Madison is still sick
I don’t know if it’s an ear infection or if the teething combined with the cold is bothering her ears. I’m dosing her with echinacea, Oregon grape root and wild cherry bark (she’s got a bad cough, too). I was also happy to see that organic strawberries finally made it to the market and got some for both kids. Cost me an arm and a leg but all of that vitamin C makes it worth it.
I bought a can of powdered goat’s milk. Madison can be off formula as of Wednesday and I’ve decided to go with goat’s milk even though she never had any trouble with her dairy-based formula.
This whole weaning thing is hard for me. She eats more than Noah did but by no means does she get the bulk of her nutrition from solid food. Breastmilk was a great comfort when Noah went through his “nothing but cheerios” or “nothing but bananas” stages as a toddler. I don’t want to eliminate formula entirely because I know she’ll need that stop-gap, too. But on the other hand, we don’t use the organic formula because it doesn’t have DHA/ARA (important for brain growth) and I worry about that. Also, any formula is an awful lot of sugar. So I’m thinking that we’ll go half-and-half for awhile and see how that goes. Goat’s milk is expensive but about half as much as formula.
It’s difficult to find good nutrition information for babies. It’s either extreme info very (appropriately) breastmilk biased, which is no help to me. Or else it’s so mainstream that switching straight to cow’s milk is unquestioned. I’ve decided that probably everybody is right and I’ll just do what keeps me sane, which this week at least, means goat’s milk cut with formula.
I’m very schizophrenic in my dietary/nutritional thinking. I was telling a friend that I stand in the aisle staring at the canned organic beans for what seems like hours. I could buy those organic beans, which are twice as much as conventional. Or I could buy dried beans, which are cheaper than canned beans altogether but at this grocery are only available conventionally grown. So I stand in the aisle with these three choices running around my head, recalculating the budget for the week and reviewing my menu plans. One week I’ll go home with organic canned beans and the next week it’ll be dried conventional but organic canned tomatoes. I only buy organic milk but rarely buy organic cheese. Noah will only eat Yoplait and Madison only gets YoBaby. I buy whatever is on sale for myself except for when I occasionally decide to cut back on dairy.
I figure it’ll all even out somehow. As long as we stay away from the hydrogenated vegetable oils (most of the time — my mom bought hideously colored but delicious cupcakes yesterday that were surely chock full of yummy poisons) and not make ourselves too crazy worrying, we’ll be ok. An obsession with a natural diet, some say, can be a form of eating disorder and I think this is true. I don’t want to make Noah nutsy anytime Daddy brings home Cheez-its instead of TLC crackers. On the other hand, I’d rather Brett just remembered not to buy the Cheez-its junk in the first place but I digress.
I LOVE the little pig tails! So cute!
Dawn,
I totally relate to your staring at the beans. I also make completely random choices depending on the week and how strongly I am considering my budget.
Hey, I like to keep those market trackers guessing.
Best!
On the bright side, when you DO buy organic food you’re supporting the organic food industry, allowing it to be more available to more people. It doesn’t mean that you have to buy it every time.
And I agree that it’s wise to go for balance.
That was an interesting article about orthorexia. I always “wished” I could have the discipline to be such a health food nut, but maybe you can have too much of a good thing…
You said: I don’t know if it’s an ear infection or if the teething combined with the cold is bothering her ears. I’m dosing her with echinacea, Oregon grape root and wild cherry bark (she’s got a bad cough, too).
I say: Good Lord, how about taking her to the doctors and having them dose her with some antibiotics? Just a thought…