Welcome Your Toddler into the Kitchen!

This isn't a huge DIY project but for anybody else that is currently dealing with the pick me up pick me up stage this could be helpful in being able to retain your sanity in the kitchen. 
I guess you could call it a toddler proof step stool. 

Materials:
IKEA step stool
2 - 1" x 3" board cut to 9 1/4"
1 - 1" x 3" board cut to 16"
4 - square 2" x 2" dowels cut to 17" (this can be changed based on how high your counter is. Doing it again I would actually do 18 inches so her little digits don't get caught between the counter and the stool). 
8 - 1 1/2" wood screws
4 - 1 3/4" wood screws
Whatever color paint you want - the glossier the easier to clean

I bought select pine boards from Home Depot as I thought that would retain shape from dings better than the common board pine they have. 

I apologize that I do not have the full process of putting it together but it is pretty self explanatory. We had to work a little bit backwards as we already had the stepstool from IKEA for a while but the joy of IKEA furniture is that you can take it apart!
I found one of the gazillion allen wrenches in my drawer (I have put a lot of IKEA furniture together...I mean a lot) and took the top step off the body. I then screwed the square dowels up through the bottom of the step so the screws will be hidden when  you reconnect the top. If you want the step to go back on the stool flat you will need to counter sink the screw hole so that the screw does not stick out. 

From there we screwed the side 9 1/4" inch boards into the dowels. You might need to two for this to spread the dowels so the boards are flush with the dowel edges. Once you do that you can push or pull in the sides to connect the front board. Easy as that!

Inga loved it from the get go and immediately learned how to sit down and crawl out of it. I have seen others where they put a dowel in the back as a brace....meh seems like a lot of extra work and she hasn't freaked out and frantically fallen backwards...

Since our step stool was already black, painting it was not really something I was all that excited about. When I went to buy the boards I checked the oops paint and what the hell, there is a black...ish semi-gloss paint for $2. Psch sold *throws money* TAKE MY MONEY!
Because the select pine boards are much better quality they have much sharper edges and corners so I just took a medium grit piece of sandpaper to it. Took about 5 minutes. 

All in all this cost:
$15 for IKEA step stool
$15 for Select pine boards (I bought one square dowel and one 1" x 3" board)
$2 Oops paint

Way cheaper than those crazy $100+ Montessori ones. 

Exclusive Pumpers: Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

Breastfeeding can be hard. Exclusively pumping can be hard. I get it. But try...just try. I am sure that you wouldn't be reading the blog if you weren't planning on trying or did and you get high fives!
I pumped for 13 months and I will say that I am extremely proud of myself. I breastfed for the first month but we were just having issues latching on and I was pumping at the same time to get my supply going and pumping just kind of took over. It was also nice so then my husband could feed her, which he loved.
These are some of the tips or advice that seemed to help me get the best out of my pumping. These may not work for you since every boobie is different. 

1. Make sure you have the right size flange. 
This is a huge one that will DESTROY your pumping experience and I am convinced this causes a lot of moms to stop. I used the flanges that came with my pump and they ended up being too small....YEEOOOUCCH! They don't cost a lot of money and I bought mine on Amazon, but try to get another size up. You can google breast pump flanges and see how they are supposed to fit properly.

2. Pump Often.  
Your fun bags are actually extremely smart, which seems a bit oxymoronic. They know that if you breastfeed or pump a lot, that they need to start producing more. If you start breastfeeding first like I did, you should always try to pump afterwards to make sure that all of the milk is out. Your jubblies will only product what they emptied so if you don't empty them, they won't produce as much the next time. The instructions even say in the pump to continue to pump after the last drop for about 5 minutes and I think that is why I ended up producing so much and ultimately allowed me to get away with only having to pump 3-4 times a day. I started out pumping at least 6-7 times a day until about 10 weeks and then slowly started to do fewer pumps but longer sessions to readjust the jugs to my upcoming work environment. 

