The Food Question

I’ve been wrestling for a while with when we should all eat the same thing for dinner every night.  This is a somewhat difficult question in our family anyway, since I’m vegetarian and Lance isn’t; since I’m a “picky” eater, and Lance isn’t; and since I also tend to be dieting endlessly...but for those nights when the two adults are, in fact, eating the same thing, should Judith also be “required” to eat only that? 

Sometime last fall, I instigated “family dinner time” during which we all sit at the table together, and no one leaves until everyone is finish eating (yes, some dinners get very long as we wait for Judith to finish!).  This began as an attempt to change our habit of eating dinner in front of the TV every night, but it also quickly occurred to me that it could be a way to “encourage” Judith to eat what we eat.  That’s easy when we’re having pita pizzas or grilled cheese or quesadillas.  Even make-your-own salad night works, because I can put together a plate of the things she likes out of the salad choices (and she’ll eat just about anything dipped in ranch dressing!).  My dilemma comes on a night like tonight.  Lance and I had beans and rice (a favorite of ours: sautéed mushrooms, garbanzos, kidney beans, black beans, and canned tomatoes, served over brown rice and garnished with sour cream or grated cheese).  Judith had cheese and crackers and a banana.  I’ve never offered her the beans and rice dish, because I know (assume?) she doesn’t like mushrooms or tomatoes (at least she hasn’t yet).  She’s tried a garbanzo bean once or twice, and not minded it, but not asked for more.  So I go the easy route and make her a separate meal (easy in terms of getting her fed, not easier to make). 

And I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do.

At almost-three-and-a-half should she be eating beans and rice?  Should I make the “rule” that she eats what we eat and there’s no other option?  (Then how do I explain that Daddy and Mama don’t eat the same things?)  Or do I continue to do what I’m doing:  serving her what we’re having when I know she’ll like it (pushing the boundaries on occasion) and making a separate meal for her when I know she’ll refuse the adults’ option?

Her “acceptable food” list is pretty varied compared to a lot of the stories I’ve heard:  lots of cheese, whole wheat bread, peanut butter, quesadillas, pizza, macaroni and cheese, just about any fruit, greek-style yogurt, granola, scrambled or hard-boiled eggs, sautéed or grilled chicken, olives, pickles, tuna fish sandwiches, pumpkin soup, tomato soup, french fries, ranch dressing...  (And of course, given my semi-profession, she’s quite adventurous when it comes to dessert. :-) 

On the “don’t like” side she includes most meat (which is pretty understandable given how infrequently we actually have meat in the house), tomatoes, avocado/guacamole, mushrooms, sharp cheeses...  And she will predictably turn up her nose completely at something she hasn’t had before.  We explain frequently that she can’t say she doesn’t like something if she hasn’t tasted it, but she’s unlikely to taste anything on the first try...or even the fifth try.  (In fact, I have really no idea what makes her eventually taste something at all!) 

So I know that the nights she gets served something new she won’t eat dinner.  In theory I know it’s not a horrendous thing for her to miss a meal, but it can be frustrating to “waste” food getting her to try it, enforce “this is your dinner,” and know that she’s still hungry!

So this remains a dilemma.  I am thankful that she eats more than one specific food.  I am thankful that she is healthy.  I am (usually) willing to continue to make her a separate meal several times a week.  So it’ll probably be a while before I come to a decision.

TTFN,

Barbara

Playtime!

Despite the number of times in a day that Judith asks to watch "Diego", she really does like to play.  One of her favorite toys is a piece of string ("snake") from one of my current crochet projects.  Recently she's gotten a hold of a few pieces of Lion Brand homespun, which is made up of several thicknesses of string wound together.  She's unwound the edges into a "tail" and decided that they're mermaids.  Two of them accompanied us to the grocery store yesterday, with the understanding that if Mama had to hold them, they'd be thrown away.  They made it home from the store just fine, but Daddy threw one away last night, and we'll see how long it takes for Judith to notice that it's missing.

We were thrilled to have Grandma Sandy accompany Grandpa Tim last night on his weekly visit to play computer games with Daddy.  Judith had a playmate for the whole evening, and Mama had a little break!  They played Candyland, which Judith got for Christmas.  Here too, her imagination is blindingly evident - "Tinkerbell" has to play with Grandma and Judith, and takes her turn every time as well.

Grandma also helped Judith open the easel that she got for Christmas.  It's got a chalkboard on one side, and a magnetic white board on the other.  Judith had a great time lining up the included alphabet magnets by color.  We tried to help her make words, but she was pretty set on colors needing to be together, and there's only about half the alphabet in each color.  We'll have to purchase some chalk and some dry-erase markers to go with the easel.  Neither were included, although an eraser was!

