EAT!

If I have to cook one more mother loving fish stick, so help me.

We are in a rut. Eliot's preferred diet consists of the following: Pirate Booty (all flavors), apples, clementines, fruit leathers (all flavors), yogurt, applesauce, carrots, toast with butter or jam, raisins, couscous, occasional cheese, Kashi Honey Sunshine cereal, milk, and fish sticks. So many goddamn fish sticks.

Of course, it's my responsibility as his mother to feed him a proper balanced diet. It's really me that's in the rut, I just kept feeding him things I knew he would eat, not wanting a fight on the food front. But I can take it no more. I've made a little headway by introducing a morning smoothie into the routine that contains fruit, yogurt, milk, and flax seed (if I remember). I'm planning on sneaking some spinach in the mix and telling him it will make him green like the Hulk.

In an attempt to expand his palette, I've been including samples of our dinner on his plate for the past few evenings with very limited success. Actually, it might be more accurate to report these attempts as failures. He takes the most minuscule taste (as in, it touched his tongue for a tenth of a millisecond) of veggie burger or avocado and he will loudly announce with a look of disgust, "I do not like it!"

Sigh.

I really don't want to give him nutrition by sneaking vitamins into brownies or whatever deceptive means being currently recommended by certain celebrity wives. I would really like him to actually acquire a life-long love of eating flavorful, healthy food. But right now, I'm feeling a little desperate.

Moms of picky eaters, help!

Holiday Cheer

Happy New Year

I thought I should try and get one more post in for 2009.

New Year's Eve has always been one of my least favorite holidays. Aside from the plentiful availability of a variety of delicious dips, I could never get over the pressure of having to have the best night ever! and was relieved to find out that as a parent there is absolutely no pressure to have any fun whatsoever ever again.

So we're staying in. Eliot is snuggled in bed (though whether or not he is asleep is uncertain). We have wine and chocolate covered pretzels, which for me qualifies any night for the best night ever. We're going to watch The Hangover and I'm hoping I laugh at least until we have to pause it so I don't literally pee my pants.

For all my friends, family, and readers, I hope that you are all safe and warm and with at least some of those you love tonight. Here's to another year!

Better late than never

I sort of started a tradition of posting photos of Eliot atop a pumpkin at Halloween; that is, I suppose, if you consider doing it twice a tradition. As a result of my unexplainable break from blogging, the tradition has been deferred until now.

So here he is:
And there he was in 2008:


And look at this kid in 2007:



And in case you were curious, he dressed as Frankenstein on the big day:


He actually ended up looking more like just the torso and head of Frankenstein, but he had fun nonetheless. Apparently our neighborhood is the place to trick-or-treat, so we only had to walk a few blocks before his plastic pumpkin was nearly full. He was more interested in the decorations and other kids' costumes than the candy, so we (we? Maybe more like I) helped him out and consumed most of his bounty. In two days. Sometimes being a mother involves a lot of sacrifice.

Chat Stew

I know we still have almost three months left, but so far, this kid's year two is not so terrible.

Saying that Eliot is a verbal child would be a gross understatement. I am not really exaggerating when I tell people that he talks from the moment he wakes up until he falls asleep at night. He even talks in his dreams. He narrates his day, he asks a million trillion questions per hour, he creates funny voices for his toys, he makes up songs and stories. He is most definitely my child.

We are amazed daily by the complexity of his thoughts. His correct use of phrases. For example, "Mommy, that's not a real word, it's just a figure of speech". A figure of speech. Of course, I know that I have used this same explanation for him when attempting to clarify idiomatic expressions. But to hear it coming from his tiny toddler mouth completely floors me.

He uses words like 'cooperate' and 'gigantic'. He's constantly playing around with new vocabulary. He makes words up when he's felling silly. And he's great at naming people. His current best imaginary friends are Avin and Axon Bagega. And then there's his pumpkin named Mr. MacGreganton.

Along with the explosion in vocab, Eliot's imagination has taken off. In just one day, he might inhabit the skin of the Hulk, a doctor, a daddy, spiderman, a prince, a witch, a pirate, and a scarecrow. And that's before lunch. It's no easy task to keep up with him. "Okay, Hulk," I'll say, "let's go potty," to which he will respond, "I'm not Hulk, Mommy, I'm Doctor Hulk". A real renassaince man. Hulk smash osteoperosis!

So instead of dreading the possible Fucking Threes, as I've heard them called, I'm going to revel in this time right now. Yes, we have tantrums, often a result of tiredness or hunger, and more recently related to his aversion to getting dressed. But they are short lived, and within 5 minutes we're usually laughing about something else. He keeps us on our toes, constantly testing our knowledge (and occasionally our patience) and making us realize how much there is to discover and how infinitely amazing life can be. We're learning right along with him.

Thank god for Google.

