sprout

Tortilla-less burrito

This is basically a cheese and bean burrito without the tortilla. Easy and quick to make, my mini loves it.

1/4 can of black bean vegetable soup
1/2 cup brown rice (pre-cooked and microwave ready)
shredded cheese
1/4 avocado

Cook the rice to package directions. Place cooked rice on a plate and add black bean vegetable soup and cheese on top. Microwave for about 30 seconds. Remove from microwave and add chopped avocado.

This is an easy meal for minis just getting used to handling spoons and forks.

Keeping Things Regular

Does your child suffer from bouts of irregularity? Mine does. These are foods that have helped:

• prune juice
• black bean vegetable soup
• bran flax muffins (minus the nuts and raisins)
• pear sauce
• drinking extra water

Online Errands

In an effort to make my life easier and not drag my mini on all kinds of boring errands, I've been looking for alternatives: namely online shopping and drive-thrus. So far I've had much better luck with online shopping than drive-thrus. Besides cards and diapers, I've found these:

Office supplies. If you join Staples Rewards (it's free), anything you order from their web site has free shipping.

Stamps. For a $1 delivery fee, you can order stamps from the US Postal Service online.

Pet meds. I can't tell you how much I love ordering from 1800petmeds.com vs going to the vet just to get flea medicine.

Pharmacy. You can get prescription refills and anything else you need sent to your home from Drugstore.com or Walgreen's.

Organic produce. Organic Express will deliver organic produce to your door.

Movies. I'm sure I was the last person to subscribe to Netflix.com, but they now have a variety of plans to suit every lifestyle.

Handprints

Handprints are an easy craft, keepsake and/or gift for grandma that you and your mini can make. All you need is fingerpaint, paper and your mini's hands. Here they talk about grandparents and grandchildren making 'generational handprints' together.

Tip: If you have a toddler, I recommend you have them wear only a diaper for this - minis have an amazing ability to get completely covered in paint before you even know what happened.

Car nap

Some parents are excellent and never let their children sleep in the car. Most, however, find themselves driving around with a sleeping mini every so often. Since driving around aimlessly can be pretty boring, my advice is to park and take advantage of this unplanned Me Time. As with most things in life, being prepared counts.

First, look at what's in your glove compartment. Chances are there's all kinds of crap shoved in there that you don't need - remove it. Next, figure out how much space you have. My guess is that you have enough room to fit one game book (why not join the sudoku craze? if you're not a joiner, how about crossword puzzles?), a pencil, some paper (you can never have enough lists), and a magazine. If you're really organized (or do this a lot), you can bring along your favorite fiber craft, the book you're reading, a pile of trashy magazines, thank you notes for your kid's birthday presents, bills to pay... whatever works for you.

Elmo crackers

I'm always looking for new and better snacks. With the big red Elmo on the box, though, baby girl was pretty much able to find these all on her own. Sesame Street Original Organic Crunchin' Crackers (just look for Elmo because you'll never remember the name) taste kinda like Ritz crackers but they're organic, have no transfats, 20% of the RDA of lots of vitamins and minerals, and probably do all sorts of other wonderful things. Even better, they come in the shape of Elmo and Big Bird heads.

This Weekend - July 8 + 9

There are a lot of festivals held in the summer, but one of the oldest local cultural festivals - and one of the best - is the annual Lotus Festival in Echo Park. The festival is a celebration of Asian and Pacific Islander cultures featuring dance, music and martial arts performances, a wide variety of food, and shopping. If guava flavored Hawaiian shaved ice weren't enough of a reason to go, the lotus flowers in the northwest corner of the lake are in bloom this time of year.

Free. The Lotus Festival is on Saturday and Sunday beginning at noon in Echo Park. Echo Park is located on Park Avenue between Glendale Blvd. and Echo Park Blvd.

Meeting Other Breeders

So you get pregnant, do a lot of research, obsess about all the fucked up things that can happen to your baby, plan the perfect registry, write a birth plan, find out that you can't control child birth much more than you'll be able to control your mini at 16 and get home with a bundle of joy. Maybe you have some friends with kids. Or maybe you don't. It really doesn't matter since the ones with kids already have their schedules set up and, as you'll soon know, there's a world of difference between a 3 month old and a 13 month old. Your friends without kids will probably be easier to meet up with anyway assuming they don't mind having distracted, wandering conversations with you while you restrain your child from stuffing sugar packets into her/his mouth.

What you'll soon discover is, you need to meet some other mamas. Early on, breastfeeding or new mom support groups are handy. No one's kid does much yet, you're all shellshocked and happy to get out of the house. These will probably not be the people you stay friends with. When babies are really small it's all about changing diapers and making sure they're eating enough. As they get older, you'll find out that the nice woman you always had friendly chit-chat with is actually a big fan of some strict child training philosophy.

Mom's groups and Mommy and Me classes come up next. By about 4 months, you'll have learned something about your local mom culture and gotten some leads. I am not a joiner (actually I'm an eternal optimist when it comes to groups and always join a new one thinking this time it'll be different) but have (surprisingly enough) had luck with a mom's group. Important point here: you need to know your demographic and make sure the group you join won't annoy the hell out of you. There are all kinds of battles in the parenting world: breast or bottle, at home or working, cloth or disposable, attachment parenting or child training, co-op or drop off nursery schools. Though most of it is ridiculous and, chances are you'll never follow any one philosophy absolutely, people get really strident about their parenting choices. It's good to remember this going in. Also helpful, trying to be mellow about other parenting styles. One of the things I've learned since my daughter was born, is that you can have all the fantasies you want about childrearing but in the end, your child has a unique personality from birth and you have no idea what's going to work for the two of you until you get there.

If Moms groups aren't your style, Mommy and Me classes or storytimes can also be great. Gymboree, library storytime, one of those stroller fitness classes - something you can live with that will help you meet mamas you like. The main thing is to find a mama or two, more if you're lucky, that you'd be friends with even if you didn't have kids that were about the same age.

How old is that jar of baby food?

Some kids may eat one of those 4 oz. jars of baby food at one sitting, but that's rarely the case with baby girl. She'll eat half a jar of Pears today and the other half later. Since I worry that she'll get bored eating the same thing over and over, I usually give her another fruit for the next meal. As a result, I end up with a bunch of half eaten jars in the fridge. Since an opened jar can stay in the fridge for 3 days, and my memory doesn't seem to store info like 'Pears were on Tuesday and Apple Mango was on Wednesday', I needed a way to keep track. What works for me is using a Sharpie to mark the lid with the day of the week. Since I normally know what day it is, I can then easily figure out whether or not the stuff is still good.