Becoming Picky

If Harry could eat the same thing every day, I'm pretty sure this is what his menu would look like:

Breakfast: Yogurt, english muffin, fruit. A soy sausage every other day.

Lunch: Grilled cheese on wheat bread, fruit.

Dinner: Pasta with red sauce, peas, fruit.

I actually think he would gladly eat just yogurt and fruit (with no major preference regarding what fruit -- berries, pineapple, melon, banana, kiwi, peaches, pears, plums -- he loves them all, and more). I've started mixing veggie purees into his morning yogurt to try to get some more veggies into him. And he does eat other food (I try not to indulge the pickiness, which often results in very little dinner), but it's often a struggle.

For tomorrow's lunch at day care, I packed a veggie dog, some cheese cubes, some wax beans (which he won't eat for us, but maybe he will for her), some watermelon, and half a mini-bagel (which I may trade for an english muffin at the last minute, as he prefers the muffin, but it seems like a lot of food). Miss M provides lunch for the kids, but we pack Harry's -- they are all very picky toddlers, so they tend to do a lot of chicken nuggets and fries, pizza, grilled cheese, etc., and I'd rather avoid him eating that much fried food (and avoid him developing a taste for it).

He used to be such a great and adventurous eater (he tried parsnips and used to love beets). Are those days gone, or just on hiatus?

ETA: I spoke too soon. This morning, he rejected fruit too, only eating yogurt. The rest, as usual, was tossed to the floor, making Buddy very happy.

Table Food = Messy

First pizza, al fresco at Uno's (we forgot a bib, so Uno's offered us a disposable apron, which was essentially a trash bag, cut to cover Harry's whole torso):

Macaroni with sweet potato mush sauce:

Blueberry pancakes:

Pasta with red sauce (I can't look at this picture without laughing):

Anniversary, Apathy, Exhaustion: Catching Up

So I have had a bunch of posts that I've meant to, well, post, but haven't had time. So, in order to catch up, I'm just going to do a bulleted list of stuff, starting with the good and moving to the less good:

• P and I celebrated our four year anniversary last week (the 20th). Four years is the fruit & flowers (traditional) or appliances (modern) anniversary. So P sent me flowers and gave me a new air conditioner for our room (we had given ours to Harry). I sent him an edible arrangement (with the anniversary sampler added on) and got him a second guitar for Guitar Hero. Very romantic :) On Saturday, my SIL babysat, and P and I enjoyed a fantastic dinner out, then went to see Harry Potter at the IMAX. It was an awesome night -- wonderful meal, great movie, better company. Happy anniversary, P!
• Harry has begun table food in earnest. We have ordered him food off the kids menu at a couple of restaurants. It has been quite messy but fun. It seems he will eat anything with tomato sauce. And he loves blueberry pancakes.
• I find myself somewhat busy at work. I've been having a lot of trouble motivating lately (see next bullet), though, which isn't good. I have a lot more to say on this, but it's not really a bullet list kind of thing.
• Lately (like, since June), I've been feeling, well, not myself. I guess that's the best way to describe it. I've been feeling tired and run down and generally apathetic. I just don't care about much of anything. Most of the time, whatever I'm doing, I'd rather be doing something else. And beyond apathy, I am definitely feeling some degree of antipathy when it comes to work. I have waves of feeling differently, but they are infrequent and unpredictable. And I have been eating too much, in a very mindless way, and not healthy food, which makes me feel more run down and generally bad about myself. I had an appointment with my doctor last week (for a physical) and brought it up with her. She did a bunch of bloodwork to rule out any physical causes, and it all came back normal. Her best guess (and mine, I suppose) is depression. She recommended an anti-depressant. But the last time I tried one (in college), I had a very bad reaction to it (severe anxiety -- severe enough to land me in health services, where they doped me up on a boatload of sedatives). So I'm reluctant.
• My tiredness/run down-ness is not being helped by the fact that Harry has gone from being a great sleeper to being a mediocre (at best) one. After sleeping through the night since 10 weeks, we have now had several weeks of wake-ups. Some wake-ups are quick, others not so much. And he pulls himself to standing and will wail on and on, so we can't really just let him cry it out, though we may try some modified form of it tonight in the hope of finding something, anything, that might help. For an example of what we've been dealing with, on Tuesday I was working until about 1am. I then couldn't sleep. I finally fell asleep at 2 or so Within 5 minutes, Harry woke up screaming. When I went in there, his elbow was stuck in the bars of the crib (his actual elbow -- his hand and body were still inside, but his elbow was outside). I unstuck it and rubbed his back for a bit. He lifted his head up (which is generally an indication that he's about to sit, then stand), so I picked him up to settle him, but he was like a sack of potatoes. I put him back down a minute later. He moved around a little and fell back to sleep. This was one of the better nights. But I then had trouble getting back to sleep. So last night I decided to go to bed early-ish (10:30 or so), since I'd only slept 3 hours the night before. But Harry didn't like that plan. He woke up at 10:45, screaming. We let it go for a few minutes, but it got worse rather than better. P went in to rock him, but Harry continued to scream/cry for an hour or more, preventing me from sleeping. He finally calmed down, but wasn't sleepy. At 12:15, I took over, and after 15 minutes he was asleep. But he woke up when I tried to leave. By that point I was too tired to deal, so I turned off the monitor so I could sleep and let P take over again. Harry didn't fall asleep until 1:15. During the time he was awake, we tried Motrin and Orajel, in case it was teething. P gave him a bottle, in case it was hunger. He had a few farts, but not enough for me to think it was gas. He's pooped a bunch lately, so it's not constipation (though the poops have been wetter than usual, but not so wet as to make me worry about a bug). P thinks it's developmental, relating to an approaching language development, since he tends to spend his settled-but-not-sleepy time "talking." (He says "duck" and "book" (and other things, but mainly those two) over and over, pointing at any number of things, most of which are neither ducks nor books.) I'm nearing a breaking point.