3. Take supplements if you have to.  
There is no shame in taking herbs or making lactation cookies to help your supply. I got sick at about 9 months and had to take a Z-pack. Even though the doctor said it wouldn't affect my supply, it definitely did. I went down about 6-7 ounces each day, which is a lot if you don't have a huge stash in the freezer. Fenugreek is extremely helpful as well as these supplements that have a little bit of everything. Mother's Love Supplements have lots of different herbs that definitely helped to maintain my current supply and not let it dwindle. I ultimately did add another session to my day. Lactation cookies work great as long as the recipe has the 3 main ingredients: oats, brewers yeast, and flax. Unfortunately the recipe that I originally followed had like a cup of ground flax. My stomach churned the rest of the day anytime I ate those, but they did certainly work. That is the only reason why I am not posting a recipe. Just search Google and you will find a lot. 

4. Replace the white membranes often.  
These are the little white flaps that...well flap...inside the bottle to drop the milk in. If they get washed to hard or generally worn out they don't provide a proper seal and decrease the amount of suction necessary. These little effers are dirt cheap and you can buy a large amount of them to have in your bag for when you need them. 

5. Wash your pieces carefully. 
I'll be honest, I hated washing my breast pump pieces. Breast milk is very oily and sticks to everything and you always need to devote a good amount of attention to give them a deep cleaning. I did find that the little brush that comes with the Dr. Brown bottles is EXTREMELY handy when cleaning the main part. It just fits perfectly and bends around in the little crevices. 
The one piece of advice that I found saves you so much headache....DON'T WASH THE TUBING! For crying out loud....no milk comes in contact with the tubing and when you put water within the tubing, it is near impossible to get all the water out and therefore it can get into the motor and mold. Yes..mold. It even says in the manuals that washing the tubing is not necessary. If you were researching pumps like me, and lots of reviews say they hated the pump, because water got in there and it molded, it is their own damn fault. They are the dumb reviewers that put I hate this product because the person shipping it didn't wrap it nice enough.....what? 

Some perks to pumping?
- Most to all insurances cover really nice pump for free
- You legally get breaks at work to pump. Some mothers complain that their workplace is not very nice about them pumping or they make it difficult. It is your right so stand up for yourself. If they make you feel ashamed, don't. It is their own damn insecurities and they should be ashamed themselves. 
- It's free! Woop Woop!
- For an introvert like myself...it's your "Get out of Jail Free" card to not have to socialize or leave places early. 

What were some tips that got you through pumping or what are some perks of pumping for you?

Wanting healthy baby food doesn't make you a nut

Hear me out here..there is doing your best to give your baby healthy food and there is ONLY GIVING YOUR BABY ORGANIC LOCALLY GROWN SUSTAINABLE NON-GMO NO MSG (did I miss some) FOODS. 
I am not judging parents in either direction because everybody's lives are different. Some parents have multiple kids and a successful day consists of getting food in their belly and they are still alive by bedtime. There are also those parents who feel that giving their child anything that is packaged or processed is a sin and anybody that doesn't follow suit are terrible parents. 

I think many parents project or feel defensive when other parents do things differently from them and they believe that those other parents are judging them because they are not doing the same thing. We can call that a form of mom-shaming. It's a prevalent disease in the breastfeeding/formula world as well, but that can be a whole other post from me. 

I know I am weird and I know that I may do things a bit outside the box, but that is me and everybody is different and unique in their own way. We are all in this together and it takes a village to raise children breastfed, formula, lunchables, broccoli, and all. 
Phew, enough of being self-reflective and shit. *falls off soap-box*

My husband and I (mostly me, let's be honest) have decided that we want to try our best to make sure Inga gets the most natural and whole foods that we can possibly give her. Does that mean that she can't try cake with frosting on her birthday coming up or have some fruit juice with her lunch? No, but the difference is that the cake will be a carrot cake my mom will make with some homemade whipped frosting and the fruit juice is just orange juice with no extra sugar. 
That is key and that is the main thing we follow when choosing store bought food for our little nugget. What are the ingredients, can we actually pronounce them, and are they ingredients that we can buy in a store. My last blog post focuses on this a little bit when her daycare provider tried to get me to give her the food they feed the other kids. 

