What Nursing Mothers Do At 5 AM:

I'm a nursing mother. That means there is a tube of Lanolin on my nightstand. There are nursing pads in my bathroom cabinet. I may never need a push-up bra ever again. I am familiar with every hour of the morning. My iPad plug has been moved from my nightstand and replaced by a monitor plug. There is a bottle of water around me usually at all times. I don't eat tomatoes....or bananas....or peanut butter...in fact even eggs are in debate right now. I make errands shorter so I can be home at feeding times--as much for my sake as baby's. Speaking of errands, it takes running out of toilet paper to finally convince me that the errand is worth my leaving the house.

It's true.

We did run out. Don't ask what we used until I made it to the store.

As much as my life has changed to revolve around baby and nursings, I absolutely love where I am in life. I LOVE holding a nursing boy while he rubs his eyes with his little hands. I love burping him on my chest and squealing over his loud results. *I know...I won't be squealing in two years....* I couldn't be happier.

After a few nights of sleeplessness, much out of the ordinary for our little man, I decided to change his sleeping schedule a little last night--yielding pleasant results. Rather than him being awake for nearly 3 hours at 1 am, he was awake for the same amount of time at 4 am! For an early rising country girl, I am much more awake and pleasant at 4 am than three hours earlier.

So what do nursing mothers do when their little boys wake up so early and don't go back to sleep?

We cry.

Not really.

Ok sometimes.

But then other times we decide to break out the flour, sugar, cranberry juice, and dried pomegranates to make our own little "scone" concoction. I had found a recipe I really wanted to try from Food Network's website called "Cranberry Orange Scones."

There were quite a few ingredients.

There were quite a few directions.

It's 5 am. I'm sleepy--not insane. There was too much thought required to read a recipe, follow directly, and I was going to have to make orange juice.

I decided to play by my own "rules."

Basically here is what I did:

I made biscuits. I added dried pomegranates. I baked them. Then, I topped them with a cranberry glaze...

HEAVENLY.

Here's my recipe:

Biscuits:
2 c. flour
1 TBSP. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. shortening
3/4 c. milk

Mix dry ingredients and then cut in shortening until it resembles coarse crumbs. Mixture will be very "flour-y." Yes, I just made up that word. Add the milk and mix.

Throw in a handful of dried pomegranates because you really don't have dried cranberries like you thought.

Take the dough and knead it out on a flour-y floured surface just until it is smoothe. Pat it out and cut it with a biscuit cutter.

Bake at 450 until golden brown.

This picture needs natural lighting

Glaze:
Confectioners sugar
Cranberry juice

I have no measurements for you on this one. I did it all in my sleep. Basically, you put in roughly 1/2-3/4 cup of sugar and about 4 TBSP of juice to start. Then, you alternate them until you reach desired consistency.

Once baked biscuits cool, drizzle glaze over them.

And drool over them

And then realize you have leftover polish next to your overgrown cuticle.

Then demolish that bad boy...or two...and wish you had natural light at 5 am.

I hope you give these a try! It was a wonderful kick-start to our morning and I will be doing these again.