you call this a meal?

I am amazed. Amazed at the random crap I can put onto a plate and call a meal for my child. I'm trying to recall her last few meals. Here's a sample of the kind of "meals" I've been feeding her. Breakfast is the same everyday: handful of Cheerios, one banana, and either a cinnamon nutri-grain waffle or a piece of whole wheat toast. Some of this week's lunches: whole wheat cheese quesadilla and grapes; diced cheese, diced chicken, and Cheerios; grated pear, toast, and green beans.

I usually try to incorporate at least part of our dinner into hers, so sometimes her dinners seem normal. Like last night's dinner. She and I ate the exact same meal. Baked chicken, whole wheat mac and cheese, and green peas. She's also been eating butternut squash this week. She loves squash. Almost as much as she loves eggplant. I feel like I've gotten into a rut with her meals, relying on the staples: steamed carrots, green beans, apples, pears, sweet potatoes, eggplant, squash, English peas. To try and bust out of the rut, I attempted lentil burgers for her this week, and she did not like them. (Not to mention the intestinal issues they caused the poor child.) Like Jayne's Ave, I have trouble with proteins for little bit. We don't eat a lot of meat, so I have to make sure that I'm feeding her enough protein. It would be easier if M ate beans and I could just throw those to her, but he doesn't. I've given her cooked lentils before, but they were hard to eat as they are so small. She likes smooshed chickpeas, but I'm trying to get her to like more things, so this week, I'm making her red beans. I hope she likes them.

I've also made a new list of things to try her on: blueberries, which I've been avoiding based on Toddler Tamer's warning about blueberry poopers, grape tomatoes, tofu, cantaloupe, asparagus, broccoli, and corn. I have another list of things that I'll have to wait until next summer for: mango, apricots, kiwi, and peaches (attempt #2). So, I'll keep trying to round out her diet...

Wish me luck.

Oh, and she has a new trick. (I say that like, "Watch how my dog can play dead.") If you start saying the first lines of one of her books, she'll go get that book and bring it back to you. It's really cute. It's especially cute when the book you're talking about isn't in plain sight and she has too actually look for it. I, of course, take this as another sign of her brilliance and future as a Rhodes Scholar. I mean, they'll go ahead and bestow that honor upon her based on her ability to recognize the cover of But Not the Hippopotamus, right? Good.

Have a great weekend, peeps.

FIVE SENSES FRIDAY
Sight: S giving Otis a hug, S wearing tights for the first time
Sound: Barenaked for the Holidays
Smell: cookies baking, melted chocolate
Taste: holiday goodies
Touch: flannel sheets, fluffy towels out of the dryer