Who is Champuru? 
Aloha, I'm Donna, known everywhere on the Internet as "Champuru." I'm a Christian, blissfully wedded to my perfect match (the yang to my yin) of 16 years and a stay-at-home mom to my miracle baby, born in October 2008. Living life in Hawaii, less than 5 miles from my hometown, seeking balance in my pursuit of family, faith, recreation, and rest. Read more on the About page.
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Day #9 of Project 365
Winter in Hawaii has arrived and the slightly nippy weather is testament to that. For our late afternoon walk, I got Baby Champuru decked out in her cold weather gear, an adorable hoodie given to her by my friends Pam and Arnold. The jacket is a size 2T, but it fits her almost perfectly.
I love “winter” weather in Hawaii when the temperatures dip just enough to lift the humidity and bring a slight chill to the air in the mornings and evenings. (I put the word winter in quotes because the rest of the non-tropical world would likely scoff at my use of the words “winter” and “Hawaii” in the same sentence. ) It’s the best time of year to take long walks around the neighborhood, getting a nice workout without sweating buckets. Besides, it also allows me to dress Baby Champuru in the cutest outfits!
Inspired by Twitter pal, @lavagal, I decided to embark on Project 365, where I take a photo a day for an entire year. For anyone who has been following my blog for some time, I’m sure you’ve seen me mention at least one other time about starting such an endeavor.
My previous efforts at a successful Project 365 were thwarted by my own desire to take a creative, inspired, and artistic photo every single day. Let’s face it. That’s just not going to happen, which is why I ended up falling off the bandwagon. This time, I am allowing myself to take photos with a *gasp* camera phone, which is almost always with me. (So I have no excuse for not taking at least ONE photo a day, right?) @lavagal has been taking photos for her Project 365 using her iPhone, which is a great idea because the convenience factor is important to me. Especially now when the very thought of carrying around a DSLR in addition to the diaper bag, my purse, the stroller, Baby Champuru, etc. is just asking a bit too much. Now that I have a mobile phone that has a camera decent enough for me to want to take photos with it, I started considering it as an option for my Project 365. (Did I mention, I <3 my iPhone?)
My goal for Project 365 is to simply get through it, and by doing so, I will have documented an entire year in photographs. I suspect that most of my photos will be of Baby Champuru, but even that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. At the very least, all of those Baby Champuru photos will make a great GrowShow time lapse video at the end of the 365 days.
I’m posting my Project 365 photos to my Facebook page for privacy reasons, but will be sharing selected photos here on my blog under the Project 365 category. So, I challenge you to begin your own Project 365 — and if you do, let me know! There’s a great article on Photojojo.com about the how and why of doing a Project 365 to get you started.
November 25, 2009, the day before Thanksgiving, we decided to give Baby Champuru her first at-home haircut. As Baby Champuru’s hair was growing longer it began to irritate her ears and eyes. Hubby had been saying how he wanted to cut her hair for a couple of months now. At first it began because her hair seemed to be at that awkward length that tickled her ears, so Hubby wanted to trim the hair over her ears. Then, it was her bangs. I staged a protest mostly because I was afraid of him giving her a mullet. Heaven forbid. However, he assured me that he would only trim her bangs to keep the hair out of her eyes, so I relented.
So, we put her in the booster seat, tuned the TV to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Hubby set to work with the safety scissors. Even with the distraction of the TV, she still kept trying to grab at the scissors, so it was my job to keep her hands occupied.
As promised, Hubby only trimmed a little bit off the ends. I collected a few locks of her hair and put it in an envelope, wrote the date of the haircut and her name on the front and sealed it with a Hello Kitty sticker. I’m not quite sure what to do with her baby hair or how to memorialize the event properly, but I just knew that I had to save it. It’s all about celebrating those milestones and preserving memories.
If you have any suggestions on how to put those precious little locks of hair in a scrapbook, I’d love to hear from you!
Truth be told, I tweet about almost everything. And more often than not, I get some pretty helpful feedback from the Twitterverse. Today is a good example of that. In a tweet, I mused:
Wondering if I can cut the romaine lettuce or fry up the bacon bits today for tomorrow’s furikake chop salad? Or will it wilt/get soggy?
People offered their opinions and advice about prepping lettuce and bacon ahead of time, but a tweet by @kyubikitsy, creator and illustrator of the awesome webcomic, nemu*nemu caught my eye. Her reply:
@champuru I suggest frying up the bacon in the oven for even crisping and easy clean up
Frying bacon in the oven? Was that even possible? Why, yes, it is! Here’s how:
Get a pound of your favorite brand of bacon. Then:
1) Cover a cookie sheet with heavy-duty aluminum foil. You’ll want to use the type of cookie sheet that has a lip on all four sides or else you’ll have a mess of bacon grease to clean up. Lay the strips of bacon on the ungreased foil. (This method makes for easy clean-up, but your bacon will be sitting in bacon grease until you drain.)
OR
2) Use a broiler pan. (Using a broiler pan will drain the oil as it’s cooking. In either case, you can reserve the bacon drippings for use in other recipes.)
Preheat your oven to 400°. Place your sheets/pans in the middle rack of your oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. Be sure to keep an eye on the bacon in the last few of minutes of cooking time as it can easily overcook in under a minute.
