I’m not into cornmeal-y cornbread. I want my cornbread more like corncake– it’s gotta have at least the same amount of flour as cornmeal and it’s gotta be sweet. I’ve been experimenting with different recipes, starting with the recipe on the back of the cornbread bag. I’ve finally found the right mix of ingredients. This recipe is as healthy as I can make ’em without losing the wonderful qualities of a great corncake. Good source of whole grain, good for you oils and no sugar but what naturally occurs. My DH says this is the perfect recipe- the perfect fluffiness, the perfect texture, the perfect sweetness. I agree.
Corncake Muffins
Makes 6
1/2 cup whole grain cornbread mix (1st 2 ingredients state “whole grain”- I like Arrowhead Mills)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1 egg
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup Splenda
Preheat oven to 375.
In one bowl mix together the flour, cornbread mix and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg well and then combine with the remaining ingredients.
Spray a muffin tin with Pam or line with paper cups.
Pour the wet bowl into the dry bowl and combine just until mixed. Lumps are fine. Do not overmix. Immediately scoop batter into the muffin tin and bake for approximately 13 minutes.

You said it Carrie! This is so me.
I like being a stay-at-home parent. It’s convenient, it lets me be extra-involved in my boys’ lives, and I think it’s important. That having been said, being a stay-at-home parent seems to have also set me in a role that I like much less: housewife. I never intended to sign on for that particular job. Housewives do chores all the time, serving the home by cleaning and organizing it. I suck at housewife-dom. I do it because somebody has to do it, and because I’m the logical choice by actually being on location most often, but I am no Martha, and I am showing no signs of becoming one. Marthas are born to their roles; I struggle daily with mine, and I struggle against it.

My 2 boys…

And this month’s bloopers…

I’ve come across two other blogs now where the husband has been diagnosed with azoospermia- Manana Banana & Yes, we have no bananas. I’m not sure what the deal with bananas is but Yippeee! they are both pregnant or new parents! The first is what I consider to be what might have happened had we chosen the sperm extraction and IVF route. The second is very much like our own journey to parenthood. I wish them both the best.
I’m sure lots of people wandering over here these days have no clue of our infertile past and that our boys are donor sperm babies.
I’m in the process of moving my old diary entries into my blog. Please excuse the confusion on the right hand side. Also, anybody have a clue how to change my archive dates from just displaying months to displaying years with just the current year as months? It’s getting rather lengthy….
Best of luck on your next cycle Aimee.

Brendan and I have been having a lot of fun the past couple of days seeing what kind of worksheets he can do (all these come from this great site- kidzone and the one mentioned in the previous post).
This one shows how much his tracing has improved… we’re going to mail it to his Mimi.

This one is one of about 5 dot-to-dots he’s done… he understands going from letter to letter or number to number but he’ll go to a nearby one before stopping to figure out where the next one is. He also tends to draw from number to number instead of using the dots beside them.

This is the 3rd worksheet of it’s type. He needs only minimal help now. I have to take the pen away while he counts or he wants to draw on the pictures, lol. Then he *has to* trace the number before circling it. Haha. He called the pineapples “rabbit candies” and the mushrooms “jumping vines”. I can see where he gets the first and the second has gotta be from his PS Dora game. 😀

http://printactivities.com/Tracing.html
Go down to “Name Tracing Printables”
It makes a page of you child’s name listed 5 times in a tracing font. 😀
-OR- Go here and type in whatever you want to be printed on the page in block script, D’Nealian or cursive!

WOW! My lil Andy is 6 months already. Just BFing on the one good (right) side has made a big difference. No more fighting the empty side and I’ve cut feeding time by at least 1/3. I BF him 6x a day usually for about 12-13 minutes each time. I haven’t had a single supply issue in about 6 weeks now. Wheeee!
He is very close to sitting up on his own, he rolls like a champ and can now pick up Gerber puffs with his thumb and forefinger. He loves his puffs and if you shake the container he goes wild and starts searching his tray for them. lol
He’s now wearing 12 month clothes. Some fit just right and others are a bit big, but then again some tags say to 20 pounds and others start at 20 pounds. He’s about 18 pounds right now.
He’s starting to want more than a stage 2 jar of food but the little bits of pasta and carrots and stuff in stage 3 jars are too much for him. He’s fine with foods like rice and shreds of cheese but when you mix mush with solid it confuses him. He’s young for it anyway so I’ll just have to open another small jar for now. His current favorite foods are cherries, blueberries, puffs and refried beans.
Darrell and I have patted his mouth when he is chatty to make “bwah bwah bwah bwah” sounds. He has figured out how to do that on his own with a toy now. I remember Brendan doing that too but it seems to me he was older.
Andy loves to play with water bottles and to chew on his right foot. LOL
*****
Brendan has started watching Scooby Doo now. He imitates Shaggy with a perfect “Scooby Dooby Doooooooooo” and can laugh just like Scooby- sort of a “Reee hee hee heehee”. It’s hilarious.
He gets a runny nose pretty regularly- he’s apparently allergic to something. Last night I was giving him some red cold medicine in a syringe. He always wants to squirt it in his own mouth and I finally decided to let him. He was sitting in my lap and squirted the first 3/4s in just fine but then the syringe jammed. He tried banging the end a few times with his hand then he pulled it out of his mouth and pushed on it again before I could stop him. I gave a little squeal as the red stuff flew through the air about 2 yards away and landed all over our blinds. I started laughing uncontrollably and Brendan turned to Darrell and stated “no more drink for me…” Hahahahaha.
Brendan’s big thing right now is relearning to sleep in his own bed in his own room. It’s frustrating. He only goes to sleep if one of us is nearby- like sitting in the hallway. Even then he usually takes forever to fall asleep. Once he is asleep he is good for 7-8 hours but then he is up for the day. I don’t know how he is managing this but with the exception of one nap I forced on him yesterday he hasn’t slept any more than this. Of course I am really tired. Andy still wakes up at night too and the past 2 nights he has refused to sleep in his pack n play. He sleeps right up against me and it drives me nuts! Methinks it is time to put him in his own crib but I don’t have the energy to fight with both of them at bedtime.