Step-Count Update:
I was planning to begin a recurring section periodically tracking my steps this year, but, sadly, I dropped my pedometer yesterday afternoon, and the sensor is broken...it doesn't count steps!  So this item's on hold until I get a replacement or find something else :-).

TTFN,
Barbara

A New Year

A new blog: No promises; they’re too easily broken. But I’m attempting to “restart” my blog this year. And the focus will be slightly different that it was almost 18 months ago when I last posted anything. Instead of only talking about Judith here, and having a separate blog for baking, I’m going to combine it all. Judith will probably show up most often, but I’ll also be blogging about baking, crochet, gardening, and life in general. I hope that will give me plenty to blog about!

An update: I intend add a few detailed blogs regarding milestones that Judith’s reached in the last 18 months, but here’s a quick overview: she’s 3 years and 5 months old; she’s 3 feet tall, and nearly 35 pounds (at least, those are the stats from her August checkup). Her hair is extremely long, and she prefers to wear it down whenever she can...it gets everywhere! Happily, she accepts the “rule” that she’s not allowed to eat without a ponytail.

Her favorite color is PINK, and she’d like to wear pink every day. Fortunately for my sanity, she only has a few pink outfits, and demands for pink can be mollified by adding a “twirly” skirt to anything she’s wearing.

She’s been potty training (for the second time!) since August, and she goes through cycles of being dry all day for days, and then having an accident every time she has to go. It’s definitely the hardest aspect of parenting I’ve experienced yet!

She’s been in a big-girl bed for a year, and she loves it, but...

A new habit: Until December 30, 2011, Judith did not get out of her bed unless we were there. We’re not entirely sure how that happened, but we’ve been taking it for granted. Then, on the evening of the 30^th, she threw a tantrum at bedtime, and we ignored her. To our absolute shock she actually got out of bed on her own, came out of her room, and found me in the kitchen. She said she had to go potty, and I took her and put her back to bed. I thought at the time that it would be an isolated incident, but she’s since done the same thing the past two mornings. I’m trying to establish the rule that she may only get out if she has to go potty, and then must go straight back to bed...we’ll see how that works!

A new project: I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that I am, for the first time, making an afghan for us! In September I made one for a relative who was getting married, and I was so thrilled with it that I decided I wanted one for myself. So with some Christmas money I bought yarn and I’ve started on a new blanket for our bed. (The current quilt is one that I made during our first year of marriage, and it’s kind of coming apart.) The afghan I made last fall was a star pattern of pieced diamonds. As I began planning for our blanket, I googled “diamond quilt patterns” and discovered the “tumbling blocks” pattern. Lance declared his preference for that pattern over the original star, so I designed one for us! I was thrilled to find “tumbling blocks” graph paper (http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/tumblingblock/) and I had a great time coloring in patterns until I found one I liked. Then I got to pick out yarn! And I’ve been piecing the bottom row together to find out if I designed it big enough. Here’s what it currently looks like (in case you can't tell,  there's red and green and blue in there as well as the tan and brown):

I promise to post a picture when it’s all done. :-)

TTFN

Barbara

Spring Picture

And our "official" spring picture of Judith:

Finally!

Or perhaps a better title would be "three months"! Obviously there's way too much to include in one blog, so this is highlights of the past few months (with the hope that I'll be inspired to keep up better in the future).

• Many, many, many new words. Judith constantly surprises me with her new vocabulary. It seems that she hears a word once and remembers it for later use. Some of my favorites: plump, chilly, blue heron, bike trailer, macaroni, blueberry, olive
  
• Talking in phrases - I think she's up to four-word phrases now, such as "Daddy, computer light off"
  
• Directing our actions quite clearly - "Mama, close book." "Stand Up." "Daddy, drive."
• Recognizing landmarks (mostly houses) by name when we drive by or to them.
• Discovering the joys of Veggie Tales - she asks for "Rack, Shack, and Benny" or "Madame Blueberry" at least once a day, and is able to sing along with the theme song and the major songs from each movie. She likes to sing "The bunny song" from "Rack, Shack, and Benny" while she eats her whole wheat bunny crackers at lunch.
• Reading - and reading - and reading. Current favorite books include Green Eggs and Ham; The Cat in the Hat; Moo, Baa, La La La; Oh My, Oh My Oh Dinosaurs; Hug; Yes; and her animal picture books. She brings these constantly to Lance or to me asking to be read to, and will also sit on the floor (or in the car) with them and read to herself.
  
