Oops, I did it again...

Maya swallowed barrette #2 last week. She was eating her afternoon snack in her high chair and I was doing some dinner prep. She was within my sight but I don't worry too much when she eats rice crackers because they dissolve in her mouth. She will munch on these for a good 15 mins so I usually have enough time to start dinner. However this time she got my attention by gagging herself by stuffing her fingers in the back of her throat which is not like her at all. At first I thought she might be starting a new thing which I was not happy about but then I realized that her barrette was missing from her hair. I rushed around the house looking for possible places it could have fallen out but I just knew that her "gagging" was not for nothing and that she had plucked that barrette from her hair and EATEN it!! I could not believe it. I swore this would never happen again and she had never taken anything out of her hair before and put it in her mouth. Regardless, it had happened and I felt like the world's worst mother. So after crying a bit and scolding myself a lot (and a call to Jason and my mom) I just prayed that it would pass through her system again without problem. This happened at about 4:00pm on Tuesday and at 8:30am on Thursday, I had a good morning surprise in her diaper. Whew. That girl can poop with the best of them! My friend Carrie says to look on the bright side that I now have something else to put in her baby book (boil first). I can laugh about it now!

Something new for Jay & I is that we have been meal planning our dinners for 3 weeks now and it's been such a lifesaver for us. It took me long enough to figure out that it really is easier this way but it's honestly changed our life. So much so that we could probably catagorize our life as BMP (before meal planning) and AMP (after meal planning). BMP, most days we would stop at Co-op on the way home (or Jay would) from work which can tend to be mucho expensive or else get take out. The cost can really add up and you don't always make the best food choices when you are hungry and have limited time; we certainly realized this AMP. So now we do one big grocery shop on the weekend at Superstore (so much cheaper - sometimes up to 50%) and have our meals planned out for the week. Although we still get our meat from our butcher or Co-op. I am using this AMAZING cookbook by Sandi Richard (who has a show on the footnetwork called Fixing Dinner) called Dinner Survival. It has 10 weeks of meals and grocery lists for each week. It really could not be simplier and it's been a easy way to introduce us to meal planning and help us to stick with it. However, the best part and why I think it's been so successful for us, is because the recipes are top notch. It's balanced meals that are real food. The ingredients are mostly everyday items, so no spending money on crazy ingredients that will just sit in your panty and go bad afterwards , and the flavors are nothing short of spectacular. We haven't had a bad meal yet and mostly have found many new favorite recipes. So far I have loved the Spinach & Cheese Stuffed Manicotti, the Baked Potato Cheddar Soup, the Steak with Red Wine Gravy, the Salsa-Cinnamon Chicken with Couscous, and most recently Peking Chicken in rice wrappers with rice and cucumber. It was so good and I was so proud of my ethnic food prep prowess that I took a picture. Yumm - O!!
So BMP, we were spending likely $500/mo. more on food and eating the same things over and over. AMP, we are saving $$, eating healthier and actually have more time as a family which is the true success of our story. So for those of you who have been doing this all along....good for you (and why did you keep this all to yourself???) and for those of you who aren't.....I dare you to give it a try!