake up the sleeping baby was driving me crazy and ended in me grinding my teeth in frustration.

I shouldn't be mad at her: she's sick!

But...!

But I don't think it's possible that I could feel less sympathetic to a sick child.

Eric has taken her in to see the doctor. Both of the twins are napping (Yay for naps! Yay for nubbly blankets from Grammy! Holy moly those things are great!) and I am all alone in a quiet house. For the moment.

Is there time for tea?

There has to be time for tea.

Updated to add: The Flu. She has the Flu. As in actual influenza. She's never had it before and hey! Did you know that there's a drug they can give you to knock it out if you take the drug within 48 hours? Yeah! Except we're past 48 hours. Now we have to keep Caitlin from "shedding the virus" all over us and the twins. Oh man!

On the bright side, Caitlin feels better after receiving sympathy from the doctor.

And some chicken broth.

Growing Challenge: Seedlings

We've got some of this going on:

Snow in March

Which means there's no gardening to be had outside. Fortunately, I'm inside so there's plenty to do. Especially if I can scrape off a twin or two. Errr...put them down for a nap, that is. Actually, the napping thing is working out pretty well, except that they aren't in synch. At all. Oh well. I guess that's next on the list of Things To Do.

Meanwhile, here's some green in the middle of winter to ogle (Doesn't that look like it's spelled incorrectly? It's not.).

Did I mention that I've joined the Growing Challenge? Melinda wants us to grow things we never have before. As a maniac person starting a brand new farming business with my friend H., pretty much everything is a new thing we've never grown before. Or at least not in these quantities! I have grown tomatoes and basil and hundreds of flowers before, but never as many as I will this year, from seed. Certainly not this many different varieties of the same things, either.

Sixteen varieties of tomatoes.

A forest of tomatoes.

Eight varieties of basil. Dozens of different types of flowers and herbs and assorted other vegetables.

A "few" basils. Did you know they come in purple?

One of the hardest things about ordering seeds, especially in the depths of winter, is knowing when to stop. Apparently I haven't learned that trick yet.

Ooooh! Seeds.

The above is only a portion of my seed collection (Not pictured: my partner's seed collection.). If I get half of these planted this year I'll be happy. And inundated with plants. Whee!

Basils also come in different flavors. This is Cinnamon basil. Mmm...cinnamon!

Specifically new to me are these:

Purple tomatillos. For when all those tomatoes aren't enough....

I've never grown tomatillos (or rosemary, or melons, or pumpkins, or...) before. These are a purple heirloom variety from Seed Savers Exchange. They have so many fabulous looking seeds available online and even more if you join them. So many that they send you multi-hundred paged catalogs without pictures. That's a problem for me, no pictures, but I could probably live with it. Choosing something at random and giving it a whirl is fun, actually.

In case you were wondering, here's my growing rack:

Shoplights and shelving and soil, oh my!

This is the new one we put together in the living room. The old one is hiding a secret.

The ghost of Basils Past.

Uh oh.

Skeletons in my basement.

Yes, it really is that bad. Last summer I started hundreds of basils from seed but then got too darned pregnant to continue paying attention to them. No, I'm serious. It became too much exertion for me to go up and down stairs. So they died. And there they stayed, entombed within the basement library/plant nursery. Now it's time to clean them up because I need the rack space.

Goodbye sad little basil plants! I'll treat your successors better. Promise!

So, yeah! We're starting up a whole new adventure this year. Organically grown herbs, vegetables, flowers and possibly some fruit. My partner has about 12 acres of land available for our venture. I'm not even certain how much of that we'll put into production, but we'll figure it all out.

On the fly.

Really soon.

The market begins in exactly one month.

Oh and did I mention that we get to eat some portion of the huge amount we'll be growing for sale? Oh yeah! Tomatoes for every occasion, in every color. Also, I promised Caitlin that I'd grow a watermelon and a pumpkin for her. I've never done that before, either. Should be fun!

So I guess I'd better get growin'.

Next week: What lurks in my garage?

Wordless Wednesday III

Nap time.

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, click here.

For more of my Wordless Wednesday posts, click here instead.

Do you hear that? Me neither!

That is the sound of napping babies.

Sounds kinda like screaming babies to start with, but then they get the silky edge of the nubbly blankets next to their cheeks and suddenly...

*crickets*

Ahhhh!

I think they may be on the same sleep cycle as was mentioned by Jen in Amazing Trips here. That's "Trips" as in Triplets. Three three year olds. Yeah. She has an entire series about sleeping and napping since she's trying to get her 7 month old into a good sleep cycle.

