A Taste

Now that Connor is almost full-time eating what we eat for dinner, I find myself loading up the dishwasher way more than I'm accustomed to.  It seems like a pretty simple cause-and-effect formula, right?  Not quite.  You see, now that Connor is eating "human food," I've become more conscious of what we eat for dinner.  I'm not gung-ho about going organic or not eating gluten nor do I apply any other type of dietary constraint to our diets, but I do want to cook healthily and cooking for Connor has highlighted how not-as-healthily-as-I'd-like-to we eat.  Essentially, I imagine our diet consisting of boxes of mac and cheese and cans of meat (yes, meat in cans) with the only vegetable being the diced potato in the corned beef hash.

So, my crusade du jour is cooking healthy meals for the whole family.  I know there are volumes upon volumes of books devoted to this thing that I've come upon as if I'm the only person who's ever had this problem, but I enjoy reinventing the wheel.  Or at least inventing my version of it.  All of that leads to buying more fruits and vegetables which lends itself to more meal prep which means that I'm using the cutting board and storing more things in the fridge, the plastic containers and cutting boards which fill up the dishwasher daily.  Totally worth it.  Totally a pain in the butt.

Big boy

Now that he's tasted the independence of feeding himself 'Rad is less than thrilled when he has to be fed, and the kid likes to eat.  Regardless of what I send with him for lunch, Amy inevitably tells me that she shared her breakfast/snack/lunch with him because he was whining for it.  It feels like having to guess how many marbles will fit in a jar without knowing how big the jar is.  Blueberries, cut veggies, mini-bagels, formula - the kid somehow fits all of that in his pint-sized belly and still clamors for more.  I don't call him beastie for nothing.

This weekend we learned the power of adult-sized sports balls over 'Rad.  He was mesmerized by a full-size basketball at a friend's house yesterday.  He would chase it around the room, bang on it like a drum, and only sit contentedly when it was around.  This afternoon, our neighbor's son caught Connor's attention with a soccer ball, which he chased around a wagon containing their youngest son, banged on it like a drum, and which brought him so much joy that he couldn't stop smiling his gummy, squinty grin while bouncing up and down on his knees.

This weekend we also tested our resolve when it comes to nap time.  'Rad is usually good for one nap, but then he fights the other like it's trying to drown him.  Today, he chose his morning nap as the one to fight, no-teeth and nail.  He cried, stood up in his crib, and we would lay him back down.  He would cry, sit up in his crib, and we would lay him back down.  And so on and so forth for an hour.  That might not sound like a long time, but usually after 20-30 minutes we're exhaustedly pulling him out of the crib and giving up on the hope of that morning or afternoon nap ever happening.  But we decided to boot camp his ass, and I sat on my hands, paced the room, and tried to otherwise occupy (between going back to his room to lay him back down) myself until the crying finally stopped and he took an awesome 1.5 hour nap.  This afternoon we had to check on him just a few times before he napped.  And get this, we had to wake him up after a 2-hour nap.  I know, I'm in shock, too.  And although I feared that he would no longer love me after having let him cry it out for so long, we were just fine.  All of us.

Here is the love