Travelin'

If I updated this blog with any sort of regularity you would know that Eliot and I have driven from Pittsburgh to St. Louis 3 times since we moved north. Solo. While Google Maps would have you believe this is a simple 9.5 hour jaunt, we generally clock in at the 11.5 to 12 hour mark. Many have called me crazy. And I tend to feel pretty crazy around hour 10.75. But we have so far survived all three round-trips (that's 6, count 'em six individual journeys) without too much long-term damage. We are gearing up for our fourth such excursion for Thanksgiving, and I thought since many of us are planning travel with toddlers for the holidays I might share some of the lessons Eliot and I have learned on our adventures.

Food, food, snacks, and more food
Be prepared. Especially if you are the only adult in charge. I pack E-size portions of all of his favorite snacks, as well as some that are in the 'special' category. Like lollipops. And M&Ms. While I don't usually advocate sugar as a means to avoid a melt-down, desperate times call for desperate measures. I don't know how many times I've saved myself from whipping over to the shoulder to threaten to Turn this car around right this minute young man! by simply offering some snacks. Surprisingly, fruit leather usually works just as well as the sugary stuff, but it pays to have back-up.

Toys, books, and gasp! DVDs
I bought an over-the-lap tray for Eliot's car seat, so he is able to color, 'sticker' (yes, we're using that as a verb now), and eat without too much trouble. I also try and pack some favorite books and some brand new ones from the library. In addition to his own toys, which I pack in a plastic shoe box with a lid in hopes of containment (prepare for a major toddler explosion all over the backseat of your vehicle), I also invest in some inexpensive but time consuming new toys to present when boredom sets in. For us, Playmobil guys are the best - they have one million pieces, which he loves (and you'll be enjoying finding for years to come) and he gets really engrossed in figuring out which parts come off, and then interchanging their stuff with his existing Playmobil guys. And a one or two guy pack only costs a few dollars, which is worth it for us.

In order to avoid overwhelming him, every so often I'll make a suggestion, "Eliot, would you like to color?" or something similar and then hand back the crayons and a coloring book. When we have potty stops, etc., I try and do a quick backseat clean up/re-org so he doesn't feel like he's playing in a toy landfill.

And the DVDs would be best discussed in our next section:

It's okay to break some rules
Normally we don't frequent fast food restuarants. Normally we don't eat candy all day long. Normally we don't watch hours upon hours of television/DVDs. Normally we don't hand out presents every couple of hours unless it's Christmas.

But this is not a normal situation. This is a situation in which you are trapped in a either car or on a plane with a very small person who has very little patience, and no clear concept of how time works. You are trapped. Your only escape is your destination. I knew we were in for a long day of driving recently when Eliot asked, "Are we almost there yet?" 20 minutes into a 12 hour trip. Being prepared means everyone lives.

So, what I'm saying is, yes, have lots of enriching activities planned. But don't be ashamed to put on back-to-back DVDs when you need to focus on driving, or when you are going a little crazy as well. And it's okay to stop at the Golden Arches so that the kid can run off a little steam in the cootie-infused playland, just give them a hand-sanitizer bath afterward. I've even bought a happy meal and asked for 'just apples'. I know, I'm square, but he thought it was the bees knees that he got a box with apple slices and a crappy toy in it.

I think that it's okay for your kids to have treats (food and otherwise), especially if you are trying to sell this trip as an experience that they'll remember for the rest of their lives. How great it was that they got to do all these special 'off-limits' things because you were on a trip. How their parents didn't scream or fight and everyone rode a rainbow colored sugar high all the way to Grandmother's house.

Don't forget about the driver/navigator
So treat yourself to a little This American Life or a book on tape on the mp3 in the front seat. And you deserve that triple latte from the drive-thru at a certain green-logoed coffee seller. After all, you have to keep your strength up for the drive.

Famous

Check out Cara's amazing and thrifty decorating skills on Ohdeedoh! What little girls wouldn't love this room?

Potty Bandit

What He's Into

• Capes
• Rain boots
  
• Wearing as little as possible, excepting capes and rain boots
  
• Running everywhere at top speed
• Talking constantly, even while sleeping
  
• 'Guys'
• Superheroes
• 'Quiet Time' in place of regular napping
• Sleeping in until 9 a.m.
  
• Witches, goblins, skeletons, and banshees
• CANDY!
  
• Fruit leather
• Laughing hysterically as often as possible
• Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy
  
• Pirates
• Little Bear
• Olivia the Pig
  
• Shel Silverstein
• Charlotte's Web
• 'Fudge' from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
• Self-created "Cool, cool tricks!" involving hurling oneself onto furniture
• Coloring and drawing
  
• Narrating, as in, "Don't jump on the sofa!" said Father Bear
• Pretending
  
• Taking walks
• Peeing in the potty standing up
• Poop/pee/butt jokes
• Playmobil
• Pretending to sleep
• Playing 'Hop-si-tal' as both the doctor and the patient
• Making up stories and words
• Using words like 'actually' and 'unfortunately' in casual conversation
  
• Learning U.S. presidents
• Asking one million questions per hour

Happiness