Breakfast How To

 

SBG here! I'd like to teach you how to eat Cheerios because you are probably doing it wrong.  Also, I'm the boss.

Step one: There are two ways you can attempt to get the Cheerios from your highchair tray to your mouth.  

Option A, involves focusing intensely on one Cheerio and pinching it tightly with your thumb and which ever other finger is easiest. Warning, this method is difficult and requires fine motor skills. 

 

Option B: Get your whole chubby hand moist with your own saliva, as you move through the process of eating Cheerios, this becomes easier- see below. Then place your wet hand directly on top of the pile of Cheerios, surely some of them will stick.

Step 2: Whether you choose Option A or B, then next step is the same.
SHOVE THEM IN YOUR MOUTH.  It is imperative that you use the entire fist, even if only one Cheerio is stuck to your hand/fingers/wrist.

Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee these methods.  I admit there are some flaws in my plan.

...
.

 Ignore the cookie.

Parker Goes to the Dentist

The first time I remember getting in legit trouble was when I was about 4 or 5 and involved the dentist.  I am not sure if this was my first trip to the dentist, but for some reason I did not want, and ultimately refused, to open my mouth. Both of my parents work(ed).  I was a middle child in a four child household.  There was no time for these games.

I left the office in tears and had to spend some time, my memory tells me hours, but I am not foolish enough to believe that, in my room alone.

I still get apprehensive about the dentist.  Cue Parker's first dentist appointment. 

The appointment was actually scheduled a bit ago, but I ended up cancelling it.  I blamed insurance issues for the cancellation and on paper that made sense, but really I was truly nervous about P's first dental visit.

From the time between the cancelled appointment and this afternoon, P and I read the Dora dentist book several times and he came with me when I went to the dentist and watched.  The hardest part was staying calm for him.

This morning we had breakfast, played a few board games then brushed our teeth.  We dropped SBG off at a sitters and headed to P's first dentist appointment. 

Up to this point he seemed very indifferent about the whole thing, but as we got closer he started asking questions about hurting and who his dentist was going to be and would he get a sticker?

He kept the smile on his face as we headed down the hall after the hygienist called his name.  He answered her questions and climbed up in the chair.  She showed him all the instruments and let him pick a few animal/color coordinated things and paste flavors. 

Then it was x-ray time.  She warned me that, "Most 3 year olds don't do well with x-rays, but let's give it a shot."

He did amazing.  He sat still with a worried, but 'let's get through this' look on his face. 

The hygienists all made a big fuss over him sitting so still and doing such a great job.

Then the dentist told us he has a cavity.  Apparently his teeth sit very close together, which looks pretty, but is a breeding ground for cavities.  He is also tongue tied, but so am I, so I am not worried one bit about that.

So we have to go back for a cavity filling, which will involve laughing gas and hopefully my ipod.

When making the appointment for the filling I asked if he will be in any kind of condition to go to school after the procedure.  I have never had laughing gas.  My only experience with it is what I have seen play out on the silver screen after a group of teenagers pull illegal hits from a balloon or something.

The receptionist assured me when the gas is provided legally by a doctor, it is then "flushed" out with oxygen before the patient leaves the office.

I choose to see his first appointment as a victory and not make a big scary deal about the cavity.

We brush his teeth twice a day, he eats very healthy save for the daily packs of gummies and mondo amounts of (watered down)  juice.  He does need to to start flossing. 

Also, in the book, Dora had a cavity, so there.

Baby Food Whisperererer

When Pman was a babe, I thought making your own baby food was for crunchy moms who did not shave their legs and practiced elimination communication. 

How could anyone possibly have the time to puree actually tidbits of food, spoon the food into jars and put them in the fridge?

I thought these women had too much time on their hands and were obviously neglecting their precious newborns to grind up a blender full of peas.

I was wrong.

Major wrong.

Since December, I started making all of SBG baby food.  I love it.  I know exactly what she is eating and she is getting used to the food we eat on a regular basis. 

For veggies, I buy canned veggies (typically 69-89 cents).  Open.  Drain. Dump into a blender, okay, I do have magic bullet, but not the specific baby food magic bullet. Then I spoon the puree into some baby food jars I have.

