Practical & Conscientious Parenting
Zach
Zach is a soon-to-be father who joyfully works from home creating things for the web and his family. In addition to spending hours in front of a computer, he likes playing mandolin, stirring up delectable vegan cuisine, and being outside. He wants to be a grown up when he grows up.
Home page: http://zbrustudios.com
Posts by Zach
Cloth Baby Wipes
15 years
by Zach
in Creative Projects
Zig-zag stitching down each side of the pencil line
Anne had a couple of twin sized organic cotton sheets that she didn’t want any more, and she suggested we use them to make baby wipes. We took her up on her advice, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. It was a really quick and easy project, and a great way to re-purpose old sheets.
The sheets were both fitted, one was jersey knit and the other was standard weave. Ashley took a seam ripper to the corners as best she could, but we ended up losing a bit of fabric anyway. Looking around online, I found some other cloth wipes that were 8 1/2″ squares. I decided to measure them out to 9″ square because I have big hands and I knew the jersey sheets were going to curl a bit at the edges. Between the two sheets we were able to make 64 cloth baby wipes!
Cutting between the stitches.
I started by marking out a grid on the sheet, with four long columns divided into seven boxes on the sides and nine in the middle (I wasn’t able to use the parts where the corners had been). Since I knew I’d be cutting along the pencil lines, I made two wide zig-zag stitches on either side of the line, starting with the long lines.
After I had all the long lines stitched, I sewed the cross lines, making sure to double back every time I crossed a long line to help secure the stitches after cutting the wipes apart. Then it was just a matter of cutting along all the pencil lines. I actually found it easier to cut off the first half once I had all the stitches done for it so that I didn’t have to keep shifting around the whole sheet.
And since we’ve been dying a bunch of diapers lately, we through the wipes in, too, to add some color. They turned out great! I like the standard weave wipes the best because they lay flat and they feel the softest. But I think the jersey knit wipes will hold up longer. We’ll see….
Raspberry Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars
Raspberry Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
Safeway had local raspberries reduced for quick sale today and I couldn’t pass them up. Then I got home and realized that I had a whole flat of raspberries that were all ripe- just touching them turned them to juice. We’ve been on a bit of a protein kick lately, so I decided to try to do something with peanut butter (because obviously the protein in peanut butter completely counteracts all the carbs in the raspberries, sugar, and chocolate…).
I couldn’t find quite the recipe I wanted, so Ashley and I started with the ‘Raspberry-Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars’ recipe from ‘Vegan With A Vengeance‘. It doesn’t call for peanut butter, but a little serendipity helped out: we ran out of soy yogurt, so we subbed in peanut butter. The recipe calls for holding out some of the blondie batter and putting it on top of the raspberry topping, kind of like a cobbler. I’m more a fan of crisps and crumbles with the oatmeal streusel style topping, so I adapted a recipe from ‘Sweat and Natural‘ to go on top. Here’s the recipe:
Raspberry Layer
2 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water
1/3 cup sugar
Blondie Layer
3 3/4 cups flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons canola oil
2 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
Crumble Topping
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup flour
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
3 Tablespoons canola oil
3 Tablespoons maple syrup
You’ll also need 1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips (depending on how much you NEED chocolate).
Preheat your oven to 350º, and lightly grease a 13×9 pan.
For the raspberry layer: combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a low boil. Reduce heat and simmer for ~5 minutes, or until thickened.
For the blondie: combine wet and dry ingredients separately, then mix together. The dough should be stiff, a bit like peanut butter cookie dough.
For the crumble: combine dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients. Use your hands to help the mixture crumble.
To assemble, press the blondie dough out into an even layer in the pan. Spread the raspberry filling on top of the dough, then sprinkle with 1/2 the chocolate chips. Use your hands to crumble the… uh… crumble on top of the raspberry layer. Sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips on, and bake for 40-45 minutes. Let it cool for ~20 minutes before you cut into it. Enjoy!
Little Bug’s Baby Shower
15 years
We had our family baby shower this weekend. When Mehalia was born, Anne and Ben buried her placenta at the base of a Bay Laurel, and we really like the idea of having a tree for Bug’s placenta, so Ashley’s mom got us a beautiful Japanese Maple. People put cards in it for us at the shower. Hopefully the tree can handle living in Yakima with its cold winters.
I’ve been reading Husband-Coached Childbirth : The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth, and I just read a bit that Dr. Bradley wrote about the placenta. I had heard that animals and people sometimes eat the placenta after birth and I assumed the new mothers did so to replace some of the iron they may have lost during childbirth. While that may be partially true, Dr. Bradley also said that there may be a chemical in the placenta that helps stimulate uterine contraction after birth and that people used to take pills made from dried and ground placentas to help with bleeding after labor (uterine contraction is important to help stem the flow of blood to the uterus and heal the place where the placenta detaches from).
I’ve also heard that many people believe the placenta has healing and magical properties. While I don’t know if any of this is true, it’s clear that there’s something special about the placenta. Anyway, I love that we will have a beautiful tree to remind us of our baby’s first home.
Placemats
Another really fun thing we did at the shower was play “Placemats,” a game that works like this:
- Everyone takes a piece of paper and writes down a phrase.
- People pass their paper to the left, and then everyone draws a picture to represent the phrase on the paper that was passed to them.
- After folding down the paper so that the original phrase is covered and only the picture is visible, the papers are passed to the left again, and each person writes a phrase to represent the picture.
- Write, Draw, Pass, Repeat
We did several rounds of “interpretation,” and we ended up with some really funny phrases (things got especially funny after passing through Mehalia’s hands). A great example: one page started with “If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready,” and transitioned to “I’m so unhappy when my clothes fall off.”
The Benefits of a Good Doctor
15 years
by Zach
in Pregnancy & Labor
I mentioned in an earlier post that our doctor is a D.O. I would also like to mention that she rocks.
Last week we did a tour of the Labor and Delivery wing of the hospital, and we were a little disappointed by a number of things. According to hospital policy, once we are admitted Ashley won’t be allowed to have anything but ice chips until the baby is born. The general theory behind this (misguided) practice is that it’s better that women in labor have empty stomachs in case they need to be anesthetized for a c-section or other surgery. Of course, like most of these modern techniques in hospital births, not having enough calories to push can make the labor go on “too long,” and the doctor will likely recommend a c-section. We were also shown the “baby’s first bed,” a sterile little plastic enclosure that will fortunately not be our baby’s first bed.
Anyway, on to why our doctor rocks. We went in for an appointment to see if the baby is still sitting breech (yep), and we brought a list of questions with us (because we kept forgetting our questions in the appointments). To our relief and excitement, our doctor said she let’s all of her mothers eat during labor! Not that Ashley will necessarily want to eat, but she’s read great things about drinking Gatorade or miso broth to replace electrolytes.
We also talked to her about what will happen if our little bug wants to stay breech. She said she has delivered many breech babies vaginally, but never on first time pregnancies. And this is where my respect went through the roof: she said if the baby was still breech and we still wanted to deliver vaginally, she would do it and call in another doctor she knows who’s done a lot more breech deliveries to help. How cool is that?! She’s willing to try something she hasn’t done before, and she’s also cautious and knowledgeable enough to bring in help!