The Omnivore’s Hundred

I've seen The Omnivore's Hundred a few times on my blog rolls, so in light of the big feasting that will be taking place next week all over the US, I'm participating! Below is a list from Very Good Taste of the 100 foods one should try before they die. I don't necessarily agree with this list, but it's a fun experiment nonetheless. And it did bring back some fun memories. Border dogs out of Tiajuana... oh the days of yesteryear.

If it's in bold, I've tried it. I'm at 63. You?

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros - Come on, I'm a CA girl
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile - I did try kangaroo on my trip to Australia, but not crocodile
6. Black pudding - tasted in Scottland. NEVER again.
7. Cheese fondue - this is a NYE staple in my family
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart Ugh. Border dogs with colleen and gang in college.
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - double ugh.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - What can I say, I married a Jamaican!
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat Again, the Jamaican thing.
42. Whole insects - not unless I'm goin' for a mill on a game show.
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more Maybe w/ Pete?
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone On Catalina Island when I was a kid
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini - Oh, my fav! With an extra olive of course...
58. Beer above 8% ABV - can you say belgian?
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips - Nasty.
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho Not really a fan.
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe - Not sure if it was Louche, but I have tried absinthe with Harry in San Diego. Once was enough.
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee - On honeymoon!
100. Snake

You know you live in Florida when...

you wake up in the morning during a "cold spell" and can't believe how chilly it is. Slippers and bathrobes are required. Your 3yo asks for a sweater and slippers to wear over her winter pjs. As you contemplate having a fire (any excuse as we only get to have about 10 a year) you look a the thermostat and it says...

71.

Super Bunnies

There is a bunny infestation on the cul-de-sac.

We currently have nine superbunnies living in our house. If that's not bad enough, apparently there are 100 across the street. Before you think I've become the crazy bunny lady "super bunnies" are Natalie and Sara's (her best friend) imaginary friends. I'm not sure how this got started, but Christie (Sara's mom) asked me how many super bunnies we had one day.

Pardon?

How many are at your house?

Um, Christie, I think it's time to put down that glass of wine.

Then she told me that they were the new imaginary friends the girls dreamt up in school one day.

So I proceeded to ask Natalie that night if there were any superbunnies in our house. And without missing a beat, she says, "oh yeah mommy, I have nine and they all need a good night kiss."

Gotta love that imagination.

We're Back!

For those of you who read this online, you may have noticed for the past week or so that there was nothing on the website. Well, I finally got a moment to check it out and emailed my webhost and someone had absconded my index page with "malicious code" and it had to be replaced. Hmpf! The nerve! Anyway, all has been repaired and we are back. We are getting ready for halloween, miss Natalie has chosen her own costume this year. I'll email pix on halloween. In the meantime, here are some halloween inspired photos...




I'm also continuing the "fashion week" photos. I really need to come up with a better name since I have a feeling the fashion will continue many years to come. You know how all the cute little infant outfits come with hats? While they look adorable, they are completely useless in FL. It's too hot to require a hat for warmth once an infant is past a few weeks old and is regulating her temperature better. And most are too cutsy to be helpful for sun protection, which is what we really need here. But... they are so cute! So I've decided to get photos of Katherine in all her hats before she outgrows them, for posterity and cuteness, if nothing else. Here are a couple:

This is what she was wearing on our first walk together, mentioned below in my Beetlejuice post.



And this one I took this morning as it's cooling off enough for her to finally start wearing long pjs under her swaddle. I just love this hat, makes her look like a little amish girl. She is adorable, if I do say so myself! By the way, Marla, I cannot thank you enough for introducing us to the miracle blanket back when Natalie was a baby. It's the best! I will forever be grateful for providing us something that has thus far made both my children great sleepers...



And finally, this last one is to show Katherine is getting some of that adorable baby chubbiness. She is gaining steadily and over 9 pds now, so I believe the weight gain issues are resolved. Next week we are off to the pediatric urologist for the 2nd opinion on the bladder reflux, so stay tuned...

