More menus, and an update!

First the update:  Last night, P-daddy and I had a lovely talk with the director of our agency, who has to approve all the homestudies.  She just had some residual issues to clear up, which we did successfully, and she said she'd approve and pass it on, and we should be licensed by the end of the week if no other issues arrive!  Yay - finally!

And now the menus:
Last week, we did...sort of okay on the menu front.  It was super-helpful to me to have a menu there on the fridge, so that I could look at it in the morning when I was packing my lunch, and know that I was taking enough food.  We didn't always stick to the dailiness of it, and we ended up eating meals on the 'wrong' day, but it was nice to at least have the ideas there for us.  On the weekend, not so successful, but that was more due to the fact that the PM was in the house, and he ripped the menu off of the fridge sometime early on Saturday.  Note to self:  post menu high enough the grabbing hands can't make it disappear!

Yesterday evening, P-daddy and I spent a couple hours in the kitchen, in the hopes that we can spend almost no time in the kitchen the rest of the week.  We chopped and packaged carrots and peppers for lunches and snacks, sauteed a mixture of cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage, cooked a large pot of curried lentils, made brown rice to go with the lentils,  and made spinach frittata (well, okay, P-daddy made that earlier in the day).  Then I cleaned out and rearranged the fridge so that everything would fit, and we now have most of the week's food ready to go, or at least pretty easy to prepare.  We'll have to do some cooking/prepping on the weekend, but I hope to combine that with next week's food prep to keep us out of the 100 degree heat in there!   Here's the plan:

Monday:
B:  eggs, black beans, avocado, tortillas
L:  spinach frittata, mango
D:  brown rice w/ curried lentils; cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage mix
S:  yogurt, peaches, cucumber

Tuesday:
B:  SCO w/ fruit
L:  brown rice w/ curried lentils; cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage mix
D:  turkey sandwiches, carrot sticks
S:  applesauce, red peppers, cherries

Wednesday:
B:  SCO w/ fruit
L:  spinach frittata, cottage cheese, bread
D:  carrot and potato dumplings, side salad
S:  yogurt, celery, banana

Thursday:
B:  eggs and beans, tortillas
L:  brown rice w/ curried lentils; cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage mix
D:  turkey sandwiches, carrot sticks
S:  yogurt, blackberries

Friday:
B:  SCO w/ fruit
L:  pb&j sandwiches, cucumbers, carrots, apples
D:  eat out or order in
S:  applesauce, nectarines, red peppers w/ hummus

Saturday:
B:  cinnamon rolls
L:  salad w/ tuna, tomatoes, and onion
D:  homemade pizza or calzone
S:  yogurt, cucumbers, banana

Sunday:
B:  yogurt and granola
L:  black bean and corn salad, avocado, tortilla chips
D:  MSF spicy black bean burgers, avocado, mixed veggies
S:  applesauce, oranges, carrots
Anyway, we are trying again

Sweetness...

From the very beginning of our relationship, back before we ever had a real date and when we were trying to figure out if we even wanted to, P-daddy and I talked about foster care and adoption.  It seemed that both of us were on the same page in our desires to eventually foster and/or adopt, with each of us individually considering it before we ever even met.  I'm not sure how long it would have taken us to get around to actually starting the process if we hadn't met my niece B3's adorable foster son last Fall.  He was then just over a year old, and we've had the wonderful opportunity to see him grow and change for the last 9 months.  When it became clear that he would likely come available for adoption, P-daddy and I jumped at the chance, found an agency, and started the licensing process.  Since January, we've provided respite for this child about once every 6 weeks to 2 months, and he's a blast to have in the house.  From his first visit, we've referred to him as the Pooping Machine due to the number of dirty diapers we have to change - maybe we are giving him too much fiber with all the apples, bananas, pears, oatmeal...

Anyway, the PM stayed with us this past weekend.  We've started to notice over the last couple of visits that he is bonding with us, which is, of course, a very good sign!  On the last visit, this was evident more in his wanting one of us for comfort, or crying when we were leaving (not a problem since his attention span is about 3 seconds long and he's very easily distracted by anything fun!).  This past visit, though, oh this was special!

On Sunday, we left him in the nursery when we went to church - they have tons of fun toys for him to play with, and he's generally quite happy there.  When we returned, he dropped everything when he saw us, ran full-speed across the room yelling "Daaaaadddddyyyyyyyy", and flung himself into P-daddy's waiting arms.  It almost brought tears to the eyes, it was so sweet!  It gives me joy to know the men in my life love each other so much!

Toddlers, Frat Boys, they're all the same thing...