Tip from Simply Daily Recipes:
Cook the bacon on the soft side of being fully cooked. Store cooled bacon in a freezer bag and throw in freezer for future meals. Reheat 2 slices of bacon in microwave on MED HIGH heat for 30 seconds or until warm. Cook longer when reheating more slices. You know how your microwave cooks, so adjust time as needed. Do not reheat with high power, it burns the bacon. Remember that the bacon is already fully cooked, you just want to warm it up, not cook it again.
This method of cooking bacon is great because clean-up is a cinch and you can prepare an entire pound (or more) of bacon and freeze it for later use. Mmmm… bacon!
We’re back to the drawing board, plotting a new strategy for transitioning Baby Champuru from bottle to cup — and formula to whole milk.
Operation Cold Turkey was an utter failure. Baby Champuru’s Pediatrician recommended going cold turkey with the transition from bottle to cup — and also from formula to whole milk. I must have been on crack to think that it would work with Baby Champuru, my adorable, intelligent, funny, and very determined, strong-willed child. He said that she would eventually get thirsty enough to drink milk from a cup if we persisted long enough. Well, her will must be stronger than mine, because after three days and a terrible case of constipation due to lack of liquids, I relented and put her back on the bottle. I was amazed that she simply would not give in to the cup — even at the expense of staying regular.
Here’s what we tried:
- Offered her formula in a cup. Tried nearly every type of cup imaginable and she flatly refused. She would not even put the spout of the sippy cups in her mouth. She would drink small amounts of water from an open cup, but as soon as she saw the formula in the cup she would shake her head vigorously while saying, “no no no no no!”
- As per the doctor’s suggestion, we allowed her to drink water (only) in the bottle to help her drift off to sleep at naptime. Thankfully, she drank some water from the bottle — still not as much as she would drink if it was formula, but I was relieved that she actually got some hydration.
- Offered her whole milk in a cup. Again, adamantly refused.
- After three days of drinking very little liquids, a bad case of constipation resulted and I put her back on the bottle with her beloved formula. It took her a day before she started drinking normally again. Thankfully, she also acquired a liking to diluted prune juice (served in the bottle), which helped with the constipation.
- Once her constipation was resolved, I started mixing the formula with a small amount of whole milk (4 ounces of formula to 2 ounces of whole milk). She doesn’t seem bothered by it and will drink it willingly in a bottle.
I discovered that Baby Champuru will drink LOTS of water through a fast-flow disposable cup with straw. (Thanks, Kory, for the suggestion!) According to the packaging on the The First Years Take & Toss Straw Sippers , it’s is for babies 18+ months but I figured that I would try it anyway. She loves it. The only downside is that since it’s a fast flow (no valve, just a straw), lots of liquid will flow into her mouth and if she sips too much, much of it will end up on the front of her shirt. I have not tried putting milk into the cup yet. I am hoping to get her to drink water from the cup regularly and learn to love it first. I am also working on the transition from formula to whole milk, intending to gradually increase the ratio of formula to whole milk so that eventually it will be all whole milk and no formula.
I’ve decided that we’re going to proceed at our own pace and not stress out about it. I’ll post more status updates about these two transitions in the upcoming days/weeks. I appreciate everyone’s feedback and insights. It is so helpful and encouraging. Keep the comments coming. Even if I can’t respond to all comments, I read and appreciate each and every one of them. Thank you!
Christmas display at the Mililani Town Center.
Posted via email from Champuru Posterous
It’s one of those issues that make me feel like a failure as a mother. Baby Champuru is 13 months old and she still refuses to drink more than an ounce of liquid from a cup of any kind. We have six different kinds of cups: Nuby 2-handle cup with silicone spout , Nuby cup with flip-it straw top, Playtex Baby Einstein trainer cup , Dr. Brown’s training cup , Avent bottle trainer , and an open cup. Depending on her mood, she will take a few sips of water, but will quickly start batting away the cup or if she gets her little hands on it, she will promptly hurl it off her highchair.
It reminds me of the travails that we endured when trying to find a bottle that she would accept. We went through a few different types of bottles including Born Free, the Adiri Natural Nurser , and Avent before Baby Champuru finally relented and started drinking from the Born Free bottles. She eventually came to accept the Avent bottles and then preferred them over Born Free. Now I can’t get her to drink from anything else. And I’ve been trying since she was eight months old.
On Monday, when Baby Champuru went in for her 12 month check-up, the doctor told us that she needed to stop using the bottle. He was so matter-of-fact about it, like it was a such a simple thing to do. Didn’t he realize that I started the process five months ago and still have not been successful at getting my obstinate determined child to drink from anything that did not come equipped with a nipple?
Then, there’s the matter of switching her from formula to whole milk. When I asked him about whether I should gradually wean her from the formula by adding some milk to the formula at first, he said to switch her cold turkey.
So, that’s two major changes that I need to implement. All of this in the midst of me starting my part-time job. Not good timing. Not at all. So, now I’m wondering how I should go about this? Get her off the bottle, then switch her to whole milk once she’s firmly established with the cup? Or give her whole milk in the cup and stop using formula in the bottle in one fell swoop? I’m just worried that since she is already opposed to using the cup that if I try to give her whole milk in the cup that it will cause even greater resistance to the cup. On the other hand, the novelty of drinking something different might make using the cup more attractive?
Moms, I need your practical advice. What did you do? And how long did it take to implement? She’s already 1 month behind the curve, as I should have switched her to whole milk and the cup by 12 months old. Help!
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