And that's all I have to say about those things for now. Advice and/or assvice on any of those topics is welcome.

The Requisite Solids Post

So, we started Harry on solids when he was 5 months old-ish. After a bit of trial and error, we discovered that he's more into lunch than breakfast. It turns out the with only 90-120 minutes between waking and a desperate need for a first nap (and a need to nurse upon waking for the day) it was tough to find a time late enough that he was hungry again but early enough that he wasn't too tired. So for a month now he's been having lunch.

The boy seems to like solids. I've read that most babies take 5-9 tries to decide whether they like a food or not, but Harry seems rather opinionated right off the bat.

Rice cereal? Good. Oatmeal? Also good. Butternut squash? Yummy. Sweet potatoes? Fantastic.
Green peas? Perfectly tasty. (He actually likes them far more than this photo indicates.) Carrots? Awesomest food ever. Green beans? Um, not so much. Apparently, the smell is gross:
And so is the taste:

And so is the aftertaste:
These were from an early try. By now, the mere smell of them approaching his face causes him to purse his lips and shake his head. If I mix them in a 1:2 ratio with sweet potatoes, he'll eat them. As the ratio approaches 1:1, the eating becomes more begrudging, turning to refusal. I'll keep offering them every now and again (if for no other reason than because watching his reaction is hysterical) but they may be a no-go.

(And, yes, we own more than one bib. But somehow almost all the firsts ended up being in the same one. Easy enough, since we can rinse and reuse it. Big fan of the bib.)

Now, questions, for anyone who has any info (we'll ask these questions of the pedi as well).

• When should we start giving him a second meal? A third?
  
• And how much should he be eating at each meal (and/or overall), as far as solids go? Right now, he gets 2 tablespoons of cereal (mixed with 5-6 tablespoons of breastmilk), followed by 4 tablespoons of vegetable (about 2 ounces). (He'll have his first fruit tomorrow -- I think I'll start with bananas.) I'm pretty sure he'd gladly eat more if offered more. With carrots, he tends to get more, since he bangs on the tray of his high chair when they run out. (I hope this isn't a sign that he prefers the jarred food -- carrots are the only veggie I bought rather than made, just because I couldn't find nitrate-free carrots at the grocery store.)
  
• When can/should we introduce finger foods?
• Should he be having water post-meal? We haven't given him any, since most of our friends didn't this early, but the Super Baby Foods book seems to think it's essential.
  

Self-Care and Other Fun Stuff

This post has been a long time coming. When P and I got engaged, I weighed ~60 pounds less than I do now. When we started trying to conceive, I was ~45 pounds less. When the first pregnancy ended, I was ~35 pounds less. When I got pregnant with Harry, I was ~25 pounds lighter. At my six week post-partum visit, I was 15 pounds lighter. Yeah, you read that right. I've regained 15 pounds. While breastfeeding.