BeetleJuice

There are many great things about living in Florida. Affordable housing which means you can own a pool on the cheap. Great weather year-round (well, summer is debatable). Access to some amazing beaches and if you're like me, I love the latin influence here. Mmm... can you say cuban bread?

However, there is a major drawback to living in Florida, which I've posted about before. BUGS. Of all variety. My newest foe? The beetle.

Growing up in central California, we had some really cool green iridescent beetles in our backyard. I can't think of what they are called, but am sure my father would know. He is a bug aficionado. The beetles I've come across in Florida are not cute. They are down right gross, of the roach variety. So you can imagine my horror at what happened to me yesterday in not one, but two separate beetle run-ins.

I finally got the car seat adapter connected to our jogging stroller and ventured out with Katherine on our first neighborhood walk yesterday morning. Natalie was in preschool and Katherine had only woken up once in the night so it was a good morning. Now that I am finished with pregnancies (my rule is the kids cannot outnumber the parents), I am trying to get fit again. It's been a good year since I've exercised regularly and my body shows it. The challenge is finding the time with two small children. So three mornings a week while Natalie is in preschool, the plan is to walk the neighborhood and work back up to running again when Katherine is big enough to be in the stroller w/out the carseat attached.

So, we are enjoying our first morning walk. Mornings here are getting very pleasant, in the 70s which is perfect. Katherine seems to be enjoying herself and the fresh air, as I am. As we round the corner and start heading up the one "hill" back to our house, I see out of the corner of my eye something blackish fly right down into the stroller. The stroller where my precious two month old daughter is relaxing. I thought it was a leaf and start looking around to make sure when I spy something moving on the baby blanket. Aack!! No, not a leaf, but a brown, roach-like beetle. Double-aack! So I wisk Katherine out of the stroller and while holding her and the blanket in one hand try to get the beetle out of the stroller. Oh, and I'm trying to do this without actually touching the beetle because... I just can't. Apparently I have a beetle phobia. The body of this one is about an inch in length (small by FL standards) and I just cannot flick him out with the car seat straps. As I keep trying the little bugger crawls in between the straps and under the padding of the car seat. There is no way for me to get at him now as I cannot pull the fabric up while holding Katerine in my other arm. So what do I do? I proceed to push down on the fabric where he went as hard as possible. Then cover the area with the blanket and put Katherine back on top. I then proceed the last quarter mile home as fast as possible with visions of the nasty beetle crawling all over my daughters pristine skin.

Yeah, it was a great first outing.

When we got home, I took Katherine out, took the car seat outside, lifted up the fabric and there he is, alive and well. So I let him go and spared his life. That should have brought me some good Karma, no? No. Apparently, all it did was piss him off and get him to round up his big beetle brothers to hunt me down. Because later that night...

After being woken up after only 1.5 hours sleep by aforementioned daughter, I go into the bathroom to find a huge (2 inch?) roach/beetle on the floor. ICK! I'm too tired to go into the kitchen to get paper towels so gather up some tissues, which are totally inadequate and approach the beetle. I'm silently freaking out at this point as I desperately do not want to touch it, and in my hesitation, miss and he runs! I then see him on the cabinet, about 1/2 way up. Perfect, he can scale heights. I hesitate again and he runs again. This time, into the cavern of our pocket bathroom door where I can no longer reach him. The door that is only a few feet from Katherine's bassinet. So at this point, he's still alive, somewhere in the general area where we all sleep.

That should provide some sweet dreams tonight.

The Results...

Thursday was a tough morning. Had to take Katherine in for her sonogram and VCUG . The sonogram was to view her anatomy to ensure her kidney related anatomy was normal. The VCUG was to see if she had the bladder reflux. Thankfully, my SIL Debbie was in town from Canada and went with me to the appt. All I can say is Debbie, you rock. I was so shaky after that I'm not sure I would have been able to safely drive home.

First we had the sonogram. I had to hold Katherine in front of me, similar to a burping position while the tech spread the goop on her and scanned her back. This wasn't painful, but Katherine cried during the whole procedure. I'm sure it was a bit frightening for her and that she could sense my stress. The good news is she has two perfectly normal kidneys. Debbie was able to join us and was really great trying to comfort Katherine (and me.)