I do with same with overripe fruit.

Sweet potatoes are the easiest.  Heat the oven to 350, wash the sweetpot, stab it repeatedly with a fork, wrap in foil and toss in the oven for an hour.  If the sweetpot is for one of us, then I slice it in the middle and serve.  If it is for SBG, then I simply scoop it out and put it in a jar.  One sweetpot equals about 4 ounces of baby grub.

The biggest downfall seems to be that I have ended up with a few jars of a carrot, banana, pea combo, but SBG does not seem to mind. 

More than anything she likes to eat exactly what we are eating, Nutri Grain bars, oatmeal, broccoli cheese soup and the list goes on.

I do draw the line at meat though.  Pureeing chicken is just beyond me.  It smells.  It's yucky looking and the texture of the resulting chicken mush makes me gag.  So that I buy.  Although, she is getting some teeth, so perhaps soon I will no longer have to purchase the vileness that is strained meats.

Who's in Charge?

First a few status updates about the SBG- she seems to share Parker's love of pork lo mien.  She is sprouting her first tooth! She continues to be the boss of all things Phillips family, but she is becoming less of a tyrant about it. Just about four months left until we no longer have to buy formula!

A few days ago Parker was helping me cook dinner.  Josh started messing with Parker in some father/son way that is usually funny to Parker and that I will never understand.  However, when Parker is cooking, it is very serious. 
He met Josh's attempt at rough housing with a, "Daddy, go away." In a serious, but bratty sort of way.

Josh took him by the hand led him to the other room to "have a little chat."  I could not see them, but I could hear them. 

Josh and I have an agreement.  If one parent is disciplining Parker (or Peyton when the time comes) the other parents stays out of it.  We present a united front, but only one of us can be the leader. Until this agreement was in place there were a lot of toes being stepped on. 

As I hung back in the kitchen, SBG strolled around my feet in her walker and grabbed at my pants leg, I chopped onions and listened to P and J's conversation.

J said, in a stern but comforting tone, something to the effect of: "I'm the Daddy.  You cannot tell me to go away.  If you want me to stop you need ask nicely.  Okay?  Understood?"

Parker's reply in the same stern, yet comforting tone: Yes. Okay, but Daddy when I am cooking with Mommy, you need to stay out of the way.  It is dangerous.  So you just stay safe, okay.

Then Parker glided back into the kitchen with an air of, he won't be bothering us anymore.  A beat or two later Josh came in with a look of utter confusion on his face. 

A few days after this happened they were calling for snow in our area, we didn't get a single flake.  However, as the town prepared for the Blizzard of 2012 we were running errands and got stuck behind a big truck.  On the back of the truck, staring at us for the better part of an hour, was a sign that read:

CAUTION DEICER IN PROGRESS

DEICER?  Did they mean decider?  Maybe something about deer?  Honestly we were both stumped.  Then finally, I said, "It says DE-ICER!"  Since we had not actually said any of our internal thoughts outloud, I wasn't sure if Josh knew what it said or would even know what I was talking about, until...

"OOhhhh!.. It's needs a hyphen."

I didn't check, but something tells me Parker was either rolling his eyes or smacking his hand on his forehead- Morons.

First Word

Parker's first word was duck.  In fact, I do not think "mom" or "dad" were even his second word.  They came about eventually, but not initially.

Sadly, SBG seems to be following that pattern.  It seems her first communicative word is bottle. 

She does not say it out right, instead she says, "BA! BA! BA!" with passion and zeal of a starving (although she is not starving) infant.  When you actually show her a bottle the "BA! BA! BA!" reaches an even higher pitch and becomes some how more passionate- emphatic even.

When you take it away again, she furrows her little baby brow and questions, "BA? BA? BA?"

Also, and I know this is a stretch, but if you say, "Do you want a bottle?" She replies, "YEA!"

It's so cute to see her little tooth-free gums, puffy cheeks and sweet lips bob together in that BA motion.  What is not so cute though is that she also realizes this elicits some reaction from all of us.  We either laugh or hastily scramble over each other to GET. HER. THE. DAMN. BA BA BA.

