31 days of 2012 - Day 7

Athens, Greece. April 2012. In the market at the base of the Acropolis.

See more from our Greece trip. See what else we found in the market!

31 days of 2012 - Day 6

Kalogria, Greece. April 2012.

aww Honey Honey

I had a guest post over on SuperNOVAmommy about letting the small stuff go as a parent. One of the things I listed was the fact my daughter had been fed honey in Greece and people completely flipped out over it.

The whole point of the post was to share some occasions that parenting didn't go exactly as planned. I'm 100% sure that if you have a child, this has happened to you. I'm also 100% sure that if you are a parent you've judged another parent on these occasions.

I'm not here to say judging is wrong because it's natural and it happens. I'm judging you right now. I probably think your shoes are ugly and that obviously makes you a horrible person.

When Zoe is attached to one of those baby leashes because she runs away from me and I can't chase her because I have MS - people are going to judge me so hard their brains explode.

If I were healthy, we wouldn't need one of those. But I rather have a living child than a pancake, so I will be happy with the other 99 decisions I made the past week and tolerate this one. People won't know all the thought that went into making this decision. They will only "know" that I am a horrible person and leashes are for dogs, and the baby store should have never sold me that baby.

But back to botulism! Oh, we weren't talking about botulism? We are now.

We're pretty conscientious, knowledgeable, educated parents. I would even say we are sciency - that's right.

We are a made up word.

Sciency.

My husband is a science teacher and I have a doctorate in a medical profession. We are of a scientific nature. We care about scientific things. We like to read scientific facts and research before we go freaking out over something. Fine, whatever. We are nerds. Which is why I have to talk about this botulism thing.

Some people are bothered that I let Zoe eat honey. For those of you who haven't recently had a baby, honey is now on the no fly list before the age of 1.  

FACT: There is a disease called botulism

FACT: It is caused by a spore-forming organism (Clostridium botulinum) that is commonly found in nature


FACT: Most of the cases of infant botulism are caused from inhaling microscopic dust particles that carry the spores

• Parents do not like it when they can't do anything to prevent a disease from happening, so we have to keep going.

FACT: Honey can contain Clostridium botulinum
 
FACT: You don't have to feed your baby honey

Parents win! All they hear is, "honey will kill your baby."

There is something you can do to protect your child from this incredibly obscure, rarely fatal disease. Honey became the bad guy because it is a food substance that Clostridium botulinum has been traced to.

And on a personal note...

FACT: Clostridium botulinum has been found in honey from the United States, Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Japan, and Central America

FACT: Greece is not on the above list

FACT: Greek honey is delicious

So yes. If you are caring for an infant, you should probably avoid feeding them raw honey because it has occasionally been linked to a disease that rarely has any long term complications. Let's be serious about things. Is this something you should be horribly afraid of? Absolutely not. Your baby is more likely to be attacked by a pack of wolves.

Ok, that last part I made up. But, all other info is from the CDC, NIH, and Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention Program.

More fun facts for nerds!

• There are approximately 77 cases of infant botulism in the US a year

• They are most susceptible under 6 months of age

• Mean age of onset is 13 weeks, with a range from 1 to 63 weeks

• Honey has been the known cause of botulism in only 35 instances worldwide (the toxin of the spore in the infected individual matched the toxin in the ingested honey)

• Botulism rarely has any long-term side effects and death is an uncommon complication 

• Clostridium botulinum is heat-labile meaning it breaks down when heated to a certain temperature. Heating food with honey to a cooking temperature of 80°C/176°F for 10 minutes greatly decreases any risk.

 

Nafplio or Nafplion or something

So, Greek Week 2012 is coming to an end. Sad Face.

I leave you with one last gorgeous Greek city, which has been known by about 15 different names. We stopped in Nafplio on our way back from Stoupa and it was so worth it.

First we ate by the water. Which Yannos accidentally called the ocean and never heard the end of it.

We were all ready to hop back in the car, because the view by the water satisfied us.

  But, I had to eat some gelato. Yes, I said HAD. We turned the corner and found this.

The streets of Nafplio were beautiful. 

So we walked around for a while and saw the sites.

It was a perfect little side trip, and it wasn't until after we left that we found out that you could drive up to that awesome fortress and walk around. 