Triplets.

And we think twins are tough!

So I guess you could say the twins are down for their First Nap, right around 9 am.

Logan's screaming clued us in.

We may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer at the moment, but we can get a clue eventually. Also, as Sarah told us, sleep begets more sleep. We've been trying to figure out naps ever since we had that conversation. I think we're finally getting somewhere, since the twins have been going to bed at 8:15 - 8:30 pm for the last week or so. They keep waking up to nurse around 10:30 pm - 12 am or so, but then they sleep again until about 4 am. Even Emma, the champion sleeper, is waking more regularly. Frustrating!

Ah well. We'll get there.

There, of course, being here only with more sleep.

Updated to add: Logan just woke up 1.5 hours later. Happy. Ahhh!

Lucre. Filthy Lucre.

In case you weren't paying attention, there's something new going on around here.

No, it's not just the three column look, although that was the prequel. And you know what they say: where there are three columns...soon there may be [Whispered] advertising.

You know what that means.

Why? Why am I doing such a thing?

I'm doing it for The Children. The children are in need of a college fund.

Tell your friends: there's a new BlogHer Blogger in town.

That Golden Glow

There's another reason I stay awake too long at night: the thinking.

Late at night, when everyone else is asleep and I can do whatever I want, read whatever I want - uninterrupted - a funny thing happens.

I can think.

"Oh, you think all the time!" You say derisively.

Not like this. The thinking I'm referring to is when you read something and it lights up your brain and then you make a connection to something else and another thing and again, then off to a video and this other place and suddenly you get this golden glow in your mind. As if you are building a vast web and can suddenly see the interconnectedness of yourself and the world around you. How if you do this, then that will have an affect on that.

Suddenly, your monkeysphere gets bigger.

And that feeling? That your brain is kicking into high gear and is humming along, firing on all cylinders? That feeling is addictive. It's also very fragile and as soon as a twin wakes up?

It shatters.

Weekly Winners

Beneath the fall detritus, there exists new growth. One day, spring will be here again.

Homemade beef stew. Our fourth time using the crockpot. Yum!
More about this later in the week.

Emma chews and chews and chews away.

Logan shows off his feet. Which are delicious!
One step closer to rolling over from back to tummy.

21 Accents

So very cool. Those teeth though: white! Sheen!

Blinded by her talent and her teeth.

You know it's Colorado when...

Yesterday it was 74 degrees out. Eric and Caitlin were outside for awhile, manning the Girl Scout cookie booth, hawkin' cookies on the unsuspecting shoppers around them.

Today?

Blizzard.

We are the poster child for Global Climate Change.

I am such a comic geek!

I have to see this!



I love Robert Downey Jr. Too bad about all of his issues with drugs, though. Don't worry, Hugh, I still love you more!

Rowrrr!*

Looking forward to Wolverine in 2009.

* Image from IMDB.

Boys & Girls

A few weeks back, Caitlin came up to me after school, during one of the rare occasions when I went to pick her up alone, and asked if she could have a playdate with E.

Now a request for a playdate after school is not unusual. What was unusual was that E is a boy.

I've got to tell you, I was surprised. Stunned even. At a temporary loss for words. Then E, standing tall next to Caitlin on his scooter said, "Yeah, Caitlin's mom! We'd like to have a playdate! Can we do it now?" I stuttered and then hedged by asking, "Where's your mom?"

This was the first time since Caitlin was in preschool (the good one) that a boy wanted to have a playdate. I wanted to make sure he was serious and to eyeball his folks before I either handed my daughter off to a stranger's care for two hours or took on a boy I'd never met until that moment. Turns out his mom is quite nice and was just as surprised as I was. Both of us, however, jumped all over the chance to have our kids mix it up. For me, anything that would get her hanging with her peers and having fun for a couple of hours was the big draw as well as the possibility of an actual friendship with a boy again.

When Caitlin was in her fabulous-yet-seriously-expensive preschool, the teachers referred to everyone in the classroom as "friends" instead of students and they worked on being inclusive instead of exclusive, especially when misbehavior would occur. (They would essentially stage little love-ins when someone got in trouble.) I loved the place, Caitlin loved the place and the staff loved her. However, eventually we had to say goodbye and started going to an inexpensive and more mainstream (and cheaper) preschool conveniently located down the street from our house. And did I mention it was cheaper? Yeah.

