Picnics and such

We went to the DSGO picnic this last weekend and had a blast! I haven't been to any meetings or get-togethers or playdates or anything since the ONE time I went to a meeting, so it was good to see everyone again. Everyone is so nice in the group, and I'm glad Kipp finally met them.

He was kind of leery of a "support group" for DS parents, but it's more a social arena, where they group together to share educational resources et al. Plus, other babies for Kiki to play with. How can you go wrong?

Now all I have to do is actually make phone calls and playdates. Because I SUCK at socializing. I really, really do.

Anyway, we went to Bri's soccer game, then the picnic, then hung out with friends later that evening. All in all, great weekend!

So my brother-in-law introduced me to Bud Lite with Clamato in it. It sells in 24-oz bottles and tastes yummy. So I decide since we're hanging out with friends that THAT shall be my drink of choice.

Here's the thing about my liquor metabolism. I can drink Crown straight all night and catch and maintain a nice buzz with absolutely no ill effects the next day. I cannot, however, catch a buzz off beer, and one beer alone is likely to make me sick all the next day.

Want to guess what happened after I drank 4 24-oz Bud Lites with Clamato? No buzz, sick as a dog, and also -- bonus!!! -- heartburn. Yay! yeesh.

Still, if it's just one, I still think it's yummy.

Somehow I inherited a food trait from my Mom. As long as I can remember, if she ever discovered a recipe that was a huge success, she would cook it two or three times a week, or more, until someone complained that it was getting a little old. And then? She would never make it again.

Evidently I do this. I didn't even realize until Kipp mentioned it the other day. Oops.

The thing is, I could eat the same thing EVERY day and not get bored with it for months. Cereal for breakfast, grilled cheese with tomato soup for lunch, and chicken casserole for dinner, and I'm good to go forever. Kipp? Not so much. If we have the same kind of meat more than 3 times in one week, regardless how it's prepared, he sighs.

This makes me nervous now that Kiki is eating grown-up food. Right now she's an awesome eater, and I don't want to ruin that by boring her with food. On the other hand, I have no culinary imagination and even less time to muck with it. All I know is that it's important to give her fruit once a day (more than that and she gets a rash) and vegetables twice a day (less than that and she gets constipated) and at least one snack a day (less than that and she's not getting enough calories.)

It's too much pressure. Honestly.

And I'm constantly worrying that she's not eating enough at each meal. Normally people stop eating when they are full. I do not know when Kiki is full. I have yet to see her stop eating. I've settled for measuring out to feeding her a little less than the amount that makes her puke.

Sometimes she will cry and fuss when she's full, even though she will keep opening her mouth for more. This makes a confusing message for Mommy. And almost always, if she's had at least a little bit to eat, she won't complain of hunger for hours -- so again, I can't tell if she's had enough or too much or just enough. I go with just trusting my intuition, and so far this seems to be working, although it's needed quite a bit of adjusting along the way.

I put an eye patch over her good eye today for a few hours because I started to worry that her crossed eye had stopped responding to stimulus. On the plus side, she can obviously still see out of her bad eye -- the patch didn't slow her down an iota. On the negative side, I'm not sure it was the right thing to do... her eye remained looking squarely at the bridge of her nose, and she had to turn her head to look around.

I mean I knew that putting the patch on her eye wasn't going to straighten out the other one -- that's what surgery is for, and besides how much impact can only 3 hours have? -- but I think I had hopes for something that didn't quite pan out right. I'm happy she can still see out of her eye; that means her brain hasn't turned it off. And that's my goal for now -- to keep that eye on until her next appointment in June.