Sweet Pork Salad & Avocado Dressing

So some exciting news! Sawyer rolled over for the first time this past week! On Friday, while he was swaddled in his crib he rolled over so it scared me that he wouldn't be able to roll back over without his arms. And that's when the sleepless weekend began... We've been trying here and there to get him to sleep without being swaddled or with one arm out but it's been pretty unsuccessful. Yesterday was no different. We kept him unswaddled when we put him down on Saturday night and he woke up twice in the middle of the night and once I just ended up feeding him just to get him to calm down. All day he just cried in his crib every time we laid him down and would not sleep! We tried the swing, the vibrating rocking chair, rocking him to sleep, walking and bouncing him.... Finally after dinner we just gave in and swaddled him and he was out! After doing some reading on the Baby Center website, I was finding other moms who had the same problem but many just decided to continue swaddling because the baby's moro/startle reflex had not gone away yet. That was the light bulb for me! Sawyer still has that reflex and does not have complete control of his arms yet so he just keeps waking himself up by flailing his arms. It worries me a little to swaddle him while he can roll over but usually once he's asleep he stays asleep and doesn't roll around unless he's awake or trying to fall asleep. I've just kept a good eye on him until he's asleep and I'll just keep doing that until we can start working on sleeping unswaddled again.

So, the moral of the story is, it's all about trial and error and it's ok to not know what to do all the time. I wish I could have avoided all those missed naps and sleepless nights over the past few days. I've recently found myself in this trap of getting down on myself up for silly mistakes I've made. But in giving this frustration to God, He reminded me that I've never been a mom and I've done the best I can with what I know. Brent and I joke that the next one has GOT to be easier!    

I'm so proud of my little roller! He is really doing amazing and has seemed to survive Mom & Dad's mistakes pretty well!

So crazy Sunday got much better after 1) Sawyer fell asleep and 2) we had this yummy sweet pork salad for dinner! If you've been to Cafe Rio, it's sort of like their sweet pork, but has a little different flavor. We use the sweet pork for tacos too sometimes but I found this avocado dressing from Allrecipes.com that I wanted to try out. It turned out sooooooo good! I had a plate-full and then went back for more! But it's salad right.....? Hope you enjoy this salad as much as I did!

Slow Cooker Sweet Pork

3 lbs. pork shoulder roast

1 can soda (root beer, coke or dr. pepper are best)

2 c. salsa

2 c. brown sugar (or less if you don't want it as sweet)

2 tbsp. taco seasoning (or about 1 packet)

7oz. can diced green chilies

Place pork in slow cooker and pour in soda. Combine the salsa, brown sugar, taco seasoning and chilies in a blender or food processor and blend/process until smooth. Pour salsa puree over pork and cook on low for 8 hours. (I like to shred the pork at about 7 hours and then let it sit in the juices for another hour to soak up more flavor.)  

Avocado Dressing

1/3 c. olive oil

1 clove garlic

3/4 c. cilantro (I didn't use the cilantro)

2 avocados, peeled, pits removed, cut into chunks

1 cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks

1 lemon juiced

salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend/process until pureed.

I used my magic bullet which worked well to puree the dressing. It turns out a pretty green color and was just the texture I was looking for to satisfy my craving for a ranch-like dressing!

Here's a picture of Brent's salad because I dug into mine too fast to even snap a picture!

Oh and we also used the first green pepper and tomato from our garden! They were super tiny but tasted great! I'm surprised by how much better food from the garden tastes than food from the store!