There are so many choices nowadays to give your baby a healthy meal made with whole foods and many household names are even jumping on the bandwagon.
Here are some of Inga's favorite food items that don't make us cringe when reading the ingredients. They are easy to get and not expensive at all!

1. Sprout Organic Foods pouches

I discovered these pouches when I was trying to find something for Inga that had whole grains in it since she was not having regular oatmeal. I found some pouches that were fruit and oatmeal, quinoa etc. They are so delicious and she LOVES them. The ingredients are all organic (meh don't really care) but the best part is that they are just regular foods with no presservatives or anything I can't pronounce. 
She really loves the Peach Berry Oatmeal & Quinoa, and the Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal ones but she eats pretty much all of them. They are available at Diapers.com in packs of 5 for around $10.99 or you can buy some flavors at Walmart. I would definitely give these a try. 


2. Beech Nut Just Naturals jars - I was purchasing some diapers online and they sent a sample jar of Pear and Black Cherry to give a try. I was skeptical but when I had a look at the ingredients it was just that: pears and black cherries. There may be one or two that have a bit of lemon juice at the end of the ingredient list but they are just as their name says - Just Naturals.  Boy are they yummy. There are certainly some odd combinations (Pineapple, Pear and Avocado huh?) but they are really good. We tend to share it as she is eating it. They sell these on Diapers.com as well and Walmart for about a $1 a jar. 

The next few are not baby specific foods, but they are foods that Inga really likes. 
1. Simply Balanced White Cheddar Cheese Puffs - These are the Target brand that is replacing the Archer Farms brand I think. For some reason I cannot find these online anywhere but the ingredients are basically just a corn puff with real cheese on them. Here is a nice document from Target describing this brand and what they include and won't include in their foods. Oh and they are gluten free so my mom can touch them too haha. 

2. Mcvitie's Digestive Biscuits - If you have never had these, you need to go get some and try them. I grew up eating these anytime I went to Denmark to visit family and they are absolutely delish. Oh and I suppose Inga loves them too. They are really soft so they mush up really nicely when she eats them. The ingredients are not organic and they do have some sugar in them but there is no hydrogenated fats and no corn syrup. To be honest though, even if they did I would still buy them for her as she loves them. You can also try Hobnobs from the same brand and they have oats added as well. They are yummy too. 

3. Greek Yogurt - Inga cannot get enough greek yogurt. If she sees us take the container out of the fridge those little legs start pumping and she starts pointing. She even loves just plain greek yogurt and my mom cooked up some blueberries to make a sauce and mix in. You could also mix in some of the Beech Nut Just Natural jars into the yogurt to give some flavor. We occasionally give her some of the flavored greek yogurt but since it does have lots of sugar we don't that often, which does not seem to bother her as long as it is yogurt. Greek Yogurt is something great to add to their diet because babies around a year old need about 15 grams of protein a day. Breastmilk, if they are getting about 20 ounces a day, is only about 8 grams of protein. A cheese stick can make this up, but a cheese stick every day can probably be a bit constipating so it's nice to mix it up. 

Here are a couple tips on picking out baby food. 
1. When reading ingredient labels for baby food, or any food for that matter, remember that the ingredients are listed in order from most used to least. So if you have a baby food pouch where the last ingredient is lemon juice, they probably added it to give a bit of tartness or acidity to offset something else. I tend to just glance at the first 3-5 ingredients in the list and if that isn't proceeded by a bunch of chemical names I am sure the food is pretty good. 
2. Another thing about reading the ingredient labels for baby food is to read what the flavor is for the food itself. I have found a lot of pouches (Plums and Ellas) where the flavors are something like pear, blueberry and spinach but the first ingredient is apple. Some companies use apple as just a filler item and that is ok to a fault. You don't want to give your child pouches, thinking they are getting a variety of fruits and vitamins from those fruits when the main first ingredient is apples in all of them. 