I do not look good. I never had cellulite before, but I have it now. I don't fit into my clothes. I used to be fit and athletic, but now I am out of shape. I am not modeling a healthy way of living for my son. And it's part of a larger problem. I haven't plucked so much as a single eyebrow hair since Harry was born. In that time, I've put on makeup once, and it was last weekend. I've had two haircuts since July 2007.

P fairly recently installed iLife 09 on his computer and spent some time using the facial recognition feature. I watched as he went through hundreds of photos from our collection and from my father's, many of which were of me at various points throughout my life. And it was really hard. Because even the ones taken during periods in which I thought myself fat or unkempt or otherwise unappealing looked great compared with how I look now. And I'm honestly not sure what happened. I could come up with a thousand intellectual/emotional/physical explanations, but they'd just be conjecture. I really don't know.

What I do know is that I need to do something about this. About my body, my hair, my general level of self-care. So...

• Last month, I started using our WiiFit to get some exercise. It's incredibly hard to find the time to get any exercise, and it's only going to get worse when I go back to work. That said, I need to do what I can to make the effort. Even just once a week is better than never.
  
• Inspired by Manda, I joined Weight Watchers last week. Aside from an overindulgence in pizza when my brother was visiting last night (followed by a chaser of granola bar-type foods), it's been going okay. I picked up some fruit and veggies at the store today, which should make it easier, as I was trying to change my diet without altering the contents of the fridge. It's going to be hard to stick to a diet, since P will continue to buy and eat foods I just can't if I want to take this weight off (and I don't want him to feel like he has to make changes in his life, though I wish he'd stop asking me if I want -- or bought, when I go to the store -- foods that aren't good for me). The reality is that he and I have very different relationships with food, relationships that are embarrassingly in line with what is expected based on our biology. And I don't think he gets that it's not as simple as 'just don't eat so damn much.' Even though it is. It's just hard.
• I am getting my hair cut and my brows waxed tomorrow. I'm part of a large mom group (500+ moms in the Boston area) that is run through meetup.com. One of the recurring events lately has been women taking turns hosting a stylist (also a member). Five-ish moms sign up, and everyone shares in watching the kids while each woman gets a haircut. The stylist also does waxing. You pay for whatever services you get. I'm going tomorrow.

Really, though? I need to change my attitude. Intellectually, I know this. But I'm still struggling. And it's a self-perpetuating problem as well. I don't feel great about myself, so I don't take good care of myself, so I feel worse, so I take worse care. And it's spilling over into my sense of self more generally. And P doesn't say much one way or the other. I get neither reassurance nor criticism from him when it comes to my appearance (or anything else, for that matter). I'd say our relalionship has changed a lot since Harry, and it has, but not on that subject -- he hasn't really ever provided much feedback on my appearance (or the contributions I make to the household, unless it's to criticize my many failings). But I suppose that ties into a variety of other things that are really another topic entirely. (Not that I'm bitter or anything :)

In short, I need to break the cycle. I'd like to feel healthy again. I'm never going to weigh what I did when we got engaged again, but I could and should get back to what I weighed two years ago. To that end, there's a ticker in the sidebar. I encourage all of you to keep on me about this.

What We Bring To The Table

I have mentioned my lack of baking skill before. Due to a few missteps (the final one being an inadvertent use of twice the amount of butter called for in a cookie recipe), I had come to believe that it was something I would never be any good at.

Over the past year or so, though, I've been trying to improve in that area -- with some success. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm home now and feeling like I should be doing something productive with my days or what, but I've been baking a lot (and eating a lot of what I bake, which is another post entirely). Recently, I baked four pumpkin loaves. (Two were excellent, but something went wrong with the other two -- they failed to bake all the way through. I initially blamed the oven, but I'm wondering if the recipe I worked from had the wrong bake temp -- I may have instinctively set it to 350 when I baked them, which would have been the logical temp, whereas I told P to bake the other two at 300, which was what the recipe called for, even though it seemed too low to both of us.)

This week I baked the cookies pictured above. P wanted plain toffee cookies, which sounded really boring to me. And I had trouble finding a recipe for plain toffee -- they all had oatmeal or nuts or chocolate. I finally found one and baked them. But they seemed boring. So I made one sheet of plain toffee, but then added chocolate chips to the remaining dough. I then made a sheet of those. I still had enough dough left for a dozen more cookies, so I added chopped walnuts. Needless-to-say, P preferred the ones with the nuts and the chocolate chips.

