This morning Sweet Pea and I attempted to make blueberry muffins. He did a good job mixing them all together, but the oven did not do a good job cooking them. We did eat a few when they were done, but something just didn’t taste right. Ah well.

Also my good friend Aimee was shopping at a thrift store today and she found this awesome Lightning McQueen jacket. She knows how much Sweet Pea loves the movie Cars so she got it for him. When we were putting it on he insisted on wearing it so he could see Lightning McQueen. He does not mind at all the hood in the front. He actually used it to play peek-a-boo. Kids…they are awesome!

When Peanut was two days old we took her to her first doctor visit for a check up. I am breastfeeding so the doctor asked me if my milk had come in. I told her it hadn’t and she responded by telling me that I needed to supplement the baby with formula until my milk came in to make sure that she was getting enough nutrition and then proceeded to give us some cans of formula. And if you know anything about breastfeeding you know what a terrible idea that is. If you want your milk to come in faster you need the baby to nurse as much as possible. And it’s not like the baby is just drinking air until the milk comes in, they are drinking colostrum.

Anyways, Charles and I just looked at each other, said thanks, and left taking the formula with us. We knew that we would never use it but we couldn’t bring ourselves to throw it away (oh and we switched doctors….we can’t have a doctor that knows nothing about breastfeeding!!). So my aunt came up with this pancake recipe!

1 1/2 cups flour

1 3/4 t baking powder

3T sugar

whisk above dry ingredients and them mix seperately:

1 1/4 cup water with 3-4 scoops of formula

1 egg

Melt 3 T butter in the pan you will use to cook the pancakes. Whisk the melted butter into the formula and eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir.

Make your pancakes!

Sweet Pea and I made them this morning and the were yummy!!

Earlier this year we used our topsy turvy tomato planter for the first time. I wasn’t sure if it would produce any tomatoes, but last week we looked outside and found one! Now there are three! We are waiting for them to ripen so we can eat them.

That’s right everybody. My son is a picky eater. Before I had Sweet Pea, I was convinced that if you had a picky eater it was your fault. Yup. You must be doing something wrong or giving in to soon if your child will not eat what you make for dinner. I will not completely give up this ideal because to often I have seen parents give in and make four separate meals so each child will be happy. But now I do understand for some kids it is their personality.

For his whole 23 months of life he has been weary of putting things in his mouth. In a way it has been nice because I have never been overly worried about him choking on something he picked up off the living room floor. But on the other hand it is like pulling teeth trying to get him to eat anything.

And believe me I have tried everything all books recommend. We don’t buy sweets. In fact, he has had only one cookie in his life and never had cake or ice cream. This way not only is he healthier, but he never constantly complains about only wanting ice cream for dinner. We don’t buy the junk food we know he likes, such as chips, because again we don’t want him to be constantly asking for them.

I have also tried telling him he just won’t eat if he doesn’t eat what I make. And let me tell you what a disaster that was. Most kids would choose to skip one meal before deciding to at least try what mom puts on the plate. But not Sweet Pea. For two days he ate nothing but the oatmeal for breakfast and milk after dinner. And looking back I don’t think he was trying to be defiant. He was and is weary of putting something new or strange in his mouth. Needless to say for health reasons I couldn’t go on doing that. So the groove we have gotten into the past few months is part of our meal is something that I know he likes and the other part may or may not be new to him. And it has worked really well. He gets some good nutrition in his tummy, and he gets used to the sight of new foods.

I have learned that my anger or impatience over this issue will not solve anything. It can be very frustrating when we go to someone’s house or out to eat for dinner. But getting mad at him will not help. I have to be very patient and work with him, not against him. I think with any issue we have with our kids forcing them to do something will never help. If I force Sweet Pea to try something it only makes him anxious and upset. And then we have just taken two huge steps backwards.

Well I write all this to say yesterday we had a victory! My hubby was eating his chicken for dinner and Sweet Pea asked for some. This isn’t very shocking. He is always asking for our food but then just puts it right back on the plate. But last night he actually ate it! And then asked for more! I feel like our patience on the matter is finally paying off. For some reason, he felt secure enough to take a big bite and try it. Hopefully there are more days like this to come. It will definitely expand what we eat at dinner.

One of the things we are most proud of is Sweet Pea’s diet. With so many unhealthy choices out there it can be so easy to fall into going a full day eating sweets and only stuff from cans and packages. And if you knew us before we had Sweet Pea, you would know that all we ate was frozen dinners and McDonald’s. Ok…that is an exaggeration. But you get the picture. Going from that to actually preparing fresh, healthy food is a challenge.

And along with eating healthy food comes eating no sweets. Well…yesterday I had the urge to bake cookies and I indulged myself for the first time since before Sweet Pea was born. And they were good. So good that both hubby and I have been eating them nonstop. They are just sitting on a plate on the counter and as we walk by we grab one and eat it.

This afternoon the three of us were playing in the living room. All of a sudden Sweet Pea jumps up and runs off into the kitchen. He comes back in with this huge grin on his face and a cookie in his hand! If you need a sign that your children are growing up, here is one: they can reach the kitchen counter while standing on their tip toes. So we let him eat and he loved it! Needless to say, I will not be baking more cookies any time soon. They are much too loved in this household.

If you are in the mood for a fantastic animal stew I know just the place you can go. Sweet Pea’s kitchen! He adds just the right amount of puzzle pieces and slobber to the mix and it tastes fabulous. Care to join us for some stew?

I love fresh squeezed orange juice. It tastes nothing like what comes in the bottle from the store. In fact, it is ten times better! And because it is fresh with no preservatives it is much healthier.  The only sad part is we hardly ever get to make any. Because fresh fruit cost so much, we limit ourselves to one piece per day. Not really conducive to drinking a cup of fresh squeezed OJ everyday.

It was such a great surprise when hubby came back from the store last night with a whole bag of oranges!! The store was trying to get rid of them, so they bagged them up and were selling them for $1.50/bag! So this afternoon Sweet Pea and I got out the juicer and started squeezing oranges.

Four oranges and fifteen minutes later we had ourselves a small cup of OJ. You can see how this could get expensive. For each of us to have a small cup everyday we would need 12 oranges daily! Not really doable. So it was such a treat to have this cup. Sweet Pea tried it and didn’t really like it. I think it was to tangy for him.

Hopefully the store will have the oranges on sale more often to we can have a wonderful treat!

This morning I decided it was time for a treat so we made pancakes! I mixed everything together while sitting on the kitchen floor so that Sweet Pea could help me out. We made the pancakes a little later than we would normally have breakfast so Sweet Pea needed something to distract him from his hunger. Helping me out was the perfect solution!

Here Sweet Pea is investigating what is in the bowl:

Here he is excited to show off what we are making:

Here he is helping stir the batter (note how most of it drips onto the floor):

Enjoying the fruits of our labor aka stuffing our face:

The bite from the previous picture is all in his cheeks:

We don’t really do desserts at our house. Not because we don’t like them but because we are really trying to make sure that Sweet Pea grows up as healthy as he can. We are really proud that in his fourteen months of life he has not taken one bite of cake or ice cream. We figure there is plenty of time for all of that when he is older and actually knows what he is eating.

That being said, we have to be a little more creative when coming up with sweet things for dessert. Today Elmo decided that before bed we were going to have smoothies. This is a very sweet treat and is a good way to get fruit in the diet if you are lacking that day.

In today’s smoothie:

• peaches
• bananas
• milk
• ice
• mixed berry yogurt

We just throw all the ingredients into our magic bullet and we get a smoothie! Sweet Pea loves them and giggles whenever we get the magic bullet out to make one!