A recent post by one of our favorite bloggers, Brooke Foster, the mom behind Mommy Moi.
As I write this, I’m eating a Chipwich. What happened to eating healthy? When it comes to food, me and Harper–well, we’re a work in progress.
No, but seriously, I’ve actually been eating healthier. Now that I don’t have French pastries and myriad takeout at my disposal, I’ve been cooking and snacking like a normal person. (Although I do have a Balduccis five minutes from my house, so I can access really overpriced prepared foods if I’m ever craving them.)
I’m trying to get better about cooking us good food.
Yesterday, I made Harper (and me!) a broccoli, carrot, cheese and orzo recipe I found on Weelicious for lunch. (If you’re looking for something new to cook your baby, this one is a winner. It takes 10 minutes, and it’s actually really healthy and tasty!) For dinner it was chicken tacos — Harper had black bean and cheese whole wheat quesadillas at the eleventh hour because the chicken turned out spicier than I expected. We sipped strawberry, banana and mango smoothies as our afternoon snack.
We’ve had some ups and downs in the highchair lately. The ups: Harper tasted scallops and liked them — I had to eat chips and salsa that night for dinner since I didn’t. He’s become obsessed with cheesy scrambled eggs with tomatoes and garlic for breakfast. He cannot get enough watermelon. And yesterday he begged my cousin for chips and salsa, so we gave him a little and he kind of went nuts. The funny thing is that it was salsa verde from Trader Joes, not even tomato-based salsa. He’s been eating strips of avocado. He loves homemade chicken nuggets. And he really digs sweet potato fries. The frozen ones in the bag from Whole Foods. When I peel a sweet potato, cut it into strips and bake them, they get sent overboard. Go figure.
But I’m so bored with his menu. I need more ideas for lunch and dinner!
The downs: Harper absolutely, 100 percent refuses to wear a bib. He tugs and tugs and tugs at it until it rips off. Then he hands it to me with a big grin on his face. It’s incredibly sweet, but it’s resulted in mealtime becoming a big slopfest.
Now that there’s no little handy pocket to catch whatever falls into his lap, Harper drops so much food on himself that we pretty much have to change clothes after every meal. I tried feeding him in a t-shirt and diaper, but that was even more gross. Instead of the food getting mashed on to his pants, it gets smeared into the creases of his legs. Sometimes when I change him, I find pieces of food that fell down his shirt and into his diaper. Or there’ll be food bits on his bedroom floor because it dropped off his pants.
But I had a big (huge!) victory in the highchair today. Harper was chucking food overboard as usual, and I told him: “No, Little Bear. Stop that. Sadie doesn’t want your food. No!” He handed me the morsel of watermelon he was about to toss. He actually placed it in my hand. And laughed. It was all quite funny to him.
Then he grabbed another piece and dangled it over the side of his tray, looking right at me. I repeated: “No, no, Little Bear. Don’t throw it.” He smiled and handed me the bite, then grabbed it back out of my hand and popped it in his mouth.
Progress.
Brooke Foster is a New York City Mom of one. She blogs at Mommy Moi.
