Dinner battle

Dinners are a pain in the rear. I've been through the "fine, have a hot dog" phase and have now slipped back into "homemade dinners are where it's at"... we'll see how long it takes before I throw in the towel.

During the holidays I did not cook at all. Lucky me! I took care of breakfasts and lunches but someone else always prepared the dinners. Yum.

Monday, our first full day back, we had spring rolls and carrot sticks for dinner. Whee. Kids were not impressed with that, and I think they both ended up eating cereal before bed.

Tuesday I fared a bit better, whipping up a turkey hash with the *ahem* endless turkey that my mom sent back with us. :) Basically turkey mixed with green and red peppers and celery all cooked together in gravy with a side of rice. They both picked at it.

Wednesday I made chinese fried rice (rice, corn, carrots, peas & egg with soya sauce) with raw carrot sticks. Lukasz took one look at this and exclaimed "I LIKE this!" and ate his entire bowl. Lily did not fare as well. She wanted everything separate, not all mixed together. But the three of us together did eat five whole raw carrots.

On Wednesday I also made a beef stew, but refrigerated it overnight so everything could mix and absorb more flavours before this evening when I cooked up some potatoes to toss in.

Add a side of buttered fresh bread and voila! the perfect winter meal.

I think Lukasz picked three carrots out of it, Lily ate most of the beef out of hers, and a carrot and a potato or two. Of course they ate all of their bread and drank all of their milk.

I try not to feel irritated and frustrated when they don't eat a good dinner. They know that (usually) that is all there is to eat for the rest of the day, and it stays out so they can have some whenever they feel hungry enough. They eat big breakfasts and lunches, so it's actually a healthy strategy to eat a smaller dinner, but dinner is the meal I put the most effort into, perhaps wrongly so. But would they have eaten more stew at lunch? I doubt it.

I was a really picky eater as a kid and teenager, still am to some degree... I guess it's biting me in the rear now... L&L sure didn't get their eating habits from their dad, he eats everything. Which is good, considering the amount of leftovers I inevitably have.

{this moment}

- A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

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Day 5 of croup

Lukasz is finally feeling better. On Wednesday he had come down with the croup quite suddenly, and Tom took him to the hospital that night because of his fever and awful sounding cough. He received some steroids to reduce the swelling in his throat, and some tylenol to help with the pain, and they came back home.

Over the next 3 days he slowly lost his voice and was very grumpy and low-energy. Just wanted to lie down or be held most of the time. On Saturday night he woke up crying a high-pitched cry of pain, and was clutching his throat. Pretty scary to see. I got him calmed down by singing to him and he fell asleep but then when I called the nurse line and they listened to his breathing over the phone, they said to take him in right away.

So Tom took him to the hospital again and they were there for 5 hours, during which time Lukasz receieved 2 nebulizers, some steroids and some advil. They got home at 4 a.m. this morning.

He slept till 11 a.m. then napped from 1:30 p.m. till almost 5:00 p.m. so yes, of course there is no way he's falling asleep at a regular bedtime. It's past 10:30 p.m. and he's still awake, calling my name, yelling UP. I don't want him to cry because his throat could get really sore again.

So now, he's up, and watching Bob the Builder. He asked for "Sho'cake" first, though. That must be Lily's influence.

So Lukasz and Tom are sitting on the couch, porking out on pita chips and hummus, watching Bob the Builder... and it's 11 p.m.

At least he's happy, not in pain, and EATING.

Getting what he wants, one way or the other

Tonight Lukasz is having a late dinner with Tatus. He's copying Tom and dipping his dinner in tzatziki. Tom is dipping chicken in the tzatziki, but Lukasz is dipping his zucchini in the tzatziki. I'm not eager to try that combination.

He lost a piece of zucchini in the tzatziki, so I fished it out for him with his spoon and offered it to him. He shook his head no so I left it on his plate. A few minutes later he wanted to use that spoon, picked it up, saw the tzatziki and zucchini stuck to it, tried to shake it off, and when that didn't work, he held the spoon out to Tom, and said, "EAT!".

Magic beans

One of the most difficult things I've been faced with yet in my scant three years of parenthood is the refusal of a child to eat. Namely, Lukasz these days. With the heat we've been having, I understand not feeling hungry, and he was more than willing to drink lots of water and juice. Actually, at first he was more than willing to chow down on cantaloupe and watermelon, and after that phase was done I was still able to get fruit and goodness into him by making smoothies out of frozen bananas and raspberries. But the past probably 2 weeks have been really difficult. He'd eat one or two small bites, and then with a high-pitched, close-mouthed whine, he'd shake his head vigorously and refuse another bite.

I received lots of advice and encouragement that he'd eat when he wanted to, that he was nice and chubby and a few days of eating very little were nothing to worry about.

Slowly, I was able to roll with this, I was able to offer him food once at meals, and if he didn't want it, I didn't press him. He started slowly coming around to the table when he was hungry and reaching for food I'd left out for him. He still wasn't eating much at all during the day but I just starting trusting that he'd let me know when he was hungry (a common sign became seeing him crawl under the table to crunch a cheerio that had landed there at breakfast).

Finally, last night, I remembered he used to love Gran's special recipe for garlic green beans. Since it's been a lot cooler, I whipped up a dinner of the green beans, chicken and rice. I cooled off a plateful of them for him, cut into bite-sized pieces and he inhaled them. Then he had some chicken, too!

That was only one meal out of many, but it was a definite success in my books!

Thanks, Gran, for the super-yummy, Woochie-friendly recipe!! (I'll post it up here later.)

Lukasz vs Banana

Today, Lukasz tried eating pieces of banana on his own for the first time. He did really well!

He chews on anything he can get in his mouth.

String is especially yummy, for some reason. Look mom, no hands!