It was in that preschool that Caitlin discovered the division between boys and girls. The kids there all seemed to have siblings and were very serious about sex-based separations. Boys couldn't play with girls and girls couldn't play with boys. All of the standard irritating sayings were trotted out as evidence: "Girls rule and boys drool!". When those words dripped venomously from Caitlin's mouth, we had a long talk.

"You know, Daddy's a boy and cousin Max is a boy and Grampy is a boy. Do you think they drool?" Are stupid? Ugly? Mean? Etc. Ad nauseum. OMG do they hand out pamphlets on the differences between boys and girls and the ways to make either sex feel smaller than the belly of a grasshopper? Honestly! I have to tell you, it made me very sad to see Caitlin rejected simply because her plumbing didn't match theirs. Then it happened again in kindergarten. At least until she tamed The Angry Young Man with her uber friendliness. Weird, but good.

Today, however, was the second playdate for Caitlin and E.

Apparently the first one wasn't a fluke, they really did enjoy playing together. So now we're getting ready to set up a third.

Interestingly (Where interesting = hair-pulling-frustrating.), when one of the other boys in their class heard of it, he tried to convince Caitlin that it wasn't going to happen. This pronouncement upset her terribly. Clearly she was violating the social norms by actually expecting to have a playdate with someone of the opposite sex.

Can someone explain to me why my kid would believe some other kid's word on anything over my own? It took awhile, but after the storm of crying was over, she believed us that they really were going to have a playdate no matter what that other boy thought. And so they did.

Someone please tell me that this generation can actually be friends and fill in the chasm of differences that separate boys and girls? Someone?

Anyone?

Please?

Bueller?

Tiny Green Babies: First Up!

Today as I was obsessively checking my seedlings, I saw this:
First tomato seedling up! It's a Pineapple tomato.

"A what?" You ask.

It's an heirloom tomato. One day it will have fruit that look like this (IhopeIhopeIhope!):
Image from TomatoFest.com. Where they say:

An heirloom garden favorite that grows to 2 lbs. This bi-colored, slightly flattened, yellow beefsteak has a red blushing and streaks on the outside. It's yellow interior contains few seeds and a red star-burst in the center. Taste is wonderfully mild with tropical fruity-sweet flavors. This is a show stopper!

Yum. Go on, tell me you're not hungry now?

I also have these popping up as well:

Which one day will look like this:
Image from here by Garden Stuff.

BTW, for those of you counting, that was four days for the tomato seed and three days for the basil seed to germinate. Yowsa! Did I mention the green thumb? Did I mention the passion, nay obsession!, with gardening?

All we need now is some buffalo mozzarella cheese, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a sprinkle of sea salt and cracked pepper and we've got Caprese Salad! You can see a lovely picture of a complete salad here.

Summer can't come fast enough.

Five Months

"Emma, what's it like being 5 months old?"

"I don't know. Not much different from 4.75 months old. Should I feel different?"

"My turtle. I show you it."

"Maybe. You know, Mommy looks different. She's got more silver in her hair and big chunks of her hair are missing. Daddy says she's shedding or something. Also, she has bags under her eyes all the time."

"Huh. Do you think her hair went silver when we were born?" Looks nervous.

"Naaah. I think Caitlin probably started it. I wonder what Mommy used to look like?"

"What?!"

"Probably worse."

"I think you're right. I think I'll go get some milk."

Five months brings us back to the "normal" sleep pattern. Emma and Logan are now falling asleep at 8:30 pm and Emma sleeps until 4 am. Logan, on the other hand, wakes at 10:30, 1ish, almost 4 and then I have to wrestle with tandem nursing while flat on my back in bed. My back, in response, has been killing me! Or at least maiming me.

On the bright side, they've been napping more regularly during the day. It started while I was at the conference and makes me wonder if that was coincidental or serendipitous. That separating them for a few days got them both interested in/used to napping in the mid-morning and again in the afternoon. At home it doesn't seem to last as long, but at least they're laying flat, in a crib or co-sleeping and knocking out long enough for me to catch a shower. And I...I'm really fond of showering!

Everything goes in their mouths. Napkins, toys, the cats, my head, their siblings. Everything. It's both cute and drooly! Domino is handling the attention pretty well, far better than I would have guessed. I am very grateful for this.

Nom!

Must. Chew. Napkin!

They're both still falling over when placed in a sitting position, but they really want to be in a sitting position. I feel like they're losing millions of braincells every time they slip over and go Thunk! onto the floor. Poor little noggins!

Remaining braincells focussed on figuring stuff out.