Okay, a friend on FB recently posted this link and it was so hilarious that I had to share it!  The comments are almost as funny as the post itself, but here's the original Top Ten reasons why having a toddler is like being at a frat party, from SuburbanSnaphots.com:

10. There are half-full, brightly-colored plastic cups on the floor in every room. Three are in the bathtub.

9. There's always that one girl, bawling her eyes out in a corner.

8. It's best not to assume that the person closest to you has any control over their digestive function.

7. You sneak off to the bathroom knowing that as soon as you sit down, someone's going to start banging on the door.

6. Probably 80% of the stains on the furniture contain DNA.

5. You've got someone in your face at 3 a.m. looking for a drink.

4. There's definitely going to be a fight.

3. You're not sure whether anything you're doing is right, you just hope it won't get you arrested.

2. There are crumpled-up underpants everywhere.

1. You wake up wondering exactly how and when the person in bed with you got there.

baby crib thankfulness

So a while back, we got this crib on freecycle - it's in decent shape, and it converts from crib to toddler bed to queen-size headboard. Unfortunately, it was missing some hardware:-( Though it has everything it needs for the toddler bed version, it's missing some vital pieces for the drop-down side, which means that it's not usable as a crib.  You can see it here, with the side simply leaning against it (and a super-cute blanket hanging on the back, compliments of my niece B3).

It's an older version, not sold in stores anymore, and the manufacturer is not within the US. Nevertheless, we can order the parts from them for a fairly reasonable price. We've been hesitant to do that, though. I hate to order from a company that I know nothing about, and that does not have online ordering access - we have to send the info about the crib, a copy of all our email exchanges, and a money order to them, then they'll send us the parts and manual. Since the tag with the model number is partially torn off, it's not even clear they will know what model to send parts for, and I guess I have just sort of viewed the whole thing as a recipe for disaster.

Since our agency does not allow foster children to sleep in portable cribs for more than a week or two, using the pack-n-play for an extended period is also not possible. So I've been trolling on CraigsList and - yay! - got lucky last night. A local woman with an in-home daycare was updating some things, and recycling her old stuff to homes that need them - she was very specific about not wanting re-sellers. I emailed her, explained our imminent foster parent status, and she was happy to give us the crib, which she says includes all hardware and is in excellent condition! I get to pick it up this morning - I want to rush right home and construct it, but I will restrain myself, go to work, meet and have dinner with some of my practicum students, and then finally get home, probably too late to put it together:-( But once I do that, I'll be freecycling the first crib, and hoping to bless someone with an older toddler in need of a bed.

Menu planning

One area that P-daddy and I do not excel in is planning menus. We both eat pretty simply, and he in particular is happy to grab some fruit and veggies and make a meal of it. I'm much more of a carb-a-holic, so I need bread, rice, etc., so we've been attempting to find meals that cover both our preferences. This week, we decided to try our hand at menu-planning and see how it goes. Luckily, one of my favorite blogs talked today about just that topic, and even posted some hints and handy-dandy meal planning sheets. So we hope we are off to a good start, though we are not sure how it will turn out due to several issues.

One issue is that we don't always have a ton of variety - especially for breakfast. Both of us would happily eat steel cut oats with fruit pretty much every day, and while we have not yet embarked on once-a-month cooking, we do often cook large portions of things and eat them throughout the week. Plus, we freeze part of that for later use. This week, we are relying on some of these frozen items that we want to clean out of our freezer: black beans that we made in the crockpot, and carrot-potato stew, also from the crockpot. Plus, P-daddy made a delicious frittata today, with caramelized onions, and it smells and tastes delicious!

The other issue is my schedule - I'm teaching a summer-school class from 2-6pm 2 days a week, and even if I eat a healthy lunch before going to class, I'm still starved by the time class ends, as well as so wiped out that there's no way I want to cook (or even prepare) anything when I get home. So we are experimenting with pre-made sandwiches, which I can take to school with me and then eat before leaving campus. So our Tues/Thurs dinners might not look too dinnerish...

But here's the plan:

Monday
B: steel cut oats (hereafter and forever referred to as SCO) w/ apples, peaches, and banana
L: frittata, mushrooms, tomato, bread (home-baked by P-daddy, or sandwich thins)
D: potato and carrot dumplings, broccoli
S: yogurt, apples, cucumbers

Tuesday
B: eggs, beans, and tortillas
L: leftover dumplings and broccoli
D: BLT sandwiches, boiled eggs, carrot sticks
S: yogurt, plums, celery

Wednesday
B: SCO w/ apples, peaches, and banana
L: frittata, tomato, bread (home-baked by P-daddy, or sandwich thins)
D: brown rice, kashmir spinach, cauliflower
S: yogurt, apples, squash sticks

Thursday
B: eggs, beans, and tortillas
L: leftover rice, spinach, and cauliflower
D: BLT sandwiches (or PB&J), boiled eggs, carrot sticks
S: yogurt, oranges, squash sticks

Friday
B: SCO w/ banana (and blueberries if we make it to the store)
L: Morning Star Farms (MSF) spicy black bean burgers w/ (avocado if we make it to the store), mixed veggies
D: eat out (or order in)
S: yogurt, apples, bananas, green peppers

Saturday
B: French toast w/ fruit
L: PB&J sandwiches, carrot sticks, potato rounds
D: southwestern salad (lettuce, black beans, corn, red onion, avocado)
S: yogurt, apples, oranges, peppers

Sunday
B: toast w/ apple butter
L: taco salad
D: bao buns w/ pulled pork
S: yogurt, oranges, carrots

I'll let you know how it goes!