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Since Kamea was born, Greg has been doing the food shopping. He’s done an amazing job – yay Greg! This week, as I wrote our shopping list, I realized that we had a lot of food to buy. I thought it might be better if I went, too. This meant Kamea was going, too. Ever since Kamea turned 12 weeks, I’ve been feeling more confident about taking her out on little adventures (read about our first adventure here).
We took her car seat, stroller (car seat attaches to it), and my ERGO baby carrier. I was unsure of how she’d be, so I thought it was best to have all of our bases covered. I took the stroller because car seats are not designed to be put on grocery carts – dangerous – that makes sense to me because they always look like they’re ready to topple over. I wasn’t sure that Kamea would want to be worn the whole time either, since the longest I’ve worn her around the house in our ERGO or Moby is about 20 minutes or so. Therefore, we took everything – lol – just in case.
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| Kamea is chilling out by the organic apples. |
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| Hmmm pineapple! Too bad it’s not organic. :(
As I thought… Kamea didn’t last long in the stroller. By the time I was checking out goodies in the Raw Food aisle, she was ready to use the ERGO. With Daddy there to help, it was a team effort (so glad he was there). Fun, too!
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It was a lot of stimulation for her – especially it being her first trip. Plus, Whole Foods was playing AC/DC’s Back in Black. Maybe if they’d been playing The Wheels On The Bus (go round and round) she would’ve done better – lol. All in all, Kamea did great, even if she did fuss/cry a couple times. All we had to do was change her from stroller to ERGO to stroller to ERGO and she enjoyed it.
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I like eating pumpkin and sunflower seeds because the pumpkin seeds give my body zinc, vitamin K, iron, magnesium and more. The sunflower seeds are a great source of vitamin E as well as vitamin B1, selenium, folate, copper, and more. Yum!
So, I sent Greg to Whole Foods the other day with the intention of having him buy a bag of GoRaw’s seeds (about 10 bucks) because I figured I didn’t want to make them myself… and then I thought better of it. I can make those in no time… even with an infant (and it’ll save us money)! So, instead I had him buy a pound each of raw organic sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. Here is what I did with some of them. Take these to the next movie you go to and you will not miss the popcorn!
Salt-n-Pepper Snacky Seeds
Recipe by Kristen Suzanne of KristensRaw.com
Yield 2 cups
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 – 3/4 teaspoon Himalayan crystal salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Place the seeds in a bowl with enough filtered water to cover by about an inch. Let them soak like this for 6-8 hours. Drain off the water and give them a quick rinse. Put them back in the bowl and stir in the salt and pepper. Place them on a dehydrator tray and spread them out until the tray is covered (I use an Excalibur dehydrator and I used only one tray). Dehydrate them for one hour at 130-140 degrees F. Reduce the heat to 105-115 degrees F and dehydrate until thoroughly dried (approximately 14-20 hours).
When using an Excalibur dehydrator, it’s recommended that you begin the dehydrating process at a temperature of about 130-140 degrees F for 1 – 2 hours. Then, lower the temperature to 105 – 115 degrees F for the remaining time of dehydration. Using a high temperature such as 140 degrees F, in the initial stages of dehydration, does not destroy the nutritional value of the food because it’s during this initial phase that the food does the most “sweating” (releasing moisture). When this occurs, it is cooling the food. Therefore, while the temperature of the air circulating around the food is about 130-140 degrees F, the food itself is actually cooler. These directions apply only when using an Excalibur Dehydrator, because of the Horizontal-Airflow Drying System.
I’m practicing babywearing with Kamea a little every few days. I’m not crazy about doing it too much right now because her head control is not stable and I freak out when her head almost bobbles. I’m always trying to position my body so she has support (like she’s leaning back in it), and that just doesn’t feel too good on my back. Still, I’m comfortable sometimes using the ERGO babywearing system with the infant insert (organic). I was sent one by the company to try out. In the few times I’ve attempted babywearing, I’ve tried the Moby, the Gypsy Mama, and the ERGO with infant insert. The ONLY one I’m comfortable using is the ERGO right now because it’s so easy to put on and Kamea seems most comfortable and safe in it (keeping in mind the aforementioned head control issue I’m still working through). I can’t wait until her head control gets better. By then, I’ll be better at the wraps, too, I suspect, but with how easy the ERGO is to put on AND take off I can see myself using this a lot (the Moby/Gypsy Mama are hard to get her out of and that scares me… I bend over and basically feel like I’m twisting into a pretzel to get her out and get it off – I know though, I’m just not good at it yet).
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Kamea had her 1-month visit at our naturopath’s office this week. She is doing AWESOME! She weighed in at 9 pounds 5 ounces (right on track) and her head measured beautifully. She’s growing like a little weed and she’s cute as a button. I took my first bath with her this week, too. That was fun! I can’t wait to do it again. This picture is of her after the bath – no crying this time – Yay!
And, that rash I blogged about here (or the rash I thought she had?)? She’s doing wonderfully. She has some newborn acne still, which is better on some days than others, but there is no rash. I have been staying away from nuts and most berries though and I haven’t reintroduced them yet. My diet has been pretty mild. In fact, here is a recipe of a new (mild) salad I threw together yesterday that I LOVED! It’s my new staple summer salad… so majorly yummy! (I’m calling it Summer Salad because it’s quite refreshing for summer time.)
On another topic… are you getting enough vitamin D? It not, you might want to take a little time in the sun to get some (especially if you’re pregnant or nursing – new studies are coming out touting the benefits of it if you fall into that category, and the risks if you’re deficient – check out the video below). For more detailed information, check out this impressive website, Grassroots Health. Vitamin D is important for so many reasons, I could write a whole blog post about it… heck, probably a whole book.
I had my vitamin D level tested a couple of weeks ago and the result: 41 ng/ml. It’s recommended that most people have a serum level of 40-60 ng/ml, so I’m on the low level (darn!). My naturopath would like it to be in the 50-60 ng/ml range. I need to take my own advice and get more sunshine! I have been slacking in that department since having Kamea. But, that is going to change now. I treated myself to this groovy patio lounge chair for our balcony so that I could comfortably get some daily vitamin D. For those of you who want to supplement with vitamin D3 (and you’re vegan), you might consider Garden of Life’s (Vitamin Code) Raw D3. There is controversy over whether it’s truly vegan (you can read about that here).
You can also check out this site to see how much much sunshine you need to get your vitamin D (I haven’t tried it yet). And, I just saw this article in the New York Times, What Do You Lack? Probably Vitamin D.
I'm Kristen, and welcome to my blog. I'm a wife, mom, author, and I love to eat so food is usually the topic of my blog posts. I'm a former (almost decade long) vegan turned back omnivore who enjoys reading, rebounding, coffee, and dark chocolate. More...
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