• Visiting story time at the Library - the first time she was pretty shy, but now she will stand up close to listen to the books, sing along with the familiar songs, and answer questions. Unfortunately, tomorrow is the final session of story time at our Orangevale Library, and I will be looking into which other local libraries have one.
• New favorite foods: blueberries (inspired, no doubt, by Veggie Tales), olives, macaroni and cheese, and quesadillas.
• Rides in the bike trailer: I'm slowly working up the strength to go for long rides. We live in an extremely hilly area, and as I strained toward the top of each hill, I started saying "come on, Mama" hoping that Judith would echo me, and provide some ecouragement. Instead, she started saying "Come on, baby" or "Come on, Judith"! Now we go back and forth - if I say "Come on, Judith" she'll say "Come on, Mama" :-) . She also thoroughly enjoys any bumpy ground I can ride over, and is patient enough in the trailer as long as she has a full juice cup. (When she runs out, she'll say "help" over and over until I stop and put some water from my bottle into her cup.)
• A visit from Grandpa Ron and Grandma Judi in March. Judith was thrilled to have them here, and asked for them after they left. As an early birthday present, Grandpa and Grandma gave Judith some new toys for the backyard - a house and a slide - that she now spends a while each day playing in and on. We also took a family trip to the redwoods, where Judith commented "trees....BIIIIG" and had lots of fun running around. The cramped ride in the car wasn't so fun by the end, though, and Grandpa and Grandma got to witness Judith's first major meltdown.
  
• Specific event highlights: Easter at Grandma Sandy's; and Cousin Olivia's 7th birthday, at which Judith got to spend time jumping on the new trampoline with Grandma Sandy and Daddy.

And a few pictures:

hanging out with Daddy:Easter Basket
(the beautiful blue dress is from Auntie Lesli, and Cousins Cora and Olivia had matching ones)

Mama experimenting with new hairstyles...
Judith's hair is getting so long that I'm trying to get it off the back of her neck for summer. Unfortunately, she really doesn't like to sit still while I do it.

walking in the redwoods with Grandpa

Playing on the new slide from Grandma & Grandpa

Two Weeks!

So this time it's been even longer! (How quickly New Year's resolutions fall by the wayside!) It means there's a lot to say in this blog though :-).

Perhaps the most important event during the past two weeks was Judith's 18 month checkup with a new doctor (February 9). We had become increasingly uncomfortable with how "conventional" our previous pediatrician is, and I had asked my own doctor to recommend someone who might be open to more alternative medicine. She recommended Dr. Hepworth, who also happens to be within walking distance of our house (in case we ever need to walk). Right from the start I was more impressed with this office, because it's much more kid-oriented in decoration and toys. (There's a huge fish tank, and neat toys on the walls, and a train that runs near the ceiling around the whole office - even the examining rooms are decoration to make kids excited - the table in the room we had was a big dog.) We had to undress Judith and put her on the table for the weigh/measure part, but the doctor actually examined her (mostly) while we were holding her, which made her slightly more comfortable - and he took his time showing her what each tool was and explaining what he was going to do with it. Granted, she still screamed bloody murder as soon as he stuck the light in her ear, but at least he tried. In comparison the old office was much more "sterile" (as in atmosphere, not cleanliness). So, for her stats: She's 34.5 inches (90th percentile), and 23 lbs, 11 oz (40th percentile) - she's continuing on the tall and skinny trend (no surprise there!) Because she had been sick for almost a month with her two colds back-to-back, we said we didn't want her to have shots at this appointment, and the doctor was totally fine with that (yay!). That means that she'll have a "shot" appointment this coming Wednesday, and I'll be the only one going with her - a little nerve wracking! We'll see how that goes.

Here's a picture of Judith from Sunday, February 7. We went over to Nate and Amanda's to watch the Super Bowl (ok, really just to hang out), and Amanda put Judith's hair in these two ponytails. I've tried to replicate it since then, but Judith won't stay still enough for me. At any rate, I took one look at her with her hair like this and thought "oh no, my baby's totally turned into a toddler!" Very cute though.

Puzzles!
Here, Lance and Judith are putting together a floor puzzle of the world. Judith loves this puzzle, and she's constantly taking it out of the box and spreading it all over. She can't even begin to put it together...I think she just likes seeing all the pieces.Judith got a puzzle from Grandma and Grandpa Sjoerdsma for Valentine's Day. She really enjoys this one too, because she knows the animals...especially the Zebra ("Zayba").
Grapes! Judith's newest favorite food appears to be grapes. Last FLG (see previous blog) Char had brought grapes along, and Judith was fascinated by them...she asked everyone for some, so I really have no idea how many she ate that night. Now she wakes up in the morning asking for "keeps," and she gets a huge smile on her face whenever I let her have some. She "chain-eats" them, holding the next one ready to pop in as soon as the previous one is gone.