My MIL and her husband, as well as Ps grandfather, enjoyed all three kinds when they came that night to see Harry. After previously being told that we didn't need to bring anything to Thanksgiving, my MIL called after trying the cookies to ask if we could make the sweet potato casserole. And some cookies. Did I just need to prove myself?

Ritual

So, 30 weeks seems surreal. And that's pretty much all I have to say about that.

Until I was ten or eleven, our family celebrated the Fourth of July the same way every year. We went to the fireworks in our town, arriving early in the day to stake out a good spot on the lawn. We loaded up the Scotch cooler (so called because it was plaid, not as any indication of its contents) with food and drinks and brought blankets to lounge on that we only used on the Fourth of July (even though they were plaid and wool, rather than All American) and a few chairs for adults. We ate cold fried chicken and watermelon because our family friends who we went with brought both, and my brother and I never had fried chicken except with them. I remember hot air balloons and frisbee games and finally being old enough to be allowed to walk around by ourselves and check out the festivities. Sometimes people came via parachute. And the fireworks always seemed amazing -- well worth the long walk back to the car and the slow crawl to get out of the parking lot.

After my family moved, we no longer had a Fourth of July ritual. We went back to Connecticut a few times, but never back to our old town, since the fireworks were for residents only. There are a lot of Fourths that I don't really remember at all, which makes me a little sad, since my memories of my childhood Fourths are so happy.

This year, I decided to do something vaguely festive. I baked an apple pie.

We brought it (still warm) to our friends' place, where we enjoyed the Boston fireworks from their roofdeck (though without the Pops, as the radio up there didn't get AM, which was too bad). I don't see pie on a roofdeck as a likely candidate for our new ritual, but figure it will likely be the last Fourth we have before we start thinking about starting such a new ritual, so pie on a roofdeck it was. I suspect that once we have kids who are old enough to appreciate it, we'll do the Esplanade in full force, spending the full day by the river, eating fried chicken and watermelon (and pie, perhaps). Maybe with family friends and a cooler with a nickname and special Fourth of July blankets. Though likely without a long walk to the car, since Boston fireworks aren't really car-friendly. And with an F-15 flyover rather than hot air balloons. But a ritual nonetheless.

A parting shot of the pie, which didn't look so pristine for long:

Reminiscences on Mothers Day

We had all the moms (my mom, my stepmom, and my mother in law, plus her husband), along with my brother, sister-in-law, and Ps sister over for dinner for Mother's Day. Dinner was good. We had fresh pasta with chicken and wild mushroom sauce and roasted asparagus. I am not a great cook, but I can hold my own. My mother is a terrible cook. We thought her cooking was fine when my parents were married, because it was what we ate every night (and we never went out). When my parents split up, my dad told us that we were done eating flavorless food. He started buying spices and mixing up the menu a bit. He's not a great cook either (his mixing up the menu included apple pancakes for dinner and canned chicken a la king), but his meals were better than chicken breast thrown under the broiler served with too large a portion of overcooked noodles, which was a typical meal before that.

My mother showed up already drunk, I would guess from mother's day brunch with my grandmother, since it's the only thing she did before coming over, as far as I know. Drunk enough that she was only allowed to drink water for the rest of the evening. She pretty much just sat like a lump on the couch until I went to the kitchen to cook, then she followed me and asked me inane, largely nonsensical questions (such as "are those recipes?" pointing at the cookbook open on the counter -- WTF?). I had to fight the urge to tell her to go away. Then when we sat to eat, she didn't seem to understand that I couldn't just suck it in to fit between her and the piece of furniture behind her (our dining room really isn't big enough for a luxurious dinner for 10, so it was a tight squeeze), so my stepmother kept having to pull my mother's chair out of the way with her in it, treating her like the lump she is when she gets like that. It was definitely nighttime mommy, which was disappointing. Especially disappointing because my mother always talks about how much she likes and wants to spend more time with my mother in law, who we desperately try to keep away from her to avoid the shame that comes from having a parent like her. Way to make me less afraid to let you into her presence.