Logan is really enjoying solid food. The rice cereal makes him very happy. Unfortunately, his poop now smells...like...poop. Bleah! Emma says she is happy to have any extra shares of milk laying around on his side of the boobs. Waste not, want not!

"Maybe...

if I suck really hard...

rice cereal will come out of this thing."

Toes are very exciting to both of them, but Logan has been kicking his feet up and grabbing them like Emma was a week or two ago. I suspect he'll be flipping over from back to tummy pretty soon.

Feet!

Last night something was up. Emma woke up around 11:30 pm and decided that it was time to Paaaaaarty! She started singing, bouncing and chatting up a storm. It lasted for hours. I swear, I had one mug of Earl Grey tea and it was at 9:30 AM. Like, the morning! This should not have had such a profound effect at midnight, but I can't fathom why else she would have been so relentlessly awake. I read this and wondered about it some more. It's also possible that it's not tea related but is instead a sign of big changes coming. Like crawling.

Dr. Sears says:

Major developmental milestones, such as sitting, crawling, and walking, drive babies to "practice" their new developmental skills in their sleep.
-- #8 of 8 INFANT SLEEP FACTS EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW

Hold me!

Wordless Wednesday

Why are there tumbleweeds in my yard? Do I live in the Wild West or something?

Oh...wait. I do.

OMG!

Assimilation complete.

The internet wins. It cannot be stopped.

Proof? You want proof?!

My mom just sent me an email and in it she said...

LOL.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrgh!

And then my head exploded and I died.

Emma says...

*Chomp!*

Mommy says: OW!

Mommy stomps upstairs holding offending chomper at arm's length, sensitive body part sending out pain messages frantically. (It's OK, body, I got the message loud and clear!)

Mommy places vicious beast into crib and turns on the mobile, exits the room and shuts the door. Mommy stomps downstairs, restraining urge to curse like a sailor.

Emma, eventually figuring our that she's all alone, says "Waaaaaaaah!"

"Is Emma in trouble?" Caitlin asks, delighted that it's someone else's turn.

"Yes. She's in a baby timeout." Eric explains.

The first of many, I'm sure.

I'm so not looking forward to teeth. Do they make mouth guards small enough?

Quiz Time!

Today's topic: Naps.

You're sitting on the sofa, nursing your child. Do you:

1. Nurse the baby to sleep and pass out with it.
   
2. Nurse the baby to a certain point of sleepiness and then put it into its crib and let it fall asleep there.
   
3. Nurse the baby to a certain point of sleepiness and then lovingly pat and soothe it until it falls asleep, then place it into its crib and nap in your own bed.
   
4. Nurse the baby. Continue nursing the baby. This baby has no Off switch.

The sound of the phone wakes you. Do you:

1. Wake up, startled, completely unsure of how much time has passed. Five minutes? Thirty minutes? Two minutes, four seconds? Long term sleep deprivation has shattered your internal clock. You do not actually answer the phone because you can't get your brain to engage your legs.
   
2. Answer the phone, then return to whatever you were doing.
   
3. What phone? You have the ringer turned off. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
   
4. Nurse the baby. Curse the caller under your breath. Consider getting caller id (if you don't have it) or consider calling whomever it is back at 3:05 am. Baby might be sleeping then.

You notice that your arm is going numb from holding the baby. Do you:

1. Gently switch the baby's position to be more comfortable for you and then curse your folly. You have woken the sleeping baby.
   
2. You're busy getting stuff done. That baby is sleeping on its own. Sucker!
   
3. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Sleep is blissful, is it not?
   
4. Nurse the baby. Let arm, legs, and feet go numb. Do Not! Disturb! Potentially! Slee--! Crap! Baby heard your thoughts and is fully awake again. Thanks a lot. Curse the world for existing.

Your baby is now awake. Do you:

1. Lie there and pretend to be asleep, hoping baby will buy it and fall asleep again while you silently cursing your stupidity and you mentally prepare a blog post about it. Too bad the computer isn't nearby.
   
2. Pat and soothe the baby back to sleep. Nap time isn't over yet, Junior! Continue with your day.
   
3. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Now you're getting to the really good part of your dream. Baby is, too. What an angel!
   
4. I hate you! I hate you and all of your little sleeping buddies! Devise evil plans for those that answer C.

Your baby latches on again and falls back to sleep. Do you:

1. Thank your lucky stars and pass out for another unknown time period. Determine you can't fall asleep (Why?! Why?!) and go make up a blog post.
   
2. Your house is clean, your bills paid, your dinner planned (and possibly even cooking in the slow cooker), your laundry done and you are showered and perky. Must be time to go pick up any other kids from school!
   
3. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz! Roll over and sigh happily. Get more comfortable. Someone else is taking care of your child in the afternoon while you rest.
   
4. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Wonder how much sleep you'd get if you offered your soul to an unspecified supernatural power? Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

If you answered:

1. You are me. Hi me!
   
2. You are so darned organized! Give yourself a big hand and take a bow!
   
3. You are a Sleep Swami. Teach me your ways, O Wise One!
   
4. You are exhausted. I'm sorry. I'll think quieter next time. Hi Ali! (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

This quiz brought to you by Logan and the Power of the Sleep Deprived Brain. It's a lot like insanity, but a lot less fun.

My last quiz is here.

Updated to add: Wow! That was exactly one year and one month ago! I'm goooood! Or exactly eleven months ago. Whatever! My math abilities are just as wrecked as my time sense.

On Locavores and Other Tasty Issues

Food. We all need it to survive. Some of us love it, some of us hate it, but we all need it. As the old adage goes: some eat to live while others live to eat.

I am the latter.

Your surprise is complete, is it not?

There's a hierarchy in the organic food movement, that you may have heard about:

1. Local and organic.
2. Local, but conventional.
3. Organic, but not local.
4. Conventional, but not local.

The idea behind it is that anything that cuts down on the amount of transportation it takes to get food to your plate is good for you, the freshness of your food and the environment. The emphasis on organic has led to the Sustainable Agriculture movement and the Slow Food movement. This collection of thought processes has led to the rise of the Locavore.

Today's SixChix comic. Love it! Click to enlarge.

Now the interesting thing about the locavore is the fact that it is a rising trend in agriculture today. So much so that it was the first item mentioned by the keynote speaker at the Ag Conference I attended last week. People that want to eat locally are also, in effect, required to eat seasonally. Suddenly (or not so suddenly, really), we've come full circle and have returned to old fashioned agriculture. Shopping at the local farmers' market returns us to our roots and gets the individual shopper in touch with the people responsible for growing the food they eat: the small family farmer. It's a very good thing to know your local farmers, they're good people.

Eating what is grown on the land around you also reduces your carbon footprint (Calculator here.) and has the added benefit of keeping your money circulating in the local community. Both of these things benefit you and your community in both the short and long term. By purchasing local and organic food, you will improve your family's health and welfare and also help to drive more farmers into the organic market. By keeping small family farms in business, you help to employ more people locally.

The effect of organic food on the health of our children is significant:

Organic Diets Significantly Lower Children's Dietary Exposure to Organophosphorus Pesticides

...We substituted most of children's conventional diets with organic food items for 5 consecutive days and collected two spot daily urine samples, first-morning and before-bedtime voids, throughout the 15-day study period.
...In conclusion, we were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production. We also concluded that these children were most likely exposed to these organophosphorus pesticides exclusively through their diet.
--Abstract from Environmental Health Perspectives, February 2006

As more folks purchase organic food, more farmers will move away from conventional growing. Then, as the laws of supply and demand tell us, the price of locally produced organic food will drop. Just in time, too, since with the rising price of gas we'll soon see rising prices in the grocery store. If we haven't already, that is.

As a small farmer, I'm delighted by this trend. Yes, we'll be out there this summer at our local market, selling to the general public, meeting people, making friends and gaining new customers. We'll be doing our part to change the world around us via food. And we won't be alone.

According to an article in the NY Times, a study found that (Gasp!) when offered vouchers for fresh fruits and vegetables, low income women actually bought and ate them.

Effect of a targeted subsidy on intake of fruits and vegetables among low-income women in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

Intervention participants increased their consumption of fruits and vegetables and sustained the increase 6 months after the intervention was terminated (model adjusted R(2)=.13, P<.001). Farmers' market participants showed an increase of 1.4 servings per 4186 kJ (1000 kcal) of consumed food (P<.001) from baseline to the end of intervention compared with controls, and supermarket participants showed an increase of 0.8 servings per 4186 kJ (P=.02). CONCLUSIONS: Participants valued fresh fruits and vegetables, and adding them to the WIC food packages will result in increased fruit and vegetable consumption.
-- Publine entry from the American Journal of Public Health

Bolded entry was my emphasis.

The only problem with the vouchers? Not enough money. Surprise!