Next up was the VCUG. Here I went in alone with Katherine. I had to put on a lead vest and stand behind Katherine at her head and hold her arms down. She was laid down on a large table where they proceeded to insert a catheter. Now, this was the third time we've done this. At the pediatrician's office it was no problem. Here, the frickin' woman could not get the catheter in. Katherine was crying and screaming the whole time. It was awful. Finally, she brought in another woman, who after a few attmepts was successful. Now, I know my daughter is tiny, only 8 pds, but come on. This is your specialty. I was really upset at this point as they had caused my daughter what I considered undue pain and stress. Fortunately, at the point the doctor came in and he was great. Explained everything and said he'd had to do the same thing with his daughter when she was 2 months old. Basically verbally comforted me, which was exactly what I needed at that point.

Then, they proceed to insert the dye via the catheter. They fill up her bladder with the dye and then watch while she urinates to see if the dye refluxes back out of the bladder. Poor Katherine is crying this whole time, I think uncomfortable w/ the fullness of her bladder but still holds it for a few minutes until she finally relaxes. While this is happening, there is a huge xray machine over her whole little body that the doctor is turning on and off. I must have given him a strange look because he then tells me he's turning it on and off to expose her to as little of the radiation as possible. OK. This whole time, even while they were putting the huge lead vest on my I hadn't considered her exposure to the radiation. So there I am, feeling very surreal like I'm watching the procedure, not participating in it, and realizing for the first time that she is getting exposed to radiation. And she's so tiny and only 2 months old. All I can think of is all this radiation going into her little body and that I cannot protect her. Knowing myself, and that a flood of tears is imminent, I focus all my attention on comforting Katherine as best I can and manage to get through it.

The initial result the doctor gives is that they watched her urinate three times and did not see any reflux. Good news. But, they did find a diverticulum next to her bladder, which is a sign of reflux. So he wanted to go back and do another sonogram to see it for himself. When we did this, they couldn't really find it (sort of saw a small black area) which confirmed that he was correct as the diverticulum will only show up when the bladder is fully distended. So this was the bad news, as these usually only show up alongside reflux. While he didn't see reflux on the VCUG, he said it was still possible she has it, but it didn't show up during that particular urination. So he said I should wait and talk to my pediatrician about our course of action.

So I essentially thought we were out of the water until my pediatrician called yesterday. They want us to take her to a pediatric urologist for a second opinion, which won't be until Oct 28th. In the meantime, my pediatrician spoke with the doctor who performed the VCUG and they both agreed we should start her on a low grade antibiotic for the next six months to prevent future urninary tract infections. She does have reflux, a level 2 out of 5. I'm still not sure how that diagnosis came about since they didn't tell me that at the appt. So basically, I expect the urologist will agree to the prescribed antibiotic and in six months we will have to go through the whole procedure again. Joy.

I'm not thrilled about putting Katherine on antibiotic for such a long period of time, but because her UTI didn't show any typical signs of fever, it's quite possible she could get another one and we would not know. And if one were to go untreated, it could result in kidney damage. So, we will proceed with the antibiotic and hope for the best. Fortunately, I have a friend who's 9 month old is going through the same thing, so I have someone I can talk to.

I really want to thank all our friends and family for all your support through this. You've been invaluable and it would have been a much tougher road without you.

My Little Babushka

Such a hat girl! Today Natalie is at Disney World with her dad, cousin Alex and Auntie Debbie and Uncle Andrew. Such fun. Which means mommy gets a quiet day home alone with the baby. I'm off to go enjoy that right now.

p.s. In other news, we have Katherine's appt. tomorrow to find out if she just had a UTI or if there is something more serious going on. Stay tuned and please keep us in your thoughts!

Little Cuties

My new favorite photo of the girls...



In other news, our air conditioning broke last night. We called the repair people and they can't come out until 4:00. And it's going to be 91 degrees today. Joy!