Category Archives: Food & Feeding
Sushi pizza
I was at the computer and happened to be looking at the pictures on the Wow Sushi page on Yelp. Owen came up and saw this picture and said “Wow! Pizza!!” I said No, it’s sushi—so he says “Ohhhhhhh!!! Sooooooshi!” 🙂
Stab and dunk!
I taught him a new way to eat his pancakes this morning—which would hopefully be less messy—and because he really needs to start eating more with utensils.
Grapes tomorrow!
Me: Owen, please eat your grapes.
Owen: No, I’m playing. I’ll eat them tomorrow.
(I’m just thrilled he eats them at all—it’s a new food he started eating on vacation.)
From utter frustration to melting heart in five minutes…
Look what happened when I left him alone for 10 minutes today…
SERIOUSLY?! UGH.
I told him I wasn’t happy because he made a mess—and that he shouldn’t take Katie’s clothes out of her drawers, but reasoning with a toddler is pointless at best. I also told him he had to help me pick it all up, so he handed me a few pieces and then he was done. 😐 I didn’t even have the energy to finish dealing with it right then…but he’ll definitely be helping me pick it all up later.
Of course, he followed it up with something super cute…but I was still fuming a bit over the mess.
And THEN he does something super sweet…Katie was crying so he grabbed the bottle and started to feed her.
Ahhh, life with a toddler. From utter frustration to melting heart in five minutes…
Owen at dinner
He was being the cutest copycat so I started recording…and of course he stopped. But he’s still cute.
Potty Break
Turnpike potty break…and ice cream break since the potty break was successful!
A chocolate mess!
Grandma Jean was making brownies and let Owen lick the spatula. We made him stay in the kitchen (no carpet) but he still managed to get chocolate on the sliding glass door, the floor, and of course himself.
Oh, to be that comfy.
Welcome to the real North!
I love this sight:
We were surprised at the amount of tree color in the U.P. considering it was only September 16.
After what seemed like a short 7½ hours (after two long nine-hour days, 7½ felt short), we made it up to the Upper Peninsula to see my dad’s new house…MAN, that’s a drive. (Here is our total one-way trip from North Carolina.)
See that tiny point? That’s where we were—Eagle Harbor. We joke it’s Alaska.
The view from the back deck—I have to admit it’s nice:
And Owen having a blast playing with cars out there:
And Papa meeting and feeding Katie for the first time…
I feel like a horrible mom.
OMG. Katie is driving me batshit crazy today. She is super cranky, screaming like she’s starving, but spits and sputters and won’t sit still to drink a bottle. Then she’ll drink for 10 seconds then spit it out. There are no burps in there and she’s in a clean diaper. Lather, rinse, repeat ALL DAY LONG.
And I know she’s not even being that bad…I just have a VERY low tolerance for this type of thing, and why I wasn’t sure about having another baby. If she ever gets colicky I won’t be able to handle it. Seriously.
I feel like a horrible mom. :'(
Are we really potty training? REALLY?!
So I was off getting my hair done and Virginia (our good friends’ kid who is now babysitting age! She was three when we met her!) was watching Katie, so Tom decided it was time to see if Owen would use the potty (especially after the success of peeing in the grass last night). I didn’t know this, of course, until I was out of the house, so it was a big surprise to me!
So I got a text and a photo of Owen standing in front of the toilet! The next text was “Success!” and a picture of Owen holding his reward—a new Cars car! The next text was a photo of the near miss (pee on the rug in front of the toilet). Then later a text saying Owen had earned a lot of cars! 88|
I tried not to get too hopeful, thinking it really couldn’t be this easy (though we had hoped that if we just waited long enough, it WOULD be this easy) but I admit to being excited.
When I came home, we celebrated by ordering pizza for dinner. And Owen kept peeing in the potty all night and earned more toys (it’s a good thing I have a backlog of toys ready for this occasion)! Here he is outside, waiting for the “pizza man.”
Of course, poop is going to be the bigger obstacle…but I have BIG (more wanted) toys ready for that—an Iron Man robot, a big school bus, and a bunch of Cars 2 cars—that he’s really excited about. Funny thing—the big toys are too big to set on top of the medicine cabinet, so I was just going to put them in his closet, right? Except he knew they were there and kept opening his closet to look at them. I figured that might not be conducive to him actually sleeping, so I put them in our room, but put one of them (Iron Man) in the bathroom on the top shelf above the toilet—but that didn’t last long as he climbed up on the toilet and reached up to touch it. I could only see that ending badly, so that one got moved as well. Hopefully they are enough incentive to get him to poop on the potty!