Valentine's Day
We had a Valentine's celebration on Saturday - when Lance came home from work, we took him to the park for the first time. He got to watch Judith go down the slide by herself, help her climb up the "spider web," play on the swings, and take a walk around the park. Here's a beautiful picture of the two of them crossing a bridge. That evening our good friend Renee and her daughter Jessica babysat Judith for us at their house, so we got to eat dinner and watch a movie at our house without a little girl clamoring to get up or dancing in front of the TV hiding the movie from us. When we went back to pick her up, I was anticipating Judith being extremely glad to see us (it was the first time that she stayed at someone else's house without us), but instead she looked up, said "Mama!" and went right back to playing with Jessica. She didn't really want to go home, and once we got her home it took her more than an hour to fall asleep!

Monday, February 15, was Presidents' Day, and Lance had the day off. The weather was beautiful, and we all spent some time outside. I did a whole bunch of yard work, and Lance brought Judith out to play once I was done mowing - he didn't change her out of her PJs first, just put her tennis shoes on - but the grass stains came out ok, so it was alright :-). At lunch time, I got out a blanket and we had a picnic lunch. It was Judith's first time eating off a plate instead of just her high chair tray. The next day she kept reminding me that she had cheese outside :-).

Also on Monday, Judith and I watched the Olympics together, especially the figure skating. She said "spin" constantly :-).

The final picture for this blog entry is from our playdate with Aiden Domecq this past Thursday. He and his mommy, Erin, came over for about an hour in the morning. It was fun to have him over, because (so far) he's the only one of Judith's "friends" who also talks. They didn't do much talking together, but they both talked to both Erin and me. They also didn't do too much playing together - apparently that's normal at their age - but I did catch them putting shapes into the box at relatively the same time.

Friends

It's been a whole week again, but it seems to turn out that Sunday night is the time I really think about sitting down to blog. (We'll see if next week is any different.)

This week we had three play dates, dinner with Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Tim, and dinner with friends. So Judith got to spend a lot of time with people besides me (a nice break for both of us!). Here are some pictures of all our times together:

On Monday morning we went to visit Kelsey and Naomi (9 months). Judith was almost a little scared of Naomi - whenever Naomi would crawl toward her, she'd come running to me. And Naomi thought Judith was fascinating, so she kept trying to crawl toward her - Judith spent the first 1/2 hour glued to my leg :-). But eventually Judith got more comfortable, and was willing to play near Naomi. Here they're sharing a Cheerio snack.


On Monday night Grandma Sandy came along with Grandpa Tim to his weekly computer time with Lance. Judith got to hang out with Grandma for a couple hours - and they had a great time playing together. They played hide-and-seek in the curtains and behind the couch cushions, played with Judith's kitchen, shared some coconut sorbet, and colored some pictures. It was especially good to see Judith interact so joyfully with Grandma, because a year ago she (Judith) cried whenever she saw her. :-)

On Wednesday morning we had a playdate with Ethan at Miss Traci's house. Ethan is two months younger than Judith, and she seemed a little more comfortable with someone closer to her size than she did with 9-month old Naomi. They didn't play together necessarily - unless "fighting" over toys is playing :-). I'm hoping that as we have more play dates Judith will learn more about sharing. Here's Ethan watching carefully while Judith plays with his guitar.

On Wednesday afternoon we met Julia and Vika at the park again (it was such a beautiful day!). This time I brought my camera along so I could capture Judith on the slide - here she and Vika are sliding down together. We had a very hard time getting them to slide simultaneously because they were both so excited to go down that they didn't want to wait. A little anecdote about the slide: Vika prefers to try to climb up the slide from the bottom, while Judith likes to go up the steps. Note that Vika can't climb the slide - she can't grip it well enough, and she only makes it as far as the beginning of the slope before she starts asking for help, so I wasn't too worried when Judith decided to try it too. In fact, I was standing a few feet away when she climbed up on to the bottom of it from the ground - a pretty big feat for a little girl who can't even climb onto the sofa by herself! She stood up and started to climb as Vika had done, and I thought, "she'll ask for help and I'll get her down." But either her shoes stick to the slide better or she's a little stronger, because she had no trouble at all once the slope started - and she made it all the way to the top of the slide! (I did move very close behind her once I saw her starting to climb.) I'm not going to encourage her to climb up that way, but I think it's pretty cool that she figured out how to do it :-)

On Friday night we had FLG at our house, and Judith was in high heaven having so many friends to play with at once. She chased Caleb all around the house, and she had great fun knocking down towers that the older kids built for her with the blocks we made at her birthday party. Here she is checking out Camryn's earrings.


Another note from this week: Her right lower molar is finally through. I think it's probably been slightly through for a little while, because I suddenly saw a huge mass of white - and I doubt the whole tooth came through at once. We also started brushing her teeth this week - and she wants to do it all the time. If she didn't drool all over herself while she chews on the toothbrush, I might be more inclined to let her hold it more often.