Yesterday morning, P sent me to CVS to buy mother's day cards for all the moms. Buying a mother's day card for my mother is hard. The cards are all "you're the best" or "your amazingness showed me all the best things in life" or "I'm so glad I take after you." They don't make cards that say "Thanks for being a drunk and repeatedly crashing the family car and not coming home to read me a story like you promised. It taught me not to count on people which has kept me from being too disappointed in life." Or "Thanks for walking out on us on Christmas. It taught me not to expect too much from holidays." Not that I'd have the guts to give such a card if they made it, but it'd be nice if Hallmark acknowledged that some people have complicated relationships with their mothers.

Happy belated mother's day, everyone.

Feeling like a Hobbit

I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast at 7:30, which is not an uncommon breakfast for me. Normally this tides me over until 11, at which point I begin the countdown until it's an acceptable hour for lunch (that acceptable hour has gotten earlier and earlier lately. My high school had a lunch period at 11:20, which has apparently affected my judgment). Today, by 10, my stomach was growling, making second breakfast necessary. I'm currently working on a piece of whole grain toast and a yogurt.

Separately, I waited for P to leave for work this morning and pulled out the doppler. I found the heartbeat right away (as in within seconds), in the same spot as Monday, but with less of my own mixed in. DBTs are subsiding a bit. I also slept a lot better the last two nights, which is helping as well.

6w3d

I am so incredibly hungry all the time. I feel lousy if I don't eat every couple of hours, but not nauseated-lousy; it's more a faint-lousy. So very hungry. What is up with this? It's usually better later in the day/evening, by which time a mild nausea sets in, but from waking until midafternoon I feel like there isn't enough food in the world. Yesterday, I kept feeling like if I didn't have a cookie I was going to scream. I kept putting the cookie off. On my way out of the office, I remembered that the place in the lobby has 1/2 priced baked goods in the afternoon/evening. I had a cookie and a brownie (for $1.66!). And no dinner. This can't be good.

Comfort Zone

I tend to be wary of trying new things, food-wise. In part, this is due to the fact that I am often unsure whether any given new food has things I don't eat in it (I don't eat beef, pork, seafood/fish -- just turkey/chicken from the world of meats -- I've taken to calling it poultrytarianism). In other part, this is due to my father's lack of adventurousness. Tonight for dinner, we went to a Hungarian buffet, where there was a ton of unfamiliar food, but also Hungarian music and folk dancing, which was why I was willing to brave it.

It was quite awesome. And the food was great. I should do that more.

63, 64, 83: A Nice Evening

Last night, P suggested dinner out tonight at a restaurant we like. So tonight we went out.

For no special reason, P:

1. Suggested a date
2. Suggested the place
3. Paid
   

P did something that made me smile, and for that I said something nice to him.

Molten Chocolate Cake

I have always thought I was a terrible baker. This dates to when, five or six years ago, knowing my love of such desserts, a colleague gave me a recipe for a molten chocolate cake, and I decided to try the recipe that year for Valentine's Day. It was so terrible, P wouldn't even eat it to humor me. It tasted like something burnt, then stuck to the bottom of a radiator and left to gather dust and a metallic aftertaste. I have no idea where I went wrong.

I have been trying to become a better baker over the past few weeks. Since mid-October, I made a pie, far too many oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and a pumpkin coffee cake (which came out far too dry -- I may try it again soon). Tonight I tried that molten chocolate cake recipe again, making four little cakes. And they came out awesome. The top was just crisp enough, cracked with a yummy, chocolaty goo oozing out from within. P ate it with gusto, and without pity.

Baking

I haven't been able to successfully bake a bun in my metaphorical oven, but I baked a pie today in my literal one. I did a favor for an older relative last weekend that involved no real effort on my part, not expecting anything in return. I was therefore surprised and grateful when she gave me olive oil, cheddar cheese, and apples. I made a grilled cheese today with some of the cheese and decided to use some of the apples to make a pie.

I consider myself to be a decent cook (which is surprising to those who know me but have never eaten in my home) but have always been terrible at baking. I like cooking because it allows for some improvisation, some creativity, neither of which is firmly within my comfort zone. Baking doesn't allow for that kind of flexibility and requires lots of measuring. The rest of my life is anal, uptight, and over-planned. I like the kitchen to be different. For some reason, pie has always been the one bright spot in my otherwise dreadful baking efforts. I almost don't want to cut into it, it looks so pretty.