The U.C.L.A. study gave women $10 a week, while the W.I.C. program will provide monthly vouchers worth $8 to each recipient and $6 to each child. Breastfeeding women will receive just $10 a month toward fruits and vegetables.
-- NY Times The Farmers' Market Effect

So here's the thing: if we're all so darned concerned about women and children and making sure that babies are born healthy from healthy women, why wouldn't we make that a more reasonable dollar amount? Eight dollars a month?! Ten if you're pregnant?! Did you know about the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge where congress people vowed to live on $21 a week? Now imagine if you had an additional $2 every week for more fruits and vegetables. Wow! Now there's a balanced diet! We'll have obesity and nutritional diseases amoung low income families licked in no time at that rate!

The problem that you see is that for $21 a week, you want to get the most caloric bang for your buck and it's not going to be in fruits and veggies. They are good for you, but the small portions you can buy for $2 a week (Extra! Whoo!) are not going to fill you up and stop you from feeling hungry. That's where cheap junk food comes in, repeatedly: it's very very cheap and calorically dense. The problem is that you pay with your health and in the long term, your life.

This pittance for fresh fruits and veggies is in complete contradiction to the cries of:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
-- Unhappy Meals, NY Times

Read it, it's a really good article. However, it puts everything into stark contrast. Unless you're rich, you can't afford to be healthy in our society. We're a First World country! What the hell is going on?

A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.
-- Unhappy Meals, NY Times

What do they mean by food products? They mean this:

-- SixChix comic from February 13th. Click to enlarge.

So what do we do? How do we get healthier, live longer, reduce our carbon footprint, keep money in our own communities and encourage responsible, sustainable agricultural practices? We either grow our own food or buy it from our local farmers' market or join a CSA. We also fight back against Big Ag (See the OCA website for more details about issues that affect your food and find out what you can do to help.) when they try to lobby for changes that only benefit them in the marketplace. We buy our meat from local producers that we trust so that we can know that our food is safe, because this is horrifying.

And we do it because we know that a real tomato, one grown either in your own backyard or by someone that actually cares about the food they make and sell should never be on the Untasty yet Easy side of the graph.

Today's XKCD comic. Click to enlarge.

Grapefruit shouldn't be there either, but it requires you to get a fresh picked one to realize they can actually be sweet. Something I didn't know until I had one while in Jamaica. Just imagine the local markets there. Yum!

So get out there and get growin'!

Me? I just started 420 340 tomato plants (too tired to do math properly) (15 16 different heirloom varieties) last night (and I haven't even started the 6 8 different basil varieties, 192 plants...). I'll see you at the market.

For more information on finding your local farmers' market or CSA, go here.

Logan says...

"Brown rice cereal? It's what's for dinner!"

After trying bananas out for the last week, we decided to give rice cereal a try. Following the directions at WholesomeBabyFood.com, I made some. You know, from scratch, from this recipe. By the way, brown rice is better than white rice since it contains the bran and the germ while the packaged stuff is usually just white rice, since it has a better shelf life that way.

Swistle would be so proud! I was reading her site when she talked about making your own babyfood and she made it look so easy that it would be kinda silly to not do it. Misty also made Oliver's food, so between the two of them I guess it's gonna be home cookin' for the wee ones.

Of course I photographed it for you!

First, I pulverized the brown rice in a coffee grinder that I use as a spice grinder until it was a fine powder. Then I sifted it into a bowl through a strainer, just to be certain I didn't have any large grains left behind. Turns out that there were some, so I recommend that step.

I took 1/4 cup of the rice powder and tossed it into a pot with 1 cup boiling water and whisked away for about 12 minutes. Whisking means few to no clumps and a nicer texture. I also added a few tablespoons more water as it appeared to be getting quite thick and since everything takes longer to cook at this elevation, more cooking time seemed to be a good idea, too.

At this point, I had a pretty thick porridge that appeared to be ready. I removed it from the pot so it wouldn't burn from residual heat.


A fair amount of it, too, so I just scooped about a tablespoon's worth into a small glass dish and thinned it out with breastmilk.

Then I got my test subject ready with a bib. He seemed game to try it.

Did he like it?

I'd say so!

After a few more of these faces,
our bowl looked like this:

He liked it so much that I gave him a second helping, but stopped there, so that his tiny tummy wouldn't explode.

Then we thinned out the remaining porridge with fresh (not previously frozen) breastmilk, poured it into ice cube trays and stuck it in the freezer. Tomorrow, we'll just pull a cube out and let it defrost in the fridge and be ready to go. Logan will appreciate it.

Here he is, pondering his future and how long he will have to wait for more yummy cereal.

Tomorrow, little hungry one. Tomorrow.