Meal planning, vegan style

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about food. Not like before when I was pregnant or single/poor grad student, but as a mom and as a wife. I don't want to spend much time in the kitchen and I also don't want to spend all of our money in food (though, that's where most of our money goes). I started meal planning to save money and to think more creatively in our menu... and I love it!

I know some people think they can't do it because they change their mind too much but I was like that and now I meal plan without putting a date to my planning, if that makes any sense? I just know what I'm going to be cooking for the rest of the week without being a plan freak. ;)

Here are some of my tips:

1) While making the plan, make your shopping list. Look for stuff that you already have and build your plan accordingly.

Example: if you have tortillas from that time you made tacos, include enchiladas in your meal plan. That's an item you don't have to buy. (You probably have the beans too).

2) Buy a recipe book or go to Pinterest.

While recipe books gives you specific ideas on what to cook, I find that in Pinterest you just type an ingredient and they give you tons of recipes! 

Example: You already have quinoa. Type "vegan quinoa recipes". Done.

3) Resist going to the store!

Work with what you have until you end up with nothing in the fridge. You could totally make a soup, or pizza, or pasta dish with all the random ingredients you have on hand BEFORE making a trip to the store. 

4) Soak and pre-cook your beans then freeze them.

 Pick a day and cook large batches of beans and store them, that way, in the future, you don't need to use canned beans.

5) Buy local and according to what's on sale! Make your meal plan around those items/produce.

Here its a list (of dinner ideas) I made a while ago inspired in cookbooks and Pinterest.

You can see there are a lot of common ingredients because I was trying to use up what I had left.

• Lentil and Sweet Potato Chunky Stew
• Black bean and potato burritos with rice and guacamole
• Veggie Stir fry over rice
• Spicy potatoes with peppers and onions + corn bread
• Bean chili + Corn bread
• Chick pea and cauliflower curry over cous cous
• Cashew and Spinach pesto pasta with steamed veggies
• Tofu and lentil lasagna
• Veggie teriyaki noodles

Buen provecho!

• 
  

Motherhood according to Facebook and Instagram

I want to be honest. 

Today that's what I want to be: HONEST and humble... transparent and HUMAN. 

And I want to use my words to explode and to burst everyone's bubbles too because I feel there is a need to do that. So, here goes nothing, and everything.

I've been having one of the roughest times of my life lately. I've never experienced so much happiness and sadness at the same time. I've never felt more exhausted and miserable but lucky in my entire existence. And I feel like I need to be honest with all of you because I don't want you to think that because I portray myself always happy that I'm always happy. 

(I'm not... My husband could talk to you more about that.)

I've been thinking a lot about how social media has affected our lives and our perception about motherhood and marriage and relationships (just because this is what I think about the most lately). We always publish the perfect pictures, the perfect moments... but life doesn't have a filter, you don't crop or retake. Life is raw; it can be hard and it can make you cry. 

I never take pictures of my teething baby crying (oh, that boy can cry!), in fact I have way too many  pictures of him sleeping; quite, still. I portray him all perfect when in reality he is just a normal, average baby that nurse every two hours during the night, that gets upset, that likes tickles, that cries when he gets hurts... But I contribute to that whole notion about motherhood being the easiest, most gentle job you would ever had. When in reality some days my husband comes home from work and I'm still in my pjs, I haven't brushed my teeth yet, I probably burnt our dinner, the teething baby has refused to nap, there is a pile of dishes in the sink, blah, blah, blah...and I JUST want 2 minutes to go poop alone. Just 2 minutes. 

When I think about what I've known about motherhood I always think about my own mom. I barely remember her being mad or taken a moment for herself. She was always with us. In fact, I remember being playing with my toys in front of her while she was in the bathroom. She never closed her door and she didn't seemed bothered by us... She never asked for help and she had TWO babies. Why can't I be more like that? 

And then the other thought: what if I wasn't born to be a mom? Should I have stayed in school and do my Phd, kept writing about feminism and culture and all that jazz and just get a pet? Because this is NOT what I expected. I definitely don't have that mama glow that Instagram makes you have every day. My life doesn't sound as funny as I make it look in my statuses on Facebook. I probably get frustrated as often as I smile...and there is a constant up and down of hormonal emotions. 

It could be easier to post for everyone to see my struggles, and how I think I fail to "mom" the way I want to do it... How I fail to be always calm and the perfect smiley wife to my husband ALL the time. But I don't want to do that, because 1- there is already too much negativity and sadness in the world and  2- because that only belongs to us and to our past. Yes, relationships are private and we DESERVE to keep them private and sacred, but that doesn't mean life is a constant parade of rainbows and unicorns. And that doesn't mean that because I don't post about it that I have a baby that never cries, that always takes his naps, that plays with his toys for hours, that never whines when I'm not holding him for 2 seconds, yada yada yada... That doesn't mean that I haven't screamed to my husband and that we live in a constant stage of cupcake farts. 

But that's how life is and we shouldn't forget about that. That we are humans living a real life behind that Facebook perfect profile picture. And that beyond that I've chosen to remember the bliss of my life, because I do have a wonderful life. More beautiful than those pictures I post. Because even though we are an imperfect family, we forgive and start fresh... And because we know that just like everything in life nothing stays, everything evolves, and this rough stage of ups and downs shall also pass. 

8 meses...y algunos dias.

8 meses...and thinking about another baby?