Just remember if you don't give them those bad foods then they won't know what they are missing. 
What are some foods that you feed your kids that are limited ingredients or healthy?

Child proofing doesn't have to be ugly

I am sure one of things that many parents dread is the absolute hideousness (yup making it a word) of  child proofing. Putting those weird covers on the door handles, giant air mattresses around your pointy furniture, and gates at every corner that just seek out stubbing your toes and laughing maniacally as you hobble away...or fall down the stairs. 
Every single one of your lovely decorative items has been hoarded away into a cupboard that of course you are unable to get into without a key fob, key pad number and retina scan to open. 
It doesn't have to be like that. Child proofing does not have to be ugly or make your home look like you are crazy. 
We were a bit slack on the whole child proofing thing. We just put some covers on a couple outlets, which now we can't seem to remove (thanks IKEA) without a screwdriver. I wonder what the swedish words for Adult proof are...maybe that is the name of these covers.  Otherwise our child proofing consists of moving the dog's water bowl and putting a couple blockers in the bottom drawers. I am sure when she starts walking around on her own that we will need to put the locks on some other cupboards but until then we will just keep an eye on her. 
One of the pieces of furniture that I was worried about from the get-go was our coffee table.
It is a sharp pointy death trap of corners. We tried putting some of those little corner covers on it, but I think I knocked it off almost every time I stood up so that was not going to work. It also has drawers on the side. That and it looked like our table had weird deformities on it. I thought there had to be a better way right? Off to Pinterest!

Searching....child proofing....really? Why not just get rid of the coffee table if this is the result. 

Hmmm what about buying an ottoman instead....$250?! Shut the front door...no!
For that price I can make my own ottoman....wait..what? I could totally make my own ottoman! I made my own tufted headboard. I could totally do that, right?
Searching....DIY coffee table ottoman....hmmm seems like lots of cutting and gluing and nailing...ain't nobody got time for that.
What if.....I just made a cover for the coffee table and then removed it when she wasn't a hazard to herself anymore? 
Searching....removable coffee table cover....really didn't find anything other than a slip cover, which really wasn't what I was looking for. I needed to add some cushion to the corners. Looks like I get to be a Pinterest Pioneer and be the first. 
I decided that I was going to make a box to lay over the top part of the coffee table and then cover it. 
Here are the steps I took:

First thing is that I measure the coffee table each side and the top so I knew how big I had to get the boards. I planned on getting peg board if I decided to be a masochist and do tufting. I knew that peg board was flimsy that I had to get wood to put in the corners to hold it a bit more stable so that was going to require that I add a few inches to each piece of the wood to compensate and have it still lay over the top of the coffee table. 
Went to Home Depot and found a big sheet of peg board and had the guy cut all the pieces for me there! It was 7 cuts and he didn't even charge me the $.25 per extra cut. So much easier that trying to it myself. Can't even imagine how much time that saved me. I am not a big power tool gal ironically.

My Project Manager in the back was making sure I got all the items on the list.....

Peg Board $13

Wood dowel $3 - cut that at home easily with a hand saw. 

Once I got home I found some screws and a screw driver and started putting it together. 

This really did not need to be perfect at all as the entire thing was going to be covered in foam anyways. And the peg board already had some nice holes for me to work with. I hadn't screwed the top piece on yet so it looks really wonky but once it was all screwed together it was pretty straight. 

I found some zip ties in the garage just to put along the edges to put them together since, like I said before, peg board is pretty flimsy and just needed some stability. 

The second part I did need a bit of help just to get it as smooth as possible. 4 hands were better than 2 for this part. 

I bought 2  Mattress toppers from Wal-mart for about $11 a piece. We stapled each other individually over the frame and took care to make sure the corners were extra squishy. 

Then I bought some quilt batting from Wal-mart as well for about $9 and wrapped that around to make it smooth. We stapled this as well and had to fold it a little bit in the corners. 

Then in typical Heisick fashion we only finished half the project and left it without a cover for about 3 weeks....Inga really loved pulling on the quilt batting. 