The only somewhat big (though minor) mishap was when I was putting Owen to bed. He was in bed, we read a story, and as I was getting up to tuck him in…I saw a poop nugget in the bed, smeared (I had obviously just been sitting on it). So…sometime during the day, he had pooped, and it apparently fell out of his underwear…and he never told us. Yes, poop is going to be the hardest part.
So, it looks like we’re potty training. And sticking close to the toilet all weekend. And watching him like a hawk!
GO OWEN!!
Even the mighty Thor needs a snack.
Yes, he asked to wear the costume already this morning. And of course he’s watching his favorite Avengers movie. 🙂
Most challenging day-with-a-newborn yet.
I really wish I knew what made babies spit up. We just switched to a new formula, and it seems that she’s spitting up more. But it’s not all the time after every bottle which makes me think it can’t be the formula. (For example, at her 4 AM feeding she drank 5 ounces, didn’t burp, and went to sleep no problem. The bottle I’m giving her now, she drank an ounce and spit up. She drank two more ounces and spit up again. Same formula.) Sooo frustrating.
That said, I think today is my most challenging day-with-a-newborn day thus far. And I know it’s nothing even bad or rant-worthy because it could be soooooo much worse… But all morning it’s been eat, spit up, eat, nap for 5 min, screech, spit up, spit up, eat, spit up, 10m nap, screech, eat, spit up, lather rinse, repeat since 7a.
I think it’s just feeling worse because I got so little sleep last night (the least amount of overnight sleep I’ve gotten since she’s been home)—she didn’t fall asleep until after 11, was up at 3:30, and I didn’t fall back to sleep until around 5:30 (the last time I looked at the clock it was 5:20), then she was up screaming to eat at 7:15.
Man, I did/do NOT miss this. She’s been spoiling us (me) for sure…
Hanging on
Only one feeding a night…but I’m still tired.
I love that Katie has only ever needed one feeding a night…but it’s usually at 5a, which means after I get done pumping it’s about 6a…at which point it’s nearly impossible to fall asleep again (because 1. it’s getting light out and 2. I know I have to be up around 7-7:30 to get Owen up and hopefully shower before Katie wakes up).
If I just had Katie, I’d generally get to sleep in until 8 or 9…but alas that isn’t the case. 😐 So, since Katie usually doesn’t go to bed until midnight…I’m getting five hours of sleep (minus the two times I have to get up to pee). Which sounds like a decent amount of time, until afternoon rolls around and I can barely keep my eyes open.
So, I’m a different kind of tired this time around…
She finally woke up on her own!
We’ve been super super spoiled thus far, with Katie pretty much sleeping through the night since we brought her home!! (In this case, sleeping through the night = one feeding per night around 3-5a where we have to go in and wake her up.) Of course, instructions for newborns are to wake them up every 2-3 hours to eat, but I just couldn’t do that since she was sleeping SOOOO well. So, I conceded to wake her up that often DURING the day, but NOT at night. And things were going well. And then last night was the first night she actually woke up on her own! And then it was still only one feeding! Yay, Katie!
Executive decision & first bottle!
I tried my hardest to breastfeed again…but I had the same problems as I did with Owen (not a good latch, painful latching, super sore breasts, etc.) so I had been pumping and then we had been feeding Katie with a syringe while she sucked our finger (so she wouldn’t get spoiled by the bottle and would still be able to breastfeed)…but then after lots of thought, I just made the executive decision to give it up and just start pumping full time and feed her with a bottle. It also nicely coincided with my mom and Aunt Marge being here, so they could help feed her! Grandma Jean got the honor of giving her the first bottle!
Cake face!
It’s not all sunshine and cotton candy…
I am so fed up with Owen and his non-eating habits. I try so hard not to let it bother me but some days I just want to scream.
Tonight we had Bulgogi—marinated flank steak. We’ve had it before and he LOVED it (granted, it was probably 1.5-2 years ago when he might still try new things) so we wanted him to try it again and he just flat out refuses. Shakes his head no, waves his hands in front of his face, growls NOOO at us…the whole nine yards. We used to be able to bribe him with a treat if he tried something and that doesn’t even work anymore. :**:
I’ve read all the things that are supposed to work and they don’t:
- I put some [of whatever] on his plate with his other food…and he just ignores it.
- I put out the same food (or just offer it) over and over and over and over in case it takes 20 times. He never tries it.