Guru de mi vida,

One day I'm going to look back to these days and think: "gosh, you were tiny". But looking at you right now you are so big (so infinite) compared to the little 8 pounds newborn you were once. Every day you grow a little bit more. You have so much personality: you are determined and strong, you are serious but such a happy baby... and, oh, boy, you are so goofy.

This whole thing of being your mom...it feels like it's been such a long journey already. And we are just starting... you are just growing up so fast.

Its overwhelming...

 I'm going to miss these days of me being your whole world. I'm going to miss your little outfits in the laundry and your excitement when you see me again after I take a quick trip to the bathroom. ;)

To be honest, when I think about missing that little self of yours I think I should give you a sibling so that I could always have a small body, next to mine, in my sling. But that's not going to solve this dilemma of you growing up and for now that would only make things more...crowded. I don't wanna replace you. I want YOU to be my baby forever. And Guru, you are such a complex human being. You need *me*. All of me, all the time...

So, for now, I think it should be only us: you...and me.

Just try not to grow so fast.

Please.

Mama.

Update:

~ He has eaten: refried beans, carrots, potato, apple & peach. He also like smoothies.
~ He is standing by holding unto whatever he grabs.
~ He loves swings and going to the park.
~ He loves looking at himself in the mirror.

Thoughts on WHY I wear my Guru

I know this is very cliche to say but since I gave birth to Guru Che I've learned so much about myself and about my own moral values. Some lessons that I've probably wouldn't have ever gotten to learn if it wasn't for him. Of course, because they are lessons that came along with him they are also so related to motherhood but also with how I see the world, how I want to experience the world and what kind of experience I want to provide or facilitate for him.

Very often people ask me why we don't use a stroller (we do have one and we've used it twice haha). I think strollers can be very useful for some occasions, but I will always have a special place in my heart for babywearing.

The first thing I bought when I got pregnant was a baby carrier because I wanted to manifest that future closeness with my baby. That was part of my plan: to keep him close to me not only to nurture him, but to comfort him and because I wanted to make sure he was going to feel protected...never ignored or alone.

One of the many things I read while pregnant was about this awesome statistic that confirms that in cultures where babywearing its a "norm" babies cry WAY less than in "our" (Western) culture (I'm referring to an article written by Dr. Sears called "Benefits of Babywearing").  Dr. Sears called this babies that are worn "sling babies" (I absolutely love that term) and he points out the interesting differences between a baby that is worn and a baby that is not carried often, like for example: sling babies are less fussy.

"But of course...", said my mom once, "why would he cry? You are holding him!" Yes, mom, and there is nothing wrong to hold a baby that is crying. There is nothing wrong if what the baby wants is to be held. Consider the 4th trimester theory... Babies outside the womb are starting to get used to a whole new world. Its natural (and expected, for me) that my baby wants to be close to me as much as possible. He was inside of me for 9 months! He knows how my insides sound, for God sake! So, yeah, I do find beneficial that when I put my baby on my back or in his sling he gets calmer, usually ending in a good nap.

Dr. Sears says (and I believe this too now that I'm a mom) that in our society is normal to believe that babies cry a lot "...in Western culture we measure a baby's crying in hours, but in other cultures, crying is measured in minutes." Common sense then tells you: in cultures where the baby is carried often they  cry maybe because they are hungry...(or wet? or cold?) If a baby is being held one of her most important needs is been met: closeness to her main source of nurture. If the mom is not carrying the baby, she will not wait longer to pick the baby up again... See the difference between hours and minutes? A gentle approach gives you a gentle response...no baby will "argue" to be carried. The response will always be love.

 There is lovely~ness in wearing a baby; something very different from what I've experienced while using a stroller. On our walks, before Che falls asleep on my chest or on my back, I talk to him... I explain things to him. I encourage him to say hi to people or dogs. I tell him about colors, the weather. I ask him questions. With the strollers that kind of interaction is not viable. He is way "over there" and our experience seems completely different because we are not at the same "level". The same happens while we are at home. I enjoy having him close while I cook dinner and I certainly love looking at him experiencing the process of cooking with me. 
Dr. Sears talks about that too: what babies do when they don't fuss? They learn... "Sling babies spend more time in the state of quite alertness...Researchers have also reported that carried babies show enhanced visual and auditorial alertness." And connecting this thought with another one, Sears says that sling babies are smarter because there are many nerves being stimulated, allowing the brain to grow and develop. These babies are more attentive and almost interact in adult conversations and are also learning a valuable lesson: to listen. For Dr. Sears the act of wearing a baby "... enhances speech development."

And these are some of the things I've learned about myself while wearing Che... I understood more clearly what I wanted to give to the world as a mother and what kind of mother I'm becoming because of babywearing. I wanted to carry into mother Earth a more humanized human. SIMPLE. A human that wasn't exposed to crying just for the sake of crying or for the sake of making him "more independent". A human that will remember being in his mom's arms for most of his childhood: learning, laughing, maybe going through some teething and crying...but close to his mom. A human that was treated with respect because he deserves it. A human that was encouraged to explore. 

I've learned that its pure instinct the need of being close to your baby, to be gentle to that soul that will become what they experience; what they will remember. I've learned that if I want the world to be a better, more peaceful world I needed to start growing it with my own seed. I can't wait for others to change the world for me.

So, yeah. We are in the process of changing the world... Two arms and one sling at a time.