A Backwards Kind of Weekend

We've had quite the weekend over here at the yogurt & granola household. Let's go backwards. These muffins are cooling in the kitchen now. I had a pile of very, very ripe bananas hanging around on the counter for too long and after reading The Heathen Housewife's post about banana muffins, I got a taste for them too. I whipped up my famous banana chocolate chippers and I share the recipe with you here:
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Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (baby applesauce works in a pinch!)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg (or egg substitute)
• 2-3 medium, ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 cup all-purpose white flour
• 1 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 bag of chocolate chips (or carob, or vegan chocolate or whatever)

Mix together. Spray muffin tin (one dozen). Bake at 350 degrees for 20ish minutes.
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The plethora of ripe bananas also lead to a loaf of my Grama's banana bread which is baking right now. With Dan going out of town again tomorrow*, we surely don't need all of these sweets in the house so he's taking it to work in the morning.

Before the banana baking adventures, we went outside to play in the fresh snow - just about another inch or so. I shoveled (I love shoveling snow and it's so nice to be able to do it again this year...since I'm not out-to-here-pregnant!) and the boys played around with the sled. A big sanding truck went by and honked its horn for Little J. Man and we attempted a lesson in Snow Angel-Making. Jack just giggled.

The backwards theme brings us to talk of last night's war next. The Battle for Sleep continued in the yogurt & granola house, and The Parents were victorious, though bloodied in the battle. With Jackson having only slept for about 1-2 hours TOTAL for the past two nights, we were a bit fed up when last night's drama started up again. After trying all of our usual tricks (bath, stories, lots of nursing, lots of singing, lots of rocking) we just dumped him in his crib and walked out of the room. It sounds so harsh, and I never thought we'd do it, but we did. So there.

He cried for, oh, about three hours, off and on. We were winning The Battle and could tell that he was buckling by the screams that eventually turned to whimpers, but he still had a stronghold on the second level. Our house is old and creaky and the upstairs is small. With our bedroom being just across the hall from his, there was no way that we would be able to sneak upstairs and crawl into bed without his army of screams and tears getting revved up again.

So we retreated to the trenches of our living room where we waited out the crossfire. I fell asleep on the couch** and Dan on the floor. With The Parents finally proving to The Kid just how stubborn we can be, the battle was won. He stopped at about 11:30pm and didn't make another sound until 5am. We awoke with our battle scars of sore backs and couch marks on our cheeks and hobbled upstairs to feed our former foe. He went right back to sleep after the nursing session and both of us finally crawled into bed.

Naps have evaded us today, until just now when he went down for the afternoon nap at 3pm, so we're building up our arsenal for tonight's possible battle. We are not fooling ourselves, we may have won that battle, but The War for Sleep goes on...

(We are assuming that this is all due to his recent illness and the intense coddling he received then. It's sad to have to tell him that since he's healthy, that's all over, but...well...it's true! Lovey? YES! Dovey? YES! Sleeping together in a rocking chair all night long? NO!!!)

Back to backwards...

Before The Battle last night, we had a grand ol' time as a family at Punch Pizza. Punch is awesome - totally family friendly, yet they still serve wine and we got there way before the dinner rush, so we had space and time to just kick back. Jackson loved the murals on the walls and pointed out each person, animal or thing in the painting that he recognized ("DA!") and chomped on a piece of crust from this amazing Neopolitan pizza. These folks know how to make pizza the right way and Dan and I were happily full, to say the least, after this outing.

We then went to the new Super Target out by my parents' house and were a little, uh, freaked out by the size of the place. Whole Foods was on our list for the way home, but Dan talked me into attempting to get all of our groceries at the Super Target. We found a couple of organic items, but really, none of "my" groceries were there. Not exactly full of convenience for this crunchy girl. I did get some Breyer's Neopolitan ice cream though, in keeping with our Neopolitan theme for the evening. They don't sell that at the Co-op or Whole Foods and I admit, it's one of my favorites.

That's it. Backwards through our weekend. I'm not talking about Jackson's 20 minute nap on Saturday that should have been 2 hours or any other parts of our Battle. We are entertaining ourselves with the positive thoughts that 1.) The Kid is eating again and not throwing up, 2.) The Kid slept for many hours last night, and 3.) The Kid is sleeping now. What more can we ask for?
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Mr. Excited shows off his apple pieces and talks about the lights everywhere.
Daddy and Jack
Jackson looks just like his Omi (Dan's Mom) in this photo. She's going to flip when she sees him in person this Friday!

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*Please send your good juju vibes my way that Jackson does not choose this week to have another bout of illness or sleeplessness just because his Daddy is out of town again. Strength to the yogurt & granola Mommy, please!
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**Yes, that's Simon the Cat in the sleeping photo with me. He's such a dear...follows me around everywhere, sleeps wherever we do and is even breaking into the heart of the Determined-Not-To-Like-Simon Dan (no small feat!). Stay tuned on whether or not he gets to stay with us permanently. And for the record, I didn't pose for that sleeping photo, I truly was asleep. Dan thought it was cute that Simon was touching my head. Hmm...Dan thought Simon was cute, huh? Interesting...