Unforeseen Stresses of Parenting and Two Creamy Soups

Children.

To have them or not is a question every person has to answer to themselves at least once in their lives. They can bring such joy, but also crush your dreams.

I'm sorry for the bluntness, but if your dream (like mine) is to sleep until nine (or at least sit in silence) on a weekend, don't have kids.

Yes, you can theoretically still do all the things you would like to once you have kids, like travel, explore, become educated, BUT it's infinitely easier to do it without them.

Like sleep.

You will never sleep like you used to--how you want, under your terms--again once you have kids.

These are facts.

And even though people are aware of this while taking the plunge to have a child, nothing can prepare you for car seat shopping.

Ya, that took a turn.

I can deal with the sleeplessness (although, I'm going to be straight up honest about it--we have the best sleeper: Twelve hours solid and she never wakes unless she's sick. I know, I know, fire the harpoons at me, but we've paid our dues in other ways), I can handle the fights relatively well most days, I can roll with the insane whimsies of a child's brain ("Oh, did I say 'we're already late to meet friends at the water park so please put on your winter gear in July and go run through the back lawn'? I thought for sure I said get your shoes on."), but I cannot, can-freaking-not handle car seat shopping.

By the way, winter gear in July? That's a real thing.

I don't know what it is about car seat shopping that stresses me out. Maybe it's the fact that you're entrusting your precious child's life to this contraption of plastic and metal; that searching for hours for safety ratings is really just you questioning the very people whom you live with in society and deeming them unsafe to be around without protection; that there's so many options which can lead to a whole lot of "what-ifs" if the unspeakable actually occurs and injuries happen. No stress, right?

I have spent countless hours, sleepless nights, really, reading up on car seats over the course of our daughter's life, whether she's been here on earth or was still unborn. This is kind of "my thing."

"What do you do in your spare time?"
"Read about car seats. Sometimes I even watch demos of them in simulated car crashes."

(Damn, it's almost a shame I'm taken, I would be such a catch on Tinder.)

For all the time I spend looking up these bloody things, I hate every moment of it. It makes my eyes cross and I get an instant headache every time I pull up yet another web page dedicated to comparing car seats.

But now we're facing down the need for a booster. Like a real need-- she has half an inch of wiggle room in her seat now. We need to move on it.

I decided this time, instead of killing myself over it, I would go to a local store and get assistance, yelling, "SOMEONE MAKE A CHOICE FOR ME!" as I kicked in the door.

So to a local store we went. I won't name store names. If you figure it out, gold star for you. This store has a very easy layout for car seats: buckets on the bottom shelf, convertibles on the middle shelf, boosters on top. I was looking up at the boosters and stretching to read the tags (they're six feet in the air and I'm 5'5", who designed this place? Quick, get me to a store for ants), and a salesperson (gender neutral, I'll never pointedly say who it was) materialized beside me and asked if I needed help. I told them I needed a booster for my daughter and while I was fairly certain I knew which ones I didn't want, I wanted to plop my daughter in a few of them for a comfort test to help narrow the field of the viable options.

The salesclerk then proceeded to look at tags and I thought, "this is great, they'll help me out and point me to the perfect one." I'm breathing a little easier. Then they start muttering, "She can't fit in this one. No, she's too big for this one, too." At this point, I'm intrigued. How does my fifty pound daughter not fit in a booster that goes up to one hundred pounds because she's too big? The salesperson is now moving at a rapid pace, flipping tags and ex-naying them all as they move down the aisle. Then they start looking at the convertibles and flipping tags, not seeing what they're looking for.

Then they start hoisting out bucket seats!

This is when I step in and say, "woah, that's a baby seat! We need a booster! It's for my girl over there," as I gesture to my daughter who was rearranging things on a nearby shelf.

The sales associate huffed (seriously.), and started back at the convertibles (why? I'm not certain). They frantically flipped a few more tags then frustrated, barks out, "Ugh, I hate that these are all in libs and not pounds."

I'm going to let that sink in for a moment.

"LIBS."

Lbs.

Otherwise known as the abbreviation for "libra" or "libra pondo" in Latin, meaning "pound weight." Meaning "pounds" in today's understanding. There's a quick Google-search bit of knowledge for you.

Needless to say, I did not buy a car seat from this individual or store.

I'm back to square one. If you have recommendations, please spam me with them!

Usually, I'm super clever and have a related segue to the recipe I'd like to share (my mom thinks I'm clever so that's the validation I need), but I don't today. How do I relate "libs" to anything?I just can't.

So tally-ho and here we go!

There's two recipes I'd like to share, although it's really just two variations of one main idea: cream of kale soup and cream of mushroom soup without any cream at all. The secret? White beans. I learnt this trick from a recipe for ribollita soup by Marco Canora.

Changed my life.

