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January 27, 2005
John left Sunday afternoon on a business trip. Because he was off work some last week, staying home to care for Ava he had to work all day Saturday and much of the day Sunday. For the first time in my step-parenting history Meghan elected to stay with me Sunday night rather than go to her mother’s. (Lane stayed with his mom) We actually had a very nice evening, complete with a Dairy Queen run as I am not the least bit above any attempts to bribe my way into their good graces. Monday afternoon my mother in law arrived. I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again, probably many times. I have huge respect for single parents. I freely acknowledge that John is an involved partner in our marriage, but it is never more noticeable to me than when he’s not there. He was only gone two nights (three full days) but I really missed him. He was a bit giddy to have a few nights essentially by himself in a hotel room – I don’t blame him or feel at all bad about that. I think it is healthy in a relationship to take little breaks from each other and acknowledge that it is good for you and the relationship. Having a little space, a little time alone only reinforces how much we love each other and enjoy our time together. I was very glad to see him come home. Being sole responsible for all the parenting and house stuff is exhausting, even for only a few days.
Monday night Ava had a first… She woke up around 1:30am, wide awake, not upset, not in pain, not sick, but very, very ready to play. None of the usual ‘tricks’ would settle her down. I changed her diaper, I tried rocking her, I tried bringing her back to bed with me, I tried letting her cry it out, I tried laying on her floor with her in the crib. She spent THREE HOURS chatting me up, using every tool at her disposal to get me to play. She talked about Nemo and Sully, she made animal noises, she kissed me, she asked her new favorite question “whats-sat” about 100 times. After telling her numerous times it was time for night-night I just started ignoring her, thinking if I don’t engage maybe she’ll go back to sleep. I took her back to her room with the intention of letting her cry it out. After 15 minutes of escalating crying and calling out to “MAAAAAMAA”, I laid down on her floor, put my hand in her crib and didn’t speak another word to her. An hour later she fell asleep, but not before she ran through every word in her vocabulary. I stopped counting at 60 words (including people’s names, animal noises and numerous food items). I crawled back into my bed at 5:20am, the alarm went off at 6:00am. Tuesday I was absolutely wrecked. How on Earth did I do this when she was a newborn and not sleeping through the night? Of course Ava was home all day with her Grandma, so she was able to sleep in until 8am and take a nice long nap to balance out HER lack of sleep.
Thankfully my mother in law is here, doling out the 100% pure Grandma love that the kids soak up like water in the desert. Her visit is perfectly timed with the increasing tensions taking place at their mother’s house. Ava has almost no time for us when Grandma is around. Grandma’s energy is boundless and her ability to stay present for the kids is nothing short of remarkable. She has also stocked with enough groceries to feed an army (although with Lane in the house it does feel like we’re feeding an army) and cleans the kitchen continually. We’re considering adding a wing on to the back of our house so she can stay all the time.
John and I went to see a performance of “The Exonerated” Wednesday night, taking advantage of the free and plentiful childcare offered by my mother in law. Before the play we grabbed a quick appetizer and drink. Of course we started talking about Ava and John described her as a “force of nature.” An apt description to be sure. We started chuckling a bit about the circumstances of her conception. (Ava – don’t be embarrassed if you’re reading this 15 years from now!) As I have mentioned, it took us quite a while to conceive Ava, relatively speaking. I had stopped temping etc… after about four months because my charts were identical each month. However, that 14th month of trying I had started temping again, per the request of my doctor, who wanted the information for the upcoming “infertility consult.” For any of you who have educated yourself on the hows and ways of ovulation/temping you’ll know that after your temp goes up, chances of conception are essentially over. That cycle we had s*x on CD 10, my temp went up on CD 17 and we had s*x again on CD 18. I had no thought or belief whatsoever that we could have conceived. To my knowledge we had completely missed the critical “window.” You can imagine how shocked and elated I was when I found out I was pregnant! John and I laughed about that and he said “Ava was made from the strongest possible sperm and the strongest possible egg – she really is a force of nature.”
The play was only ok. I had read a story about the play in the “New York Times” and I was excited to see it. I think the reader’s theater format, in addition to the very amateur local actors took away from the very compelling stories. The play is about people on death row who have been wrongly convicted and subsequently exonerated. The subject matter is very interesting, but the performance wasn’t great. We should all be shocked by the statistic that in the last 5 years 57 people have been executed and 5 have been exonerated from death row. Regardless of your feelings on the death penalty I don’t think anyone can place faith in a system that would wrongly convict someone to die. When the punishment is irreversible there can be no room for error. But it was nice to have an evening out with John, although I am such an old lady – I would have rather had a tasty dinner with my husband and gone home to see my kiddos, watched the new “West Wing” and gone to bed early! I’m such a party girl.
