Miss is nearly 8 months old now. She gets funnier every day. She is able to sit up by herself now, and does this over and over and over. She seems so pleased with herself! She isn’t crawling yet, but she sure is trying hard. She can’t seem to decide if she wants to crawl on hands and knees or in more of a bear-crawl position on her feet instead of her knees. She goes back and forth between these two positions, rocking back and forth, and balancing with one arm forward and the opposite leg sticking out behind her. This inevitably ends in a face plant, and then she just pushes herself up onto her little butt and plays for a few seconds before starting the whole process over again. She is also working on pulling herself up to standing, and will walk if we hold her hands. She loves to bob up and down if we hold her upright, and jumps like crazy when we put her in her Jumperoo.

She has three teeth. The two middle bottom teeth and the top tooth just to the left of the middle. She looks a bit snaggle-toothed, but in an adorable kind of way. She loves to eat solid foods and eats three meals a day now. Her favorites are squash (winter and summer varieties) and sweet potatoes. She also likes apples, pears, and prunes. She doesn’t really like peas or carrots, though I did get her to eat peas for lunch today by mixing them with prunes. I know, gross, right? But she liked it! She loves to eat Cheerios and her pincer grasp is rapidly improving. I have started trying to teach her sign language. In particular we’re working on words/signs like “more,” “eat,” “drink,” “water,” and “milk.” Of course she’s not signing yet, but she at least looks at me now when I do it.

She is also developing quite a fun little personality. She makes the funniest faces and has very expressive eyebrows. She has also learned that if she makes a grunt-yell noise she can get her dad and me to respond to her in some way that she seems to find enjoyable. Last night I listened to her making this noise and her daddy tickling her in response, back and forth, for almost 10 minutes. She laughs a lot and has learned to wave. She is quite entertaining on flights, as she loves to flirt with strangers. Occasionally we can get her to give a kiss. She is also experimenting with tantrums and various other ways of expressing her displeasure about things. It is really quite adorable and kind of hard not to laugh at her.

Overall, I am having an absolute blast being her mom. She makes me laugh multiple times every day. I have never had a harder, more rewarding, or better job than this one.

Sometimes I just have one of those days when the sleep deprivation and seemingly endless list of things to do just makes me feel a little, um, stupid. Well, okay realistically I probably have those days most of the time. Or maybe every day. But today I have been especially moronic I think. I am amazed by how forgetful I can be now. This started when I was pregnant. The psychological research has actually identified “Pregnancy Brain” as a real phenomenon where pregnant women get more dumb. Their brains actually shrink a bit (listen to me saying “they” as if this didn’t happen to me too). However, the research also showed that this dummy phase is supposed to be just that, a phase, lasting only until shortly after the pregnancy is over. Evolutionarily speaking, it wouldn’t make sense to have a bunch of stupid chicks running around trying to raise babies, right? So, the Pregnancy Brain is supposed to resolve after the baby is born, and women have actually been shown to perform better on certain tasks after “recovering” from it. So, even though being pregnant makes us gals temporarily ditsy, we are supposed to come out of the deal even smarter and sharper than we were before. So how come I nearly walked out of the house with mismatched shoes on today? I was very close to going to a meeting with one brown and one black shoe on. It is only the fact that these shoes, though similar in style, have a slightly different shape and heel height on them such that I looked down to see what the problem was when my feet felt different, that saved me from this error. And though my daughter was dressed impeccably in an adorable outfit, with everything she could ever possibly need carefully packed in her beautiful diaper bag and enough warmth on her body to protect her in an arctic blizzard, I proceeded to leave the house without a coat on. Not even a sweater or fully long-sleeved shirt. I live in Wisconsin and it’s getting cold here!

1. Why can’t someone make baby socks and shoes that actually stay on? I know this is not easy, when the baby wearing them inevitably grabs them and/or bites on them and tries to pull them off. But couldn’t they at least stay on otherwise? Some of Miss’s socks fall off if she just kicks her feet and they happen to hit each other. Oi. The person who could invent the true stay-on baby sock would (and should) be a bajillionaire.

FuzziBunz has come out with a new one-size pocket diaper. My friend is giving some away on her blog Big City! Baby. I am telling you about this so that I may get another chance to win the dipes for myself. I really want to win them.

This is me (on the left) and my Cousin one year at Christmas time (I’m sure you can tell by the clothing this was in the 70s. Yep, I’m that old). Dontcha love the unselfconsciousness of kids? I think I might have been using that hairbrush (?) as a microphone too. I still can’t dance worth a darn (I can keep a beat but don’t really have the moves!) but I do it anyway. Especially with Miss, who LOVES music and dancing. Her favorite song? “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes.

I have just learned of the wonders of spaghetti squash. Last week we got a spaghetti squash in our box from the CSA, along with a recipe for a spaghetti squash casserole. I had heard before that spaghetti squash is a great substitute for spaghetti pasta. I must admit, I didn’t really believe this. Having eaten many different kinds of squash before, I couldn’t see how it would be anything like pasta. So, I never bothered to pick one up at the grocery store and thus had never tried it. Well, lo and behold, I ended up with one in my produce box last week, along with a recipe, and decided to give it a whirl.

