resolved!

I recently posted about our daycare conundrum.  It got a little better in that Vicki Jo didn't scream and shriek when I dropped her off anymore.  But she still wasn't napping.  I mean, I would go to get her and she would have been awake for literally the entire eight hours (they log naps).  She couldn't stay awake in the car on the way home and once we got inside she just kept pointing at her bed.  It was getting so she couldn't stay awake through supper and her bath.  The evenings were a miserable downhill slide, devolving into her screaming and clutching me as I tried to make supper as quickly as possible.


We had to make a change.

As I said before:  this was no shortcoming on the part of the center.  I am proud of the childcare we offer at our church, and the opportunity it provides for so many kids to be loved and cared for.  It was just a bad match with the particular temperament of our child.  She needs a calm, quiet, darkened, peaceful environment to sleep.  She always has, and it was foolish of me to expect that she would just adapt to a room full of children and be able to nap there.  Luckily, we have options.

We figured out a way that Vicki Jo can be with a loving family member in a home setting each day of the week.  Jeff has Mondays,

Jeff's mom has Tuesdays (and frequently goes to visit her own mother on that day, so Vicki gets to see her great-grandmother a lot),

I have Wednesdays, Jeff's grandaddy's caretaker Cherlinda takes Thursdays (she is practically a family member at this point - an amazing woman), and Jeff's Memaw has her Fridays (so she sees her other great-grandma a lot too!).

Today is her last day in daycare.  Not only is this a huge cost savings for our family (full-time daycare in Nashville can run you 700 - 1000 dollars per month, depending on the age of your child), but Vicki gets to grow up in a nexus of extended family that reminds her of who she is and how many people are invested in her future.

One of the big reasons we decided to make a move back to Nashville was because we had a deeper network of support here.  The ability to find a place for our child where she will be lovingly cared for and allowed to develop with one-on-one attention is a phenomenal example of that support.  All of our families have problems.  As a pastor, I get to hear the history, the ups and downs, of many different families.  Even the ones that look perfect (especially the ones that look perfect) hide grief, sorrow, hardship, and brokenness.  Our families are no different.  But there is a lot of love and a lot of commitment.  You can't ask for much more than that.

ginger bug

My last fermented beverage success story gave me a lot of courage.  I have been continuously brewing kombucha from that SCOBY since I posted my method.  (Edit:  I had been, until just before we moved to Nashville, and I let my mother go dormant.  Fruit flies got into it, and I had to throw it out!  But I made another one in no time with the same method as before, and it is back to churning out the booch!)  It is delicious, helps my digestion, gives me energy, is fizzy and refreshing, and just generally makes me feel good.  Good knowing I made it, I know what's in it, and it's not toxic crap like I used to consume daily (i.e. Diet Coke). 

So I decided to give it another go.  I finally got my hands on a copy of Nourishing Traditions and saw a whole section on ginger bugs and homemade sodas.  It turns out that the reason sodas were originally served in pharmacies was because they were actually considered to be medicinal!  Before the advent of artificial carbonation, carbon dioxide could only be created in beverages through yeast eating sugar (this is still the case for all beer - the yeast eating the sugar also produces the alcohol, in that case).  The yeast produces all kinds of positive stuff as a by-product of eating the sugar.  B vitamins, probiotics, C vitamins (depending on what you put in as flavoring).  Healthy things.  No wonder these sodas were considered medicine!  I guess they could more accurately be called "health tonics."  And the sugar - the negative part - gets eaten up!  It's like magic.  I love watching these things come alive in my kitchen. 

Making a ginger bug was ridiculously easy.  Buy a big piece of ginger root and some white sugar.  If you don't have a water filter, buy some filtered water.  Put a cup of filtered water in a quart-size mason jar.  Dice or grate 2 tablespoons of ginger (you could peel it if you want, but why?  Plus I've heard that the spores on the skin culture the bug faster) and dump in the water.  Add 2 tablespoons of sugar.  Stir, cover with a cheesecloth or tea towel, and secure with a rubber band.  Put it somewhere warm and dark and leave it alone.  Every day for the next week, feed it with another 2 tablespoons of ginger and 2 tablespoons of sugar and stir.  By the end of the week, it should be bubbling vigorously, smell potently of ginger (if it smells foul, something went wrong - pour it out and start over), and have a film of white on the bottom of the jar (spent yeast cells). 

Now you have your soda starter ready to go!  The idea is very similar to a sourdough starter.  You have a culture that you keep at the ready, and then you use a bit of that culture to brew each batch of soda, just like you use a bit of sourdough starter to leaven each loaf of bread.

You can flavor it however you like.  The rule is 1/4 C sugar to 1 quart filtered water.  This time around, I put the water and sugar in a saucepan and added a chopped lime and 1/2 C blueberries.  I let it boil for a little bit, then cool to room temperature.  Then I strained it into a quart-size mason jar, added 1/2 C strained ginger bug, and capped it tightly.  

(Didn't get a picture.  Phooey.)


In a day or two, I started to see bubbles forming and the color of the soda (it had been dark purple) lightened.  I "burped" the jar each day to release excess carbon dioxide and let it ferment about three days.  I tasted it to be sure, and it was delicious.  Dry, crisp, bubbly, gingery, citrusy.  I put the jar in the fridge and we've been enjoying a soda we can feel really good about.  I let the baby drink out of my glass with absolutely no guilt!

(Do take care when you open the jars, as they might fizz over just like a bottle of soda pop.)