stupid easy broccoli cheese soup

i was really in the mood for some broccoli cheese soup today. cora was sick last night, up and down choking on mucus and/or spit up, so i spent 4am-9am on the couch with her, keeping her upright. then bella woke up at 9 to open her presents. by the time it was the afternoon, i had forgotten that i needed to make something to feed to my family. seeing as how it has been a rainy, windy, cold, dreary day today, i took to the almighty internet to look for some soup recipes. and everything was way more complicated than i was looking for, aka-required ingredients i didn't have. 

i had some stuff on hand and figured it would work so i tried it, and it was easy. it was stupid how easy it was. and it was good. (not like those recipes you find on pinterest that claim to be oh so good. this was legitimately good).

so here goes.

ingredients

1 can cream of chicken soup (+1 can water)

1 can cream of broccoli soup (+1 can water)

1 bag shredded cheddar cheese

1 head broccoli

mix soups and water in pot on medium heat. stir until well blended.

add in broccoli. 

simmer for a few minutes, depending on how you like your broccoli. we like it a little crunchier, so i let it sit for about 5 minutes or so.

add in cheese. stir until well blended.

DONE!  stupid easy, right?!!? 

i added a little bacon to ours (and keeping with the theme, it was bacon bits. the real kind though, not the crunchy ones). 

and on that note, merry christmas. 

6{ish}weeks

time has escaped me. i fully planned on doing the whole 1 month, 2 month, etc. pictures in something like a laundry basket, but honestly, my laundry baskets have been way too full of mountains of dirty clothes, and that just doesn't seem right. they rarely have fluffy clean laundry in them, and because cora hit one month on bella's 3rd birthday, we just kind of forgot that she was one month. 

such is the life of the second child.

so here is her {almost} 6 week update.

at her one month appointment, she had gained 3 pounds from birth and 1/2 an inch in length! my girl is a big eater. 

while, for the first 2 weeks, she hardly made a peep and slept a lot, she started to get more vocal around 3-4 weeks. her constant grunting and grumping lead us to believe she had some serious reflux (that, and all the spit up). we put her on xantac, but a week later, i took her off because it didn't seem to be helping, but laying down to nurse DID seem to help. we realized it was just over supply of milk and a forceful let down that was causing her problems and since then, we have been mostly spit up free (with the occasional bit that is normal, aside).

as far as breast feeding goes-the second time around, it's amazing. so much easier than the first time, but i think i may have been suffering from a mild case of "baby blues" last time. very mild as it didn't really interrupt my ability to function. maybe it was just first time mom blues, but nursing cora has been so much sweeter and i feel a stronger bond, earlier on. with bella, it took a full 6 weeks for me to really feel that connection. i felt like i did everything because i knew i had to take care of my baby, but didn't really feel that sweet cuddly feeling everyone describes. reading that, i almost feel a bit embarrassed. i loved being a mother, and i definitely got that bond after a bit with bella. and maybe overcompensated a bit. but with everything we went through to have her, i think i spent a lot of time in fear that we would lose her. once that passed, the walls came down and i stopped trying to guard myself from that emotion. 

but enough about bella.....this is cora's update!

cora is a mommy's girl, through and through. she will be in a full on choking screaming fit with anyone else and nearly the moment i pick her up, she calms. poor joel is sure she hates him. in the last 2 weeks, i have started wearing her a lot more. she has finally warmed up to the moby (that's currently where she is sleeping) and she LOVES being carried in the ergo. 

she sleeps swaddled half of the time, but doesn't seem to be bothered either way. she goes to sleep around 9 or 10pm waking once at 12 and once at 4 until she finally wakes at 9 or 10am. nights are pretty easy, especially since she got enough head control to manage nursing laying down. she sleeps beside us in a bassinet (the FP newborn rock and play sleeper-best infant product EVER!!!). 

unlike bella who would sit in a dirty diaper for HOURS if i let her (and still does) without ever fussing about it, cora screams the minute her diaper is dirty. i swear, i think cora will be potty trained before bella is! but this meas we go through a lot of diapers. i tried her in cloth at 4 weeks, which is when bella started, and her little legs are so skinny that it was almost like she wasn't even wearing anything. i have newborn gdiapers and am getting some liners today, so we are going to try again and see if we have any better luck she goes through about 10 diapers a day, and i have about 24 newborn/small sized diapers, so hopefully i can keep up, until she is in her normal sized diapers.

cora flipped from front to back yesterday. she was having some tummy time and started getting grumpy. i was getting bella dressed beside her and was fully intending to just let her grump for a bit when i looked down and noticed she was on her back. i got excited and bella screamed really loudly "YAY BABY SISTER!!!!!!!" in her high pitched siren wail, so i am pretty sure cora will never do that again. 

and as for the sisterly bond-bella loves her baby sister. cora is terrified of bella. i was holding cora and we were "talking' when bella came running over, squealing, "baby sister is AWAKE!!!!!", and cora's eyes about popped out of her head and she started screaming. clearly bella's big head coming at her, full speed is not the thing that makes my girl happy. i feel really bad for her and i am pretty sure this 

is in our future. (BTW-if you want to laugh until you pee, check this out you are welcome. and also i'm sorry). 

people keep asking me if having two is so much harder than one. it's not really. it's just as hard as it ever was. the toddler is the most complicated part of it all. maybe it will get harder. the hardest part is generally the tantrums and bucking done by my big girl and that hasn't gotten harder since cora came along. i will say, it's much funnier having two, or maybe i am just delirious and everything is funnier. 

feeding my baby bird.

cora took her first bottle today. enthusiastically.

i may have cried a little.

bella didn't really take a bottle. ever. she was exclusively nursed for 14 months. i nursed on demand, and bella thoroughly enjoyed nursing. and so did i. 

there were some drawbacks, of course.  i could never really be away from her for too long. on my birthday, we drove down to disney, and my mom came and stayed with her at our hotel so we could have some fun. we came back, and mom had fed her 6 oz of pumped milk. through a straw. 

so when i had a bit of an over supply and started pumping, getting 5+ ounces off one side, after a feeding, i was really afraid that all that beautiful milk was just going to go to waste. but bella nursed like a fiend, 20 minutes on each side, every 2-3 hours, consistently. cora nurses like a little bird. 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, on and off all day long, then sleeping almost 6 hours at night, then another 4-5. bella never took a pacifier. cora is destined to be a thumb sucker if we don't have one handy at all times (and my theory is that it's easier to throw away all the paci's than chop off all her fingers. and more humane.). so tonight, i thought, what the heck, let's try her out. if she takes it, i get a break AND we get to use the liquid gold floating around in the freezer. win and win. 

so i warmed up a bottle, gave it to joel and went to do the dishes. when i came back, the bottle was done. 

chug-a-lug and ol' girl was milk drunk and passed out. 

i thought i would be elated. in my head, i was. mostly. 

but my heart hurt, just a little, too. like the one thing only i could provide for my child, was no longer my sole responsibility. and also, my excuse for sitting down and having a messy house was out the door. 

there is something about nursing that is so magical, and i didn't fully realize it until cora wasn't fully dependent upon me to be the one feeding her. 

she will still be nursed 99% of the time. so really, my feelings are a little dramatic (which i am not lacking in, lately). but i can't help but feel a little disappointed that she accepted it so freely. 

and now i have no excuse to sit around all day while joel does all the work around here........