christmas hopscotch

I didn't think I was going to do any holiday baking this year since I'd need to have the treats done from start to finish in an hour. Fat chance since I have a habit of always choosing some of the most challenging or expensive recipes when baking. But this year I've resolved to have it both ways by cutting out the time consuming and difficult part to make cookies that my mom used to make around the holidays. The reason I've chosen these cookies is because my sister and I always turned our nose up at 'real' Christmas cookies like shortbread and jam thumbprint cookies for simple and quick treats. Luckily for my mom, these candy-like cookies were no bake and usually involved melted marshmallows and adding cereal.

I grabbed this recipe for "Christmas Hopscotch" from my mom's recipe box.
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 6 oz package butterscotch chips
Microwave 30 seconds at a time and stir until well blended.
Add
2 cups mini marshmallows
3 oz chow mien noodles
I don't think anyone in my family has made these cookies in 15 to 20 years! When making these I had my doubts that these would be any good, I mean, just reading the ingredients doesn't sound very appetizing. But after making them yesterday I had one taste and it was total nostalgia. They are so addictive!

bumps in the road

Wow, no one said breast feeding is easy, but I never expected to run into this kind of difficulty! Here's how things have been going lately:
For the first three weeks of life with Owen, I was nursing him and everything was going great. I heard that the region was sending their lactation consultants back to help nursing moms, so I called to set up an appointment for a bit of feedback on how things were going with Owen and myself. All the nurses in St. Catharines were booked, so I decided to see a nurse in Welland. She watched us, gave me lots of amazing pointers and corrections and said that we looked like we were doing great. She then had a concern about his lack of weight gain.
Owen was not gaining at the rate he should be. The nurse gave us a plan to try, which didn't seem to show any results on our next appointment. Then there was another plan, which, again, didn't seem to give us the results they were looking for. Finally, the nurses started to get worried and asked that we see our family doctor. This is when I started to get worried. As a last effort, I was given a plan to feed at least every three hours (which we've always done), pump whatever is leftover (with a hospital grade breast pump - ouch!), and then supplement an extra 2 oz of what I had pumped or with formula. This is very all consuming. It takes an hour and a half to two hours from start to finish which leaves us an hour of free time. Of course, this is going on 24 hours a day. When I get help, I can pare the routine down to an hour. I felt like a failure of a mom because it seemed as though I was the reason he wasn't growing fast, so I was dealing with a lot of guilt. Not only that, this extreme feeding schedule landed right on Nuno's 30th birthday which was crappy timing.
Yesterday was Owen's weigh in and after many appointments of disappointing news he gained 11 oz in 4 days (where he only gained 3.5 oz a week prior). I'm still on this crazy nursing plan to keep beefing the little guy up, so needless to say, I'm very tired. I probably get 4 or 5 hours of sleep per day. It's OK though, I don't feel tired, I'm just getting very forgetful.

Another thing I'm dealing with is every crappy physical post partum related issue in the book short of post partum depression. I won't go into details here since I don't want anyone chirping under their computer desk, but suffice to say, it's been a month and many physical issues are continuing to aggravate me.

I feel like this entry is a pity party for me but I don't want it to come across that way. I have to say this is all worth it! Every time I look at Owen I'm so in love that all of this seems like very little in the scheme of our lives.