There's a common way to make vegan cream soups using cashews which is apparently delicious, however, I'm allergic to cashews. Of all the things in the world to be allergic to. Unless you ask my mom, then I'm allergic to walnuts or pecans. She can never remember. Want to know how I'm going to die? She's going to give me cashew cluster candies without labels thinking that she's doing the right thing by not putting chocolate Turtles on a treat tray at Christmas time. I just know it.

Cream of mushroom soup is one of my favourite soups in the world. Funnily enough, I used to hate mushrooms as a child, but still love this soup. I think it was a texture thing? I'm not certain. But when I ate it religiously years ago, it was always from a can and always had so many soda crackers crushed into it that it was more of a "mush" than a soup. Nowadays, I love to make my own using roasted mushrooms, onion, and garlic, and to pump up the protein by using white beans as the base.

The smell alone is divine on a cool, soggy day.

Moana also loves mushroom soup.

Two parenting tips in this picture:

One: Costumes are better than no clothes at all. Whatever gets them out the door sometimes. I went shopping with Rapunzel a few weeks ago. Chin up, shoulders back, eyes straight ahead, and no one questions your parenting. Confidence is key.

Two: My tiny started drinking creamy soups when she was a year and a half old and still drinks them at almost five. Even in restaurants. This is another time when confidence will keep the haters at bay. Remember, the alternative is a liquidy soup glopped on everything as they try to maneuver it to their wiggly mouth, so a straw is actually a cleaner option. And if it helps a kid eat without a fight, I'm all for it.

If you'll notice, I'm kind of a "whatever helps you survive" mom. Pick your battles. Costumes and straws are not mine.

Cream of Mushroom Soup Serves 3 as a meal

4 cups of button mushrooms, cleaned and chopped into quarters or sixths
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, quartered
olive oil
1/2 cup dried mushrooms
6 cups of boiling water
1 tbsp. coconut aminos
Salt and pepper
2 cups cooked white beans

1. Place the dried mushrooms in a large bowl, add the water, and set aside.
2. Roast the veg in olive oil at 375 for twenty minutes or until golden bits are happening.
3. When the veggies are done, add everything but the mushroom stock to a pot. Drain the soggy mushrooms and discard (although some people do like rehydrated mushrooms, so if that's you, feel free to dice them up and add them to the soup once you've pureed it. But for me, that's definitely a texture I don't like.
4. Slowly start adding in the stock while blending with an immersion blender until it reaches your desired consistency. Alternatively, if you own a fancy blender, pour it in there and blend it all to reach a smooth texture.

Although soda crackers will always have a place in my heart, I eat this soup with a hearty roll and a side salad.

Variation number two is a cream of kale salad. With a few options.

Option One:
The leaves are left as little bits, leaving you to taste the kale and white beans as separate but complimentary flavours. I actually prefer this way because I love the taste of beans.

However, Option Two is to blend it all completely:
This creates a very green and kale-y soup. Which was very pleasant to sip from under a mound of blankets on the couch while it was pouring rain outside.White blanket, white couch, green soup; I know what danger is.

Cream of Kale Soup Serves 3 as a main

1 tbsp. olive oil1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, diced
2 bunches of kale, washed and chopped
2 cups cooked white beans
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
Salt and pepper
Veggie stock

1. In a large pot, brown the onion and garlic.
2. Add the kale and mix until wilted.
3. Add in the beans and seasonings.
4. Start pureeing the soup, adding in stock until it reaches your desired texture. This could be done with an immersion blender or a fancy blender.

Note: This soup also works beautifully with broccoli instead of kale.

I always marvel at how much leafy greens collapse once exposed to heat:

I'm such a nerd. I know. I embrace it.

Want to see what other nerdy thing I do because I love my big leafy greens so much and want to keep them as fresh as possible? I have a greens bin in my fridge.

Welcome to part of my fridge. That blue lidded box is full of leafy greens because my crisper just isn't big enough for them all.

An aside: those are my also nuts and seeds in my fridge. Did you know you should refrigerate them to keep them from going stale if you aren't eating them quickly? The more you know (rainbow).

That box may be ugly, but look at my beautiful swiss chard (which happens to be my favourite leafy green):

That's after a week and a half in my fridge! It's still as crisp and tender as ever. I put off eating it for the sole purpose of this post, just to show how long it could stay gorgeous in there. But I couldn't wait any longer and I've since eaten it.

So that's it, folks. Two soups worth their weight in libs.

Ya, I went there.

If you give these or any of my recipes a try, please let me know! I love love love feedback.

The feedback from my golden man is that I need to finish this and take him for a walk.

This is the face I've been trying to ignore as I hurriedly type this.

PS: I may not be posting again for a week as John, the non-golden man in my life, comes home tonight for a whirlwind weekend after a month away! If I'm MIA at least know I'm not really missing, just enjoying every moment that my family is together <3