It's only an hour away from Athens, so I think a return trip is in order.

And that concludes Greek Week.

Beach Bum

Around the corner from Stoupa is Kalogria, which has a gorgeous beach. Not a bad place to have your first beach trip huh?

The view during the walk down to the beach

What is this stuff?! 

I think it's delicious

Some fun feet burying 

I think she liked it there

In the Streets of Greece

There are some odds and ends that I want to share with you guys.

First off. Greece has a no smoking policy. I don't know why they are even pretending to enforce this. Here is a shot from outside Kalamata.

Oh the irony. Like rain on your wedding day (not ironic, Alanis). Or orange trees that you can't eat the fruit off of. Athens is full of these trees.

I mean, every street is lined with them. They don't eat the fruit though. They do however use the fruit as projectiles during demonstrations. They say it is a cross between an orange and a lemon, but I'm confused about why that would be inedible.  Obviously, Zoe is too.

How many times are you walking down the street in America and stumble upon a nursing mother? Oh never? that's because America is weird. It was pretty sweet to sit down in the middle of a city square in Athens and nurse.

Something else you don't stumble across in America is Hitler art. Not that nursing in public and Hitler have anything in common. We were walking around after lunch and spotted this beauty.

It was tempting. I think it would add a lot to our living room.

Hitler apparently loved to wear fuchsia.

P52 Week 16 - Things That Grow

I'm not a fan of olives. The Greeks might disown me. I try them all the time and I never like them. I had an olive I liked for the first time in Greece. I'm pretty sure it helps that they are grown right there.
Olives grow.
As does my fondness for them.

On a Mountain Top High

The coolest thing we did in Greece was eat potato omelets.

Confused? Allow me to explain.

First we drove all the way up a mountain

Into this adorable little village

 

Watched the restaurant owner buy food for our meal from the truck that they get all of their produce from. He also had to go to his house to give us some olives and to get more eggs from his chickens. 

Then we ate the best food in the world

And met the town crazy who said he was Gestapo 

Played in the village square

Rescued a turtle from the treacherous mountain roads

And enjoyed this view on the way back down

See? The best thing we did in Greece was eat potato omelets.

An Ode to Grandparents

Our Greece trip was filled with a lot of amazing things, but one of my favorites was watching Zoe with her Grammie (my mom) and Pappou (Yannos's dad). We missed Yiayia (Yannos's mom) but she is required to come on the next trip. Actually, now I can't imagine going on a vacation without a grandparent around. It just added so much to the trip to watch them enjoy Zoe.

I was lucky enough to catch some great moments

And Myrto captured this silly moment

And some relaxing moments

Zoe and Grammie were enjoying this sweet view from our lunch spot

And it helps that our parents enjoy each other too!

Even though this is Greek Week and Yiayia wasn't in Greece with us. Here's a picture from Greek Easter. So it counts.

My baby kicked jet lag in the face

In the weeks before our trip to Greece, I heard multiple horror stories about how babies react to large time changes. I was prepared for the worst. A baby up for the day at 4am or not sleeping for the night until 1am or both. But Zoe was a champ. Well, first she only took four 45 minute naps on a 10 hour overnight flight and screamed every time we sat down. But then. Then she was a champ.

Here she is 6 hours after we landed. I don't understand how she was A: functioning and B: happy.

We were at a bouzouki place and it was all sorts of awesome. The music was phenomenal and the food was incredible.

The bass player was just as concerned with smoking as he was about the music.

We liked his technique of holding the cigarette.

One thing that made the 7 hour time difference a little more manageable was how late meals are in Greece. We were eating lunch at 4pm on this day. Dinner was often around 10pm. Since Zoe normally has dinner around 6pm, it was kind of like a 3 hour difference instead of 7.

My main goal was to let her sleep whenever she had the opportunity to.

A nap on daddy in the ergo

So even though she normally takes 2 naps at home, some days in Greece she took 4. Overall she was getting about 2/3 of the total sleep that she normally does. Considering that, she did a pretty fantastic job. 

I wasn't so complimentary when she cried from midnight until 5am one night, but that had more to do with the food upsetting her than the time change.

Photo Formula

Here is how you take a picture in Greece...

1. Find flowers

2. Set your aperture so the background is all fuzzy

3. Take picture

4. Repeat one million times

I need help.