- I can’t be sneaky and hide food in what he eats…because he eats nothing I can hide other stuff in (like mashed potatoes or Mac and cheese or meatballs or hamburgers or spaghetti).
- I can’t fool him with toppings hid on pizza under cheese–he takes them off.
- He notices smashed fruit in his yogurt and won’t eat it.
- He didn’t even like the strawberry freezer jam I made—which had nothing hiding, it was just different.
I’ve pretty much given up reading articles on the subject because every one ends up being completely laughable to me.
I keep telling myself he’ll grow out of it, but it’s been so long already with no change in sight (and it’s actually gotten worse!) that I really have no hope. I keep thinking he’ll better understand compromise or bargaining as he gets older, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue.
Tonight we eventually told him there would be no iPad until he tried a new food…and that didn’t even work. And he LIVES for the iPad. Then I feel guilty for doing that…but I feel we have to try all sorts of options. But now I can’t give him the iPad because I cant give in. I expect tantrums.
In my pissed off moments I want to try the giving-him-only-what-we’re-eating thing again, as a take it or leave it meal…but then I feel guilty even thinking about doing that because what if he really does have some major issue with food that we just haven’t figured out yet?
Being pregnant and super emotional doesn’t help any of this, either.
I am just sooooo tired of dealing with this. Yes, I know it could STILL be worse, but as I said, there are just days when it overwhelms me.
Picnic!
Whenever Owen (or both of us) have a snack in the bed, he says “Picnic!”
First cone in the car!
Today was the first time we let Owen eat an ice cream cone in the car…and he did amazing! Not one mess at all!
Volcano Take 2 & Owen’s first s’more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zipn1Pmmqlw
Watching the volcano.
Attempting to roast a marshmallow. He looks close, but he was actually about two feet too far away. We kept trying to move his chair closer, but he kept dragging it back. I guess all our warnings of “FIRE! HOT! DANGEROUS! STAY BACK!” worked a little too well. 🙂
Investigating the still-cold marshmallow.
Where the marshmallow actually spent most of its time…
Daddy to the rescue!
When it finally came time to eat it, he was more interested in watching himself eat it than actually eating it.
Volcano, Take 1
Well, we were going to have a “volcano” (fire) tonight with s’mores (Owen keeps asking about marshmallows)…until Owen was eating a marshmallow and didn’t quite chew it fully before swallowing…so he half choked and ended up barfing all over Tom. So that was the end of the volcano (good thing Tom hadn’t started the fire yet) for the night.
Cool new bowl!
Thanks, Grandma Marsha—I love it!
Pop tarts!
YAY!! Owen likes pop tarts! Yeah, not the healthiest food, but at least it’s another food.
Pear surprise!
We had given Owen pear with his dinner, but after he ate, he saw the remainder of the pear on the counter, grabbed it, and started eating it! I’d tried to get him to eat it like that before, but he never did (he likes it cut up). Of course, he only ate a few bites and tried to eat the core…but it’s a start!
WIPE OFF!!
Someone was playing in the kitchen and came running out saying “Wipe off! Wipe off!” This is what I saw:
Then I went into the kitchen and saw he had pulled the tomatoes off the counter and they were all over the floor. It took me a day or so before I finally noticed and (cleaned) all the tomato seeds from floor to ceiling…
Frosting–and eating–the cupcakes!
Owen’s first time frosting cupcakes…wasn’t terribly messy. 🙂
Making cupcakes!
Owen had found our formula mixer (which is out since Tom uses it to mix his coffee) and then grabbed one of Tom’s coffee pods from the drawer and was putting the two together saying “Making cupcakes!” I’m not exactly sure where he got the idea of cupcakes, though somewhat recently I know he was watching something on Food Network with Tom about snacks… So I got the idea to actually make cupcakes.
I got it all set up and the hardest part was getting Owen to kneel on the chair at the counter—he wanted to sit (too low) or stand (too high and wobbly on our bar-height chairs) but we eventually got it worked out. First he helped me dump the measuring cup of water, oil, and eggs into the bowl (though I had to keep a hand on it so it didn’t all end up on the floor). The whole time (from now until the end) he just kept saying “Making cupcakes. Making cupcakes! Making cupcakes!”
Then he used the mixer, which he actually did pretty well with:
Then it was off to fill the cups. He helped me put all the liners in the pan, and then after I did the first tray of 12, he got to do this tray:
Still working on it:
The mess wasn’t too bad (none got on him, the chair, or the floor) so that was a bonus! And he had a blast!