So her first word, or semi-word, seems to be directly related to demanding food.  Yikes.

This next bit should come as not surprise then. 

The other day I was in the grocery store with both kiddos.  At this particular store, if you are buying something, you are allowed to take 1 cookie from the bakery display.  Parker LOVES this grocery store.  He picked a chocolate chip cookie and asked me to "piecea half it."

I'm not sure where piecea half it came from.

I did as he asked and held the other half of the cookie in the hand attached to the arm that was wrapped around SBG. 

Guess who ate her first chocolate chip cookie at 7 months and 2 days.  Of course as soon as we got home I had to give her a BA! BA! BA! to wash it down.

Addendum

January 2012 will forever be in our minds the month we were all Down with the Sickness.

I thought it was over after the "puking on the  steps" incident.  I even took Pman to a birthday party on Friday and a football party on Saturday.

Then it happened.

It seems Parker has two major fears.
1. Little monkeys crawling up from the crack in between his bed and the wall and biting his toes.  Seriously.  Sometimes he says they are monsters, but mostly it's little monkeys.  We have to stuff two pillows in the crack to keep the toe eating monkeys at bay.

2. Puking in his bed.  A couple weeks ago he woke me out of a dead sleep because he thought he puked in his bed.  He didn't it was just drool.  I turned his pillow over, kissed his head and wandered back to bed.

Then Saturday night, one of those two great fears came to fruition.

Parker puked in the bed. And on one of his three pillows. 

The drama pretty much peaks there.  I pulled the sheets off the bed and tossed them in the laundry room to be dealt with in the morning.  Josh hosed Pman off in the shower.  Parker and I had a slumber party in my room and Josh slept in the guest room with the baby monitor because I put him on SBG duty for the remainder of the evening.

I did sleep with my back to Pman most of the night though because I kept thinking that he was going to puke on me, he didn't.

Once day left of this dreadful month.

Sickos

 January 9- Pman gets a Hepatitis A vaccine booster.  SBG is diagnosed with a raging case of pink eye.  No biggie.  Little drops and let's roll on. (I know you know this, but I'm aiming for an effect here.)

January 18- Both kids were sick.  Headed back to the docs.  SBG diagnosed with bronchitis and a sinus infection- "Ears look clear though!"  Says a cheery pediatrician.  "But she'll need to be put on a nebulizer."  I do not have asthema, nor does Josh.  Prior to 1/18/12 I had no clue what hell it is to nebulize a 6 and a half month old.  The doc also suggested since Pman was coughing, but did not have bronchitis-yet.  He could be nebbed too.

Awesome.

BONUS! They were also both put on a diarrhea causing prescription.  Pman seems to have escaped that, but SBG's sheets and jammies have been on a constant washing machine cycle. The HOT/HOT cycle.
Throughout the week, at different times they each had low-grade fevers, but nothing too major.

January 21- We host a family party at our house because that's just how we do.  Our family does not let a couple sick kids slow them down.  Bring on the kiddo Tylenol, antibacterial Lysol wipes and cork screws- we are having a party. honestly, I had already gone to Bj's for supplies and cleaned my house.  I even changed ALL the sheets!

January 23- We were out running errands because really it's nearly been a week and they both seemed fine in the morning.  As we pulled into the driveway I looked in the rearview and Pman had big dark circles under his eyes.  I told him I would open the front door and he needed to take off his stuff and head upstairs for a nap.  He agreed- uh-oh!

As I get him out of the car and we walk up the porch he bursted into tears.  He was afraid I was going to leave SBG in the car.  He was wailing.  I have NEVER done that, so I'm not sure where that came from. 

I opened the door and he stumbled in to take off his shoes I hear the gurgle.  I turn around and he is puking on the carpeted steps.  After helping him finish up and getting SBG out of the car, he burst into tears again.
"What's wrong honey?  Are you going to throw up again?"
"No.  Cleeeaaaannnnn IIIIITttttt UUUuuuUUUP!"

On the upside somewhere in all this mess I found a WalMart gift card on the side of the road with $6 still on it- SCORE!...?