To back up just a little, my hubby and I have been adhering loosely to the Zone diet (developed by Dr. Barry Sears) for about a year and a half. When I say “loosely” I just mean that we don’t really count blocks TOO strictly. Basically, we try to get the correct proportion of protein, fat, and good carbs. We also try to eat whole foods, rather than processed items, thanks to having read the wonderful book “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.” * In trying to get good carbs, we try not to eat foods with a high glycemic index, so no potatoes, pasta, breads, etc. I’ve sort of missed these things, though less so over time. The discovery of the spaghetti squash, however, has opened my eyes to the possibility of eating “pasta” again. It really is quite like spaghetti in texture when you cook it and scoop it out of the skin! And it actually has an even better flavor. Just for reference, the glycemic index number for white spaghetti is 59, while the glycemic index number for spaghetti squash is less than 20 (the lower the better!). The following is the recipe we got in our box this week from Good Earth Farm. I happened to have all the ingredients on hand except for mushrooms (hate these so never have them in my house), which I left out, and the full 2 cups of mozzarella, which I supplemented with parmesan. I made it two nights ago and it was fantastic! Even better last night for leftovers.

Baked Spaghetti Squash Casserole (6 servings)

Spaghetti squash (1 medium, 1/2 large, or 2 small)
2 T. Olive oil
1 lb. ground Italian sausage (we used venison Italian sausage, but any ground meat works)
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 bell pepper any color, cored, seeded, and diced
1 small onion or 3 scallions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried Italian seasoning or dried or chopped fresh oregano, basil, and thyme
1/2 to 1 tsp. salt (to taste)
freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 to 2 lbs. tomoatoes, chopped (approximately 5-6 tomatoes, depending on size)
1 T. sugar
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese or mozzarella
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and coarsely chopped (optional)
1-2 scallions, thinly sliced for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Poke the squash several times with a sharp knife to create holes to let the steam out and prevent squash from exploding while baking. Bake whole squash for 45-60 minutes, until a fork easily penetrates the flesh. Remove from oven and let cool until it can be handled. Slice it in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and fibers that hold them in the middle. Discard these. Then scrape the spaghetti fibers from each half into a large bowl. Fluff up and separate strands with a fork if necessary and set aside.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium. Add Italian sausage and cook, breaking up the sausage into even pieces. Add mushrooms, onion, bell pepper, garlic, Italian seasoning, and S&P, and continue cooking until the sausage is browned and veggies soften (about 8-10 minutes). Add chopped tomatoes and sugar to meat mixture. Cook to thicken, 15-20 minutes. Stir in spaghetti squash.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Rub a 9×13 casserole dish with a little olive oil. Pour squash/meat mixture into dish. Top with cheese and bake 30-45 minutes. If you like the top browned and crispy, turn on the broiler for the last few minutes. Sprinkle with olives and scallions if desired and serve!

One last thought. I have found that the thing I miss the most about eating pasta is the ease and speed of preparation. Pasta was always one of my go-to dishes when I didn’t feel like cooking anything fancy. I mean, how easy is it to throw some noodles in boiling water and add sauce of some sort, or even just a little EVOO and parm? Over time I’ve come up with other quick and easy Zone-friendly recipes to replace pasta in this way (tuna, chicken, etc). This is good, because I have to say the spaghetti squash can’t quite match the speed of preparation of the pasta. As you can see, it takes about an hour to cook it before it’s ready to eat. But, cooking it whole is super easy and not messy (doesn’t leave much on the dish to clean after) and it is passive preparation, in that you just wash it, poke it, and throw it in the oven for a while. So I would say that it is as EASY as pasta, just not as fast. The flavor and texture make a terrific substitute in other ways! I’m going to try it in some other pasta recipes too.

I knew I would. All this talk about how Miss is sleeping so well now. Yesterday she took two half-hour naps. Not two and a half hours, but two naps, each for one half hour. Oi. Today was a little better, but I swear that little stinker has some sort of sensor, such that she wakes as soon as I sit down to get on my computer. She was snoozing away while I was doing dishes. Fortunately, she didn’t wake while I was taking a shower and drying my hair. But once I sat down to enjoy some coffee and a little blogging, I heard the monitor begin to crackle, signifying the rousing of the Little Miss. This is truly my second attempt at typing this same post about lack of sleep. Ironically of course, the first attempt was aborted when Miss woke up prematurely from her morning nap.

As I mentioned a few days ago, my friend who has the blog Life Happens During Naptime is giving away tons of great stuff for moms and babies in honor of her son’s first birthday coming up. Yesterday the giveaway she posted was for a GAD diaper. I have one of these for Miss and would love to win another, so I’m blogging about the giveaway to get myself another entry 🙂 Above is a pic of her in her GAD.