Pumpkin Party! (And the best pumpkin cake recipe ever...)

The fifth annual pumpkin party happened over the weekend and it was another great celebration of the fall season and it's most famous fruit...Pumpkin!  A lot of people have pumpkin parties this time of year but they are usually pumpkin carving parties.  Not this one.  The first year we carved pumpkins.  But then we realized that the best part of the party was the FOOD.  So now instead of carving...we eat. Price of admission is a pumpkin dish and there are so many different kinds you can make.  Pies, pastas, drinks, soups, cakes, breads, dips, salads and on and on and on.  It's a delicious affair.  Also, yes, I had to google to find out if pumpkin was a fruit or veggie. NOW WE KNOW.

• Inspired by Pinterest, I got two pumpkin trick-or-treating pails and put some flowers in them for the doorway.  In the pin I saw, they suggested filling the pail with water, like a vase. So I started to do that...only to realize there is a hole in the bottom of each of them. So I put the flowers in a plastic cup and put that inside the pails. I think it looked better!
• For the food table, I got a roll of brown mailing paper and taped it as a covering. I left out markers and everyone wrote down their name and the name of their dish.
• Forgot to take a picture of the soup station, but my collection of coffee mugs is what we used to eat the pumpkin soup. A true cup of soup!
• Brought in our bistro table from outside and used a festive table cloth to add seating in our cramped apartment.
• Painted a few pumpkins and had a bunch of little pumpkins all around that were all fair game for painting during the party.

Conversation, eating and pumpkin painting!

These kids were still cooking during last year's party

Sisters!

Owen taking it all in.

My first plateful. Notice I said 'first'

It was so much fun having a new world of babies and kids at the party.  This has always been a ladies-only event but this year we had two new babies join the party and a friend had her cousin and her kids visiting, so there were three little boys running around.  We're all growing up, y'all.

Four boys and a door

But the piece-de-resistance that I really wanted to share with you is this...The Pumpkin Dream Cake.

How I spent my Friday night

You saw a slice of it on my plate above (bottom right) and it is what I baked for the party. Ohemgee. This cake is something you have to make if you like to bake.  Rhyming is fun!

Found the recipe via Pinterest and it belongs to The Novice Chef, whose blog is a food lovers dream. The cake is actually called "Pumpkin Dream Cake" and it lives up to it's name.  I found it super easy to make and think that putting the cake pans in the freezer for 45 minutes after removing them from the oven is a stroke of genius.  The cake was moist, fluffy and just delicious.  The icing is sweet without being overpowering and went on perfectly since the cakes were chilled.  And everyone...and I mean everyone...raved about it as they tried it.  I'm not saying all this to pat myself on the back.  I'm patting The Novice Chef on the back because her recipe provided a flawless cake that was a crowd pleaser. I've never seen an entire cake get eaten at a party but I had to quickly hide a slice away for my husband to try when he got home because this cake was GONE by the end.

You can find the PUMPKIN DREAM CAKE recipe by clicking this sentence. It's a dessert that Owen will know well in his life...because I plan on making it for every Thanksgiving here on out. Forget pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake is our new tradition.  

Who am I kidding? There will always be pie too.

Forward-facing Baby Carriers: Yay or Nay?

Owen and I went on our first solo hike of Runyon Canyon yesterday.

On our way back down a woman stopped me and said, "Excuse me, hi, sorry.  I just, I have two kids and I just found out, front carriers are really horrible for babies.  I just wanted to say something in case you hadn't heard, like me. I  mean, I literally just found out."  I said, "Thanks. Yeah, I've actually heard that. But we don't use this that often, so I figure it's ok. Plus, he refuses to face in."  And she was like, "Ok, yeah. Just wanted to say something just in case." "Thanks," I said as we parted ways.

So, of course, I'm still thinking about this exchange. And wondering if I sounded like a totally irresponsible parent.  "Yeah, I heard these things can be dangerous but I laugh in the face of danger...and strap my baby in as I face it!  Mwhahaha!" And then I run down the mountain, cackling wildly. That's probably how that woman pictured me.  I'll have you know, I walked down at a sensible pace.

She was clearly very concerned though so I thought I'd look into it more. I have heard that there can be adverse effects but figured that those consequences applied only to babies who are worn in their carriers for the greater part of the day on a regular basis. If I sat and thought about it, I could probably count the amount of times I've used the carrier. Owen's a nosy baby and doesn't want to face in - ever. Whether he's in a carrier or just being carried, so using the "face-in" option on the carrier never worked for us. And usually the stroller is the way we get around. So I figured the warning of forward-facing carriers being potentially damaging was a moot point for us.

When I did a google search to learn more, I didn't find any sort of news or medical authority website listing the dangers.  What I did find was a bunch of mom blogs expounding the dangers of forward carriers. One was a particularly horrible story from a mom who's daughter has hip dysplasia, has gone through surgeries and will probably always walk with a limp. She admits that this could have developed several ways, including in the womb, but it could also be linked to forward-facing carrier use. Another site I found was a hip dysplasia specific site that discusses hip health for carriers, car seats, swings, walkers and more. I had never thought about car seats being potentially damaging!

The consensus seems to be that babies legs are not properly supported in forward-facing carriers and as a result, their developing limbs could pull out from the joint and cause permanent damage.  I kinda feel that if the risk is that high, forward-facing carriers would be recalled and no longer sold. But it seems to be hard to pinpoint when hip dysplasia actually developed when it is caught later in life. However if the forward-facing carrier can contribute to issues...maybe we should stop using it?  Although this article from an Australian news source says that babies under six months of age are the ones at risk for possible damage. Owen's over that age milestone...so maybe I should keep using it?