My mom is a sewing phenom, so she offered to help make the cover for it rather than just stapling the cover over it to make it more permanent. I don't like permanent....especially with an almost one year old and bulldog. 

She said we would make a slipcover with some elastic with a hem. 

Basically the day ended up being my mom making the whole slip cover and I just watching the babes cruise around. 

We followed the steps for this cover here

After we (mom) did that, I had to put the elastic all the way through the hem. We fitted it over the top and pulled as hard as we could and tied it tight. 

Here is the finished product!

The cover is super lightweight and can easily be pulled up and removed the take off the cover and it is super soft.  Inga won't stop cruising around it. 

The fabric we got was Sunbrella outdoor water repellent fabric so it will hold up nicely. 

All in all, the entire project cost me around $65 and maybe a total of 3 hours to do the entire thing (not including our 3 week procrastination).

Once she is able to walk around and not look like a little drunk human we can remove it if we want....although we both really like it and might not. 

Let me know what you think!

Feeding our kid in public - The Battle rages on

Inga just turned 9 months this past Sunday, so she has been eating solid foods for about 3 months now.
Who knew that feeding your kid had the potential for such disagreement with other parents.

It started out great, just like my previous post had shown, with a great video of her first time eating some banana and just loving it. That continued for a couple weeks. We only had her eat once a day as to not overwhelm her stomach. As you can see from the video it was very telling of what was to come in the next few months. She was pretty meh about the mushed up banana and just wanted the banana itself. She did seem to enjoy holding onto the spoon but that soon turned into wanting the bowl that the puree was in.
Fast forward to now - she ate purees for about 2 weeks, then we just switched and gave her whole food and that seems to be the way that she wants to roll. And that is great! We gave her the tools and the choices and chose correctly. What can I say? She is gifted I guess ha! /sarcasm.
Before we started solid foods, I had wanted to do Baby Led Weaning. I had bought the book and was all prepared, but I was extremely nervous on the possibility of her choking of a whole piece of banana so we decided to be a bit half-ass about it. She pretty much decided for us that that was the way she preferred. I feel like babies need to learn how to chew/mush something before they can swallow it and starting with purees seems a bit back assward.
We have yet to just give her everything that we eat but she does try almost everything at least once whether it is just sucking on it or playing with it in her hands. This seems to be the issue when feeding her out in public. Sometimes when we give her something, we get the hover parents looking at us like,
"OMG she is going to choke. Why would ever give a baby that?"
"Does she ever eat baby food?"
"Is she even eating any of it?"
No she is not going to choke. She might gag, but she isn't dying and will spit it out. No we don't feed her baby food. Have you tried that shit? Hmmm jarred chicken dinner or a chicken drumstick?
Who cares if she is actually eating any of it?
Food is supposed to just be fun and a learning experience until they are one anyways so don't put so much pressure on them to eat.
Some people just have to have an opinion on everything and everyone and because of our parenting style, we probably just need to get over the fact that helicopter parents are going to give us the business.
She does still gag on certain foods, and that can be scary but she is not choking and she has to learn. Like my dad said that you can just go to the court house and get an eating permit lol
Some of Inga's favorite things to eat are:
Orange segments - she can eat about half an orange and her poo smells like oranges haha
Blueberries - she eats lots of blueberries at Grandma's house
Mcvities Digestive crackers - she shares these with the dog every time
Watermelon - these are a new favorite
Tomatoes - She sucks and pulls all the meat and juice out of them like a champ
Cheese - This is one of the dog's favorites haha
What are your little nugget's favorite things to eat? Any suggestions on getting whole grains - since she doesn't really care for oatmeal? Leave comments!

First Day of Solids and it was Glorious

I don't even really need to write all that much. All I need to do is post the video of Inga eating her very first solid food and you will see the gloriousness of it all. 

We gave her a spoon for about 3 weeks before she actually ate food and we think that helped out with her not gagging on the spoon and food. 