Catch-up post.
Andy:
Sound of the week: “Bah Bah!” I swear this means he is asking to nurse. In fact everything he says seems to be with meaning-
Hi
Dada
Mama
Bah Bah
And I swear last night I heard “I love you”! LOL
A week ago (Feb 2nd) I caught Andy rolling over from belly to back but haven’t seen him do it again. He rolls from back to tummy often though.
The big metal can of peanuts makes a great toy. As do Pringles cans.
Andy holds arms open when he wants to be picked up now. It’s so sweet!
If you put a Gerber fruit puff between his thumb and first finger, he can put it in his mouth.
Andy can sit up to about 30 seconds without falling now.
He watches every move Brendan makes and thinks he is so funny.
Still breastfeeds and still loves it. I still use the football hold 95% of the time but with 2 thick pillows behind me now. He still kicks the wall. I am thinking a couple more months and I’ll be happy to start decreasing the mounds of formula we have sitting in the closet. Until yesterday I paid less than a dollar or got free every bit of it. I’m starting to use formulas checks of lesser amounts now though since they are expiring on me.
He loooves food. He has to have a bite or 10 of everything. I just bought his first couple jars of stage 3 foods, though I am only giving him about half of their contents. He loves bits of bread and green beans and bites of yogurt and pudding.
But, my G*d he has been whiny and drooly.
Brendan:
“Hey Mama Look at me!!! I’m the woman!” (as he climbs onto headboard of his bed)
He pointed out his dirty fingernails and asked me to cut them.
“Thank you for cleaning Mom.” Haha
J: “Gas is something you put in a car.”
B: “Oh, I forgot!”
He’s always talking about gas this or that.
Bren practices writing with tiny precise marks. And has actually opened a few coloring books this week! We have posters and posters loaded with teensy Charlie Brown scribbles. I cut the cars out from a box of Cars cereal and taped them to one board and he had been drawing on it for days now.
Bren wipes his face with a wipie and says, “Mama, look! I’m shiny!”
Coloring + Runny nose = Marker mustache

Andy takes after his brother.

*****
DH has been working a lot of side jobs lately. It is very tiring being stuck in the house with whiny kids, little real conversation and practically no breaks. But the extra money is good and I’m trying not to complain. More often than not we’re complaining of dry spells, not wet ones.
Bren has been sleeping on a pallet on our bedroom floor for who knows how long since he was having awful night terrors. He has been pushing us to our limits and it has been taking 45 minutes to get him to lay down and be quiet. We’ve been talking of moving him back to his own bed since before Christmas. Well, a couple of nights ago he stomped on my last nerve by refusing to settle down as usual and then in a deliberate act of defiance he picked up all his bedding and threw them down in a heap. That was that. I made him go to his own bed.
Bad move.
I left both our doors open and fought him all night long to get him to stay in his own bed. He finally fell asleep in the wee hours (in his doorway) but woke up soon after when he wet the bed… uh, floor. He never wets at night!!?! He then stayed awake until 8:00 am!!! Finally he crept into my room and took over DH’s half of the bed since he had left for work. I was tired so I let him. Of course, then Andy woke up…
So after a bit of thinking (gonna have to do this in baby steps…), last night I put Andy’s lamp in Brendan’s room so he could sleep in a more lit room and sat on his floor for an hour and 15 minutes until he fell asleep. I sure hope he goes to sleep quicker tonight. I think I’ll stay where I was tonight but then sit further and further away after that until I’m not there anymore. Wish me luck. Sleep issues are NOT my favorite thing. Especially with a baby who still gets up to eat at night.
Oh, and some research has shown me that low levels of estrogen and progesterone produced when breastfeeding can make sex hurt. Badly, to put it bluntly. I’m sure my OB could help but I’m broke and it’ll only be a couple more months now. Just thought I’d mention it in case some other woman is as baffled as I was (“After a c-section?!”). Also, still no AF. Wheeee!

Mmmm…he’s so beautiful. 🙂