So far I've only found opinions and hunches. Is that enough to stop using our carrier completely? Not for me. Will I make sure he's not in the carrier for extended periods of time? Probably. I think this could be a case of 'moderation is key.'

What do you think? Yay or nay to forward-facing baby carriers? Have you heard that they can be risky?

Pumpkin Patch!

This weekend we took Owen to his first pumpkin patch!  Since I'm pretty crazy about pumpkins, I've been looking forward to doing this with him for awhile now...

I signed up for Red Tricycle's newsletter and they had a great email recently with a list of pumpkin patches in the area. When I read about Tanaka Farms, I decided this was the one for us!  A corn maze, petting zoo, produce picking, wagon rides and, of course, pumpkins, sounded perfect.  And the fact that it's in Irvine sweetened the deal.  We have very good friends that live about two hours south of us who also recently had a baby...three weeks after us! Irvine is literally the midway point between our places. Life has been crazy for both of our families and this was the first time we were able to get our little ones together.  Pumpkins and babies and good friends equaled an awesome Saturday.

Of course, being that this is Southern California, it wasn't exactly "fall-like" this weekend.   In fact, it was in the 90s and the sun was brutal.  It's fire season and the Santa Ana winds brought in the desert heat.  All that fun stuff I listed?  Like the corn maze? We started walking in that and decided, nope.  It's too hot.  So we turned around, exited the maze, and made a beeline to where they had some haystacks set up under a tent, near the concession stand.  We all got giant shaved ice treats and ended up spending most of our time on the hay.  Which actually worked out great since the main purpose of the trip was to catch up.

We got to visit, we didn't die of heat stroke and we made sure to pick up some pumpkins on our way out.  Owen was fast asleep by the time we left...

Tanaka Farms was great.  The parking lot was huge and packed when we got there so I thought, Oh great. There's going to be tons of people to get around.  But since the farm itself is huge, it didn't feel crowded at all.  Lots of families and a really fun way to spend the day. I'm thinking I might have to check out at least one more pumpkin patch before the season is over though...you know, for research. What? You can never have too many pumpkins.

Being a Mom

Owen and I go on morning walks. Which sounds like a romantic and nice mommy/son thing to do - and it is - but the reason these walks started is because he gets really restless in the morning and I'd rather walk him in his stroller than pull him down from the baby gate that he is climbing for the thousandth-time-after-I've-told-him-no-but-he's-a-baby-and-doesn't-understand-what-no-means-yet-so-maybe-I-should-just-get-him-a-helmet.

This morning's walk.

I mention this because we often walk down to the outdoor cafe in our neighborhood where he can look at all the people coming and going and make friends with those so inclined.  And this morning, a woman came up and was fascinated with O.  I think she may be the type to just be fascinated in general - a little hippie-ish, a little wide-eyed.  And she said to me with a tone of amazement, "Aren't you just loving it?"  And by 'it' she meant being a mom.

I don't know how to answer that. The answer is, of course, yes.  I love being Owen's mom.  I get choked up when I think about how much I love him. But it's also more complicated than that.  Is being a mom all roses and fairytales and sunshine like her tone implied?  It can be...in moments that are strung together.  And that string of moments is also sprinkled with moments of exhaustion and heartache and yes, sometimes, boredom and even loneliness.  For every magical smile there is a pained cry.

Yesterday Owen woke up with a pretty bad diaper rash so I put some Burt's Bees diaper rash cream on him (never again). It made it worse.  And even though I wiped it off by 7 in the morning, every time I changed his diaper the rest of the day he would gasp in pain and cry so sadly and it broke my heart. Especially because by trying to make him feel better with the cream, I made him feel worse.  It was my fault.  Even though I didn't know his skin would react that way, it was my fault.  And I felt terrible.

That's just a small example but it's fresh in my mind.  So when this woman asked me how much I loved being a mom, I found myself saying, "We had a rough start but we're loving it now."  Not sure why I used the royal 'we' but that's what came out.  And we did have a rough start - which I know I haven't fully explained on here yet.  Trust me, I'm writing it out but I keep finding ways to procrastinate finishing the story - which isn't even that traumatic, especially in light of what other women have gone through, but it's long and delicate and mine.  And the start is still ongoing and there are moments of bliss and moments of doubt.

And this woman who had stardust in her eyes while gazing at Owen and while asking a seemingly innocuous question, surprised me and said, "It's hard, isn't it? I feel like when we become moms a part of us dies.  But then a part of us is reborn.  We're also born as moms, which is so different than anything else we've been in our lives."  And, yes.  Yes.  We're born too.  And that analogy just made me feel a little better. It allowed me, for a moment, to be kinder to myself.

Being new in the world is no picnic.  As a baby, you can't do all the things you want - like get to where you want to be or talk so you can say what you need.  You need help doing everything.  And as you grow, you learn.  And you fail countless times as you try to crawl.  And you fall countless times as you try to walk.  And you babble incoherently.  And then all of a sudden, one day, you're mobile.  You can get to that toy you've wanted.  And one day, you can say "mama" because that's who you need at that moment.  And then the next challenge is thrown so you adapt and change and grow and fail and fail and fail until you succeed.  And you become a person.

Motherhood is new and squishy and messy and worth it.  And sometimes we need help.  And sometimes we feel like we're SuperMom. And sometimes we just need someone to listen.  And sometimes we fail. And fail.  And fail.  Until we succeed.  And then the next challenge is thrown.  And we adapt and change and grow.  And some things come totally naturally.  And some things don't.  And those 'things' are different for all of us.  And we are born.  And reborn.  And sometimes an honest moment with a stranger reminds you of that.  Even if you've been told in some form or another by everyone who knows and loves you.

It's hard, isn't it?  And so worth it.