On sleep (or lack thereof) and scapes

So, our 8 month old baby girl, E., woke me up at 5:30 AM today. Yesterday, it was at 5:00AM so I guess that's improvement. We've been working on her sleeping schedule. When she was just 2 months old she began sleeping through the night. I mean, sleeping from 10PM until 9AM without waking. She did this until she was about 5 months old. We got used to that and got cocky. Then, teething started and all bets were off. We moved to New Haven when she was 7 months old and changed everything on her. New house (rental), new room, new bed (she'd been sleeping in our room in a play yard bassinet, not in her crib). Needless to say, she wasn't sleeping well. Not at all.  We'd put her to bed at 7PM, she'd wake at 8, then again at 10, 2, 4 and eventually get up at 6:30 or so.  Ugh. I can see why this is a younger person's game. In desperation I searched the web for help and found a book that seemed like it might help.  I found The Sleepeasy Solution, by Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack.  I'm not getting paid to promote the book, just letting people know that it helped us.  The "solution" is a modified version of cry-it-out.  Previously, we'd been running into her room every time she made a peep in the night.  That wasn't working.  I'd rocked her, shushed her, nursed her, let her sleep with us.  None of that was working.  The first night we implemented the new sleep routine she cried for an hour.  During which time we'd go in to check on her about every 10 minutes to make sure she was okay.  She fell asleep just about after that hour of crying.  And she slept all night!  I awoke in the morning and immediately panicked.  Something must be wrong, she didn't wake all night.  Nope.  She was fine and still sleeping.  We still have nights where she wakes up but it's not more than once and she drops right back off again.  She does sometimes wake up earlier than we'd like, but that seems to have to do with her nap schedule during the day.  We're working on her napping, too.

I thought I'd show what I made with the onion scapes from our CSA share once I got her to sleep.  The scapes were totally foreign to me.  First of all, they were huge.  The longest one was more than 2 ft. long. Some of them were quite thick and they were hollow.  If you don't know what they look like, check out my previous post about our CSA share. I cut the scapes into short segments and cooked them in a hot, cast iron skillet in a little sesame oil until they caramelized a bit.  I served them with the last of my homemade tofu and sliced shiitake mushrooms that we got at the farmers market.  I made a thin sauce with mirin and tamari and drizzled it over.  It was a nice and simple meal.  The scapes were mild and reminded me of leeks.  Caramelizing them brought out a nice sweetness in them.

The cut onion scapes and shiitakes

The finished dish-yum!