Some of the prep we did that seemed to help out was to basically get her naked except for her diaper. That definitely made clean up easier, but she still could have used a bath. 

Oh! And we had Elsa, our bulldog, handy for clean up. I already think of the second day that she is a bit bored of eating ground banana but she isn't too picky. 

Now I don't know how most sessions of starting solids works so we just kind of went with the flow. We gave her the spoon, gave her the bowl, tried putting it just on her tray...then we got brave and just gave her a chunk of whole banana. As you can see in the video is went amazing. She mashed the whole chunk in her hand and if she got a piece too big she spit it out. 

However, I will say that the idea of Baby Led Weaning does not sound like it is for us. This morning on her second day of banana, it was a bit less ripe and the whole chunk of banana we gave her didn't moosh up and I got nervous and pulled a little chunk out of her mouth. Then a couple minutes later she did the same thing but guess what......she spit it out herself without my hovering help. 

I think we have decided that we like the steps we are taking of starting slow and if she seems confident, maybe give her a chunk of food to nom on. 

Anyways, here is the video. 

And the aftermath.....

How did your first day of solids go with your babe?

Starting Solids: Holy S*** Time Flies

Just as the title says...holy s*** time flies. Yeah I suppose when you are having fun or just busy. 
So this weekend we are starting solids...dun dun DUN!! I, for one, am beyond excited. It is something new to do with Inga and it changes up the routine. It also is another step in knowing that she is growing and we haven't ruined her yet. 
We made the decision to wait until she was 6 months old to start with solids. After doing some research I read that delaying solids can help curb allergies, among other things. Allergies run in my family. My dad had them and I have them. However, they are not food related but rather environmental. 
The longer you wait to introduce solids to your baby, the better their digestive system has to properly develop to handle those solid foods. 
A couple signs that your wee-one is ready for solids:
- Develops an interest in what you are eating or reaches for your food. We call that pulling a Big Roger, which is an inside joke, but cute either way. Inga tries to Big Rog us all the time. 
- They can sit up pretty much on their own in a high chair. You don't want them falling forward or wibbly wobbling all over the place. 

I will do another post with an update on how it is all going but here are some of the items that I got to prepare for Inga's venture in the great wide world of real food. 
We plan to do all the food ourselves so she won't have to endure Beef Barley Pea Dinner baby food from a jar...just...ugh. It doesn't seem all that hard and we only plan to do purees for a little while before she can start just eating regular food. 
But remember - FOOD IS FUN UNTIL THE AGE OF ONE :)

1. Mumi Bubi Starter Set - This came with 2 trays with curved bottoms so the cubes slide right out. Haven't used these yet, but plan to when she is eating stuff to freeze. 

2. IKEA baby bowls - For how flipping cheap they are, why the hell not. They are like $2 for 6 bowls. 

3. First Years Flatware - These are great and super cheap. She has been chewing on these for the past couple weeks so she doesn't choke. 

4. Stokke Tripp Trapp set - This was my crazy splurge. The high chair is ungodly expensive along with all the attachments for it. But of course I ended up getting a great deal on it and got the infant set and the tray for free. She has been sitting in this for a while now and just loves it. 

5. The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet - This is a great book, but its a little pointless in some aspects. I mean, do you really have to have an entire recipe for mashing up avocados? I am not kidding...the recipe is 1/2 of a ripe avocado. 

6. Tommee Tippee Easy Roll Bibs - These seem like they are going to be awesome. They are really soft and can roll up easily. Nice silicone for easy clean up to and the tray catches some of the yum yums, much to my puppies sadness I am sure. 

One item that isn't there but I think will be fun and helpful is a printable calendar. I am going to write on the calendar what food she is having each day. We plan to introduce a new food every 3 days just to see if she has a reaction to anything. 

So these are the items that we got for starting solids. Since I am a FTM I am sure some of these are pointless but I got it all cheap so shutup. :)

What are some items that you used or are using for feeding your spawn? Leave a comment. 

 UPDATE: Check out my newest blog post for how our first day went and a video!