June 26, 2008

A Few Things About Our Kids...

They love each other (hugging and kissing) and they antagonize each other (hair pulling and face smacking).

They have limitless reserves of energy. (Maybe we could harness it into fuel for the car?)

Rhiannon is a zombie when it comes to watching TV. (Someone could break in and she wouldn't notice.)

Brad will eat all day if you let him, but he is getting very picky with food lately. (His most intelligible word is more.)

Brad will not drink from a cup that is less than half full.

Rhiannon loves her "babies/darlings" and has started dressing and feeding Brad. (She also realizes now that babies are a lot of work. I snicker.)

Brad can shatter a glass with his screams, six states away.

Rhiannon is very matter of fact and down to earth, unless she is tired, then she's a raving lunatic.

Rhiannon is very independent and controlling, I guess like me.

Brad is destructive and mostly non-verbal, but is able to communicate exactly what he wants through a series of tazmanian devil-like grunts.

Brad will scream at Rhi at the end of his crib until she wakes up, then he smiles and laughs. She foolishly tries to reason with him into going back to sleep.

Brad sounds like a goat when he laughs.

Rhiannon hates to have her hair brushed but refuses to get it cut.









Lately my least favorite time of day is meal time, specifically dinner time. Rhiannon refuses to eat anything unless it's a hot dog, mac n cheese, or chicken nugget. I spend the entire meal begging, yelling, bribing and finally giving up. Brad usually eats what you put in front of him as long as it's wet. As a result, I have been drowning all of his food in applesauce, which also makes for a messier clean up. It is agony for all of us and puts such a damper on the end of the day when we should be enjoying each other's company and having nice conversation. (Or is that just on TV?) I have such anxiety over what to cook and I know that I am not alone. Jim and I are trying to eat more healthy, but I just wanted to give up on cooking dinner all together.

Last week I was in the library and I came across the Jessica Seinfeld cookbook, Deceptively Delicious. I remember seeing something about it on the news and I thought, what the hell...and I checked it out. Yesterday I pureed some cauliflower, sweet potato, and squash figuring I'd sneak them into our food. So far I am feeling a huge anxiety lift at meal times. I made the kids mac n cheese with squash mixed in an nobody was the wiser. Not even myself when I tasted it and I knew it was in there. Rhiannon also helped me make a banana bread with cauliflower mixed in and that lasted about 24 hrs! Today we had ramen noodles for lunch with sweet potato added to the broth. It tasted amazing. I could never eat them plain again. And did the kids eat it? Every last drop in their bowls. I would say success has been achieved!

So now can you picture it? I will be forever chained to my food processor mashing up whatever I can find that contains vitamins and minerals but cannot be tasted when added to regular food. It was a lot of work but I think in the end if it will make our one family meal together more enjoyable, it will be worth it.