Nature vs. Nurture

 

I remember one of the Sociology classes I took in college focused in large part on gender roles and stereotypes.  We learned all about how little boys are often told how smart and tough they are, are dressed in blue clothing, are handed trucks instead of dolls, and how all of this can influence and shape their ideas of what they should like and how they should behave.  Nature vs. Nurture, if you will.

 

Call me a hippie if you want, but I can remember thinking that when I had kids, I would be open to encouraging them to play with any toys they wanted.  How I would want to encourage my son to be loving and sweet and gentle, and if he wanted to play with Barbie's, then bring it on!

 

In many ways, I still feel this way.  While Greg and I may joke about it, how he would prefer if I not encourage him to "be a wuss" (whatever that means), I find it so fascinating that Ben's preference in toys and his behavior in general seems to have already been established.  Like, from birth.

 

Ben's favorite type of play is physical.  He wants to be chased, thrown around, and tossed in the air.  He loves to dump ALL of his toys out and then run them over with his motorcycle.  He could watch truck videos all day long.  He could sit in the car for hours, pushing buttons and pretending to drive.  He loves to scream and torment the cat.  Sitting quietly with a book is very rare.  And while he enjoys coloring, it usually turns into him throwing his crayons across the table and laughing when they hit the floor.

 

 

 

 

However - this kid is also VERY sweet and gentle.  He will still usually give me hugs and kisses when I ask for them.  He recently started hugging, kissing, feeding, and tucking in his stuffed animals.  He still loves to "get cozy" with mama and dada (snuggle-fest before bed time).  He will bring lotion to me requesting a "baby massage", (essentially my putting lotion on him and singing "baby massageeeeeeee", something I have done for him since he was a newborn.

 

My hope is that as he grows up, we can continue to influence a gentle, loving and in-touch with his emotions side of him, as his love for ALL THINGS DIRTY AND BOY undoubtedly continues. 

 

Could not love this little boy more.



Meal Planning: Week of September 2nd

Just a quick review from last week:

The only meal I was particularly excited about was the chicken pot pie I made.  It was so amazing, probably in part because I never have made a pot pie before (or any kind of pie).  I didn't expect it to turn out, but it did!  Callie shared this recipe with me.  I followed some of the advice in the comments, and cooked the chicken and vegetables in chicken broth instead of water, and made extra "sauce" to keep it from being dry.  If I had known how easy pre-made crust would be to work with, I would have started making pies a long time ago!

 

On to this week!

 

Sunday: Spaghetti squash, meatballs and vodka sauce!  The meatballs are frozen and the vodka sauce is canned.  We are planning a big day of cleaning, yard work and closet organizing on Sunday.  It is Labor Day weekend after all!  Something tells me I will not be interested in doing a lot of food prep that night.

 

Monday: Sauteed Cod with Lemon Buerre Blanc sauce and roasted brussels sprouts.

 

Tuesday: Chicken Tortilla Soup (crock pot).  My friend Robin sent me this recipe a long time ago.  (I went through my email archives looking for recipes from friends today) :)

 

Ingredients:

 

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 (15 oz) can kidney beans
• 1 (15 oz) can black beans
• 1 (15 oz) can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
• 1 (12 oz) can beer  (or 1 can chicken broth)
• 2 cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
• 1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning**
• 3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts  (1lb of chicken tenders)
• shredded Cheddar cheese
• sour cream
• tortilla chips

Directions:

Place the onion, kidney beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, beer or chicken broth, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker.  **Add taco seasoning, and stir to blend.  Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients.  Set slow cooker for low heat, cover, and cook for 5 hours.

Remove chicken breasts from the soup, and allow to cool long enough to be handled. Stir the shredded chicken back into the soup, and continue cooking for 2 hours. Serve topped with shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips

**Taco Seasoning:

1 tablespoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

Wednesday: Left Overs

 

Thursday: Dinner at Jess and Becca's new house!

 

Friday: Slow-Cooker Chicken Mole.  Rachel and Peter served this last weekend at the Gender Reveal party, and I know that Greg has been dreaming about it ever since :)

 



Ben on a BOAT



On Sunday, after nap time, we packed up the car with a picnic and a spare set of clothes and drove down to meet Jamie and Collin at the boat launch.  We had been trying to find a day that worked for all of us all summer, and finally found one that worked! 

 

Several summers back, boating with Jamie and Collin was a regular occasion!  We would often drive down in the morning and stay on the lake until the sun was setting. 

 

But over the past couple of years, schedules got a little busy, Ben came along, and it never was quite as easy make this type of plan happen.

 

Ben is now approaching the age where days like this can be doable again, even if things need to be modified a bit :)  We figured he would either LOVE being out on the water, or he would HATE it. 

 

Lucky for us, Ben absolutely loved every minute of it.  And WE loved that he could stay totally contained in the boat since there wasn't anywhere he could run off to!

 

Ben got to help bring the boat into the water:

 

 

And help drive the boat:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And at the end of the day, he was wiped out completely:

 

Baby Cougan is a......

BOY!!!!!!!!

 

What a completely fun and amazing surprise that Rachel and Peter allowed us to all be a part of!  We cannot WAIT for him to arrive in January!