Our going to bed ritual for Ava has been pretty constant from her early days. I read that consistency and good boundaries are the key to avoid bed time struggles, so that’s what we’ve tried to do. Every night around 7-7:15pm John takes Ava and gives her a bath. This started when she was brand new – he said I got to breast feed her – our special time just the two of us, so he wanted bath time. I put up absolutely no resistance to that suggestion and consequently have very rarely bathed my girl even now that we no longer breast feed – that is Daddy/Ava time. He does all the bath, lotion (including baby backrub – her favorite – what a diva) and gets her into her PJs, then brings her back down stairs to play for another half hour or so. Then around 8:00pm I take her to her room, we read “Quick as a Cricket” I turn on the same CD (African Lullabies) put her down and kiss her good night. Our little stinker has now so thoroughly caught on to the ritual that she has begun the “stalling” process in that half hour between bath and bed time. She loves her little wooden puzzles, so she starts very intently playing with them, ignoring me when I say it’s time to go read “Quick as a Cricket.” Or she’ll ask John to read her “Little Miss Spider” and when he does, she keeps saying “more, more” or goes looking for OTHER books for John to read her. It just cracks me up how clever she is already. But I will say, most nights she goes down to sleep without a peep. I do have a question – at what point do we begin the transition to a big girl bed? Ava still sleeps in her crib, and she is a busy sleeper, much as she is a busy girl when she’s awake. She’s made no attempts to get out of her crib, so I figure we’ll wait, but I just don’t know when that usually happens?
I nearly forgot to officially record the good news that my biopsy results came back normal. My doctor called late last Thursday (he was “catching babies”) with the good news. What a relief! This doctor is the person who delivered Ava after the long, no good, very bad labor, and who discovered the pre-cancerous lesion and took the extra cautious step of biopsy, surgery etc… I’ll confess I have a little crush on him. I think he’s very kind, compassionate and smart as hell. After he brought Ava into the world John and I joked that we could now understand why people name their children after their doctors (we didn’t)! When he called last week it was like a weight lifting off my shoulders. But if for some reason the news hadn’t of been good I would have trusted him completely to do all he could to insure my health. That’s a nice feeling.
I suppose that’s about all the news that fit to write about this week. Marilyn leaves Friday morning and John and I are looking forward to a nice, quiet weekend. I’m hoping some of our new Netflix movies will arrive today or tomorrow. We watched “Collateral” last weekend – a dark film, but Jamie Foxx is amazing – very well deserved Oscar nod for that role. We also watched “Riding Giants” a surfing documentary that was very enjoyable, especially for Lane who feels called to the sport. I also just finished a book that was an interesting read. Something like “The True and Amazing Stories of the Outstanding Hunt Sisters.” It is written in letter format, which makes it sort of unusual, but still a good read. I am actually without a book right now, which I hate, hate, hate – woman get thee self to a library! Have a good weekend.
Thanks for reading—
--Kate
Another good “hide some vegetables” recipe. This one is sort of adapted from something I saw on a Food Network show, but mostly my own. Proportions are approximate and there’s no reason you can’t play with it on your own. I just kind of throw together what we have and the kids LOVE it. This does not work as well with the more standard red salsa – the green salsa is a much more mellow flavor.
Green salsa enchiladas
About 2 cups give or take chopped cooked chicken. Note – a good short cut is to buy one of those roasted chickens they sell at the grocery store and cut up the breast meat – it is a good amount and most of the work is done. We also frequently make some extra chicken breasts and just keep them in the fridge.
Large jar of green salsa (16oz)– sometimes called Salsa Verde or Tomatilla Salsa – it isn’t spicy
1 can of that Campbell’s soup cheese mix – My favorite is the Creamy Chicken Verde
1 can corn, drained
1 box frozen chopped spinach
Shredded cheese
Tortillas
Mix the chicken, 2/3 of the salsa, 2/3 of the condensed soup (don’t water it down), some cheese, the corn and the spinach. Put a small amount in a tortilla, roll it up. (Usually makes about 8 tortillas) Put in a baking dish, ‘seam down’ and cover the enchiladas with the rest of the salsa, the rest of the soup mix and some shredded cheese. Bake at 350 or 375 until it’s all warm and bubbly.
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