 

Rachel has practically been a second mom to Ben.  While a lot of us thought that baby Cougan would be a little girl, my experience in watching her with Ben has made me realize she is meant to have a boy of her own. 

 

Check out the big reveal!  (I absolutely love Peter's mom jumping up and down in the background - she was definitely team BOY)! :)

 

 

 

Pictures lately

Just a few photos from this week:

 

Ben and Greg have such a fun relationship.  Greg is never shy to get Ben involved in anything he is doing.  Watching them together is one of my favorite things ever.

 



 

Loved this pose while he was reading a (truck) book.

 

Selfie.

 

The cashier at Trader Joe's let Ben scan every.single.item that had a bar code on it.  He was SO excited.  (Don't worry - there wasn't anyone else in line) :)

 

Ben is usually really good about playing independently when necessary.  This play almost always involves driving a truck all around the house - up, down and over every surface possible.

 

Snuggled in with dad for a truck video.

 

 

The Twilight Turtle we got him when he was a little baby has made a comeback.  He loves shining it on himself and others, and turning all the lights off in order to find the moon.

I heart nap time

Ben has always been a pretty great sleeper and napper.  We have gone through some phases where he would fight naptime, and we definitely have had bedtime issues, but for the most part, he is pretty happy when it's time to get in his crib.

I took a little video of him going down for his nap today. 

And yes, I realize we probably need to break the binky habit soon.  As much as it pains me, our goal is to do it sometime before his second birthday.  The thing is, he is pretty good about only having it when he is in his crib - unless he finds one he has stashed somewhere, in which case it's in and he is HAPPY 'bout it. 

For the record, Ben still drinks his milk from a bottle.  There is clearly something about these two things being the last of the "baby" items that I'm having a hard time letting go of, but MAN - he loves them.  Stay tuned...

Meal Planning: Week of August 26th

Monday: Orange Chicken (frozen) and Rice

Tuesday: Breakfast for dinner (Eggs/Bacon or some type of meat scramble)

Wednesday: Chicken Pot Pie

Thursday: Pineapple Pork Kabobs w/ Quinoa

Friday: Out to dinner!

Saturday: BBQ at Rachel and Peter's

Mr. and Mrs. McCoy!

Over the weekend, we travelled to Sandpoint, ID to witness the wedding of two of our favorite people - Jamie and Collin!  This wedding felt like it was a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time coming as these two have been together for 11 years!  I have to say, I really admire their whole approach to marriage.  They were in absolutely no rush to get to the alter.  They truly have been enjoying their time together (and separately) along the way!

 

However - the time was right, and we had such a blast celebrating their special day! 

 

They chose to get married in Sandpoint as they just recently bought property there.  They have future plans to design and build a vacation home, so it made sense to get married in a place that was so special to them.

 

The weather was perfect and their group of friends and family are amazingly fun.  The "big" celebration will take place next month in Seattle, but I think they forgot to tell their guests that.  Together, I think we drank enough for three times the amount of people.  As per usual, Jamie and Collin threw a great party and ensured that all had a fabulous time.

 

 

Meanwhile, back at home, Ben was enjoying his time with a rotating group of babysitters!

 

My mom took the morning shift:

 

My friend Lisa took the afternoon shift, which included a walk to the park :)

 

Rachel and Peter took the evening and overnight shift :)  I had hoped Ben would sleep at least until 7 am for them.....but no.  But Peter was of course happy to join Ben at the crack of dawn for coffee, milk and a book about the potty.

Meal Planning: Week of August 19th

Review from last week:

The spaghetti squash and meatballs was GOODDDDDDDDDD.  Like, if you have enough meat and sauce, it's kind of hard to notice or care that your noodles aren't actually pasta.  We will be doing this more often.

 

The crab-stuffed halibut was amazing as well, and the prosciutto garlic green beans along with it were the perfect compliment. I also recreated a red grape/black grape/blueberry mint salad that our friends Denali and Kyle brought over a few weeks back.  I'm pretty sure this is the only way I want to eat grapes now.

 

 

 

Sadly, the olives that I had for my chicken paillard had gone bad (sob), so we just had grilled chicken with green beans and salad instead.

 

 

And finally, we decided to have meatball pizza and caprese salad instead of "turf and turf". 

 

Now for next week!

You know those weeks where you just don't feel like cooking OR grocery shopping?  I'm having one of those.  It must be because we did a pretty good job of making meals over the past several nights :)  Luckily, we have a freezer full of various meat and enough of the right ingredients where I'm hoping to only need to do a light grocery run and minimal cooking.  We also have 2 planned evenings out, and another night where Greg plans to golf after work, (aka cereal for dinner) and I'm totally fine with it.

Monday:  Grilled chicken and salad.  Boring but an easy go-to :)

Tuesday:  Golf/Cheerios

Wednesday:  Dinner at Becca and Jess's new house!

Thursday: Paleo Lettuce Wraps

Friday:  Party at the Cougans!

And I'm lazy, so I don't want to plan for next weekend.  We have a birthday party on Saturday and a planned boating day on Sunday, so we will see where the day(s) take us :)