Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Meal time II

Evelyn ate edamame the other day.
I boiled them in their pods, so to eat them, you'll have to squeeze the beans out of the pod. A fun a novel approach that met Evelyn's approval. But in order to play with the pod, I told her she'd have to eat the beans. And she did. By plopping the beans into her mouth, take a swing of her milk, and swallow the beans like they are vitamin pills. Whole and un-chewed. Righty oh.
"Chew it," her father urged.
"But I don't like it that way," she replied with a bean in her mouth ready to be swallowed.
I watched in disbelief. That is supposedly how her father ate his green beans when he's little. And here she is, doing it without him teaching her. Is it really in the genes?

So then, the question is does this cop out method count as eating a veggie?

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Movie time

Being raised on movies, when Evelyn was almost 2.5 years old, we decided that she's mature enough to sit through and enjoy a movie. We took her to see Up! in the theater. She loved the popcorn, loved the candies, and loved the movie. The whole 90 minutes of it. Only at the last few minutes did she start to get distracted by the purse I held on my lap. Since then, whenever there is something suitable playing in the theater, one of us would take her to it while the other gets left behind with baby duty.
I got to take the little princess to Princess and the Frog, her father drew How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek 4. So when Toy Story 3 comes along, it was my turn. Woo Hoo!
We got to the movie theater 15 minutes before the movie started. The little girl of course had to fall asleep in our short short car ride. But she woke willingly and happily in my arms as we raced into the theater, piping up to remind me about the chocolate covered raisins I promised her.
With the box of raisins in hand, we picked out our seats and settled in. We shared the candies, and cheered (quietly) when one preview is followed by another. When the movie started, she climbed into my lap, and we watched it snuggled into one seat. The movie was thrilling, funny, moving, and beautiful. When it was over, we walked hand in hand back into the sun light, back into real life, sharing thoughts about the story. Mother and daughter. A simple way to spend a typical afternoon. It was wonderful.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Chase me, chase me, Lauren.

Lauren started crawling at 6 months old. A early crawler, to which I take no credit. It's a matter of her own desire to catch up with her big sister.

From the very beginning, the sight of Evelyn is enough to make Lauren bounce in excitement in my arms. Especially when we are following Evelyn up the stairs. Lauren would wiggle herself so that she's facing Evelyn, wave her arms and giggle in excitement. If Evelyn is in the mood to interact with Lauren, she would turn back and say "ribbit" every couple of steps. This makes Lauren laugh and laugh and laugh. Now that she's mobile, Lauren wants to follow Evelyn every where she goes. Evelyn took pride in this, too, and would let Lauren chase her. Except the 3 year old is not very good at gauging the crawler's speed. She'd zoom past Lauren on the hall way yelling "chase me, Lauren!" Lauren would sit up to watch her big sister, beams at the challenge, get on all fours and start towards the big girl. At which point, the big girl had done enough waiting and is zooming past again yelling "chase me, Lauren!" as she goes.

Then, they realized that this chasing game would work better if Evelyn is lying down and only rolls around. Seeing Evelyn laying on the couch or in the bed, Lauren could not resist to crawl over (doing an infant battle cry "ah`" along the way) and lay her head down on her sister, which would tickle Evelyn so that she'd giggle and laugh and roll away. Finding herself lying on top of the mattress instead of a cushy toddler body, Lauren would crawl a few inches over to where Evelyn is, and lay down again and so goes the game. Happy screams, laughter, and battle cries would fill the air. And all I have to do is assume the head-bump prevention duty and hope that they'd wear themselves out enough to guarantee an easy bedtime.

I wish they would so enjoy each other always.

Monday, June 14, 2010

When it comes to meal time

Am I the only mom that always approach meal time with unease?

I'd be zipping about in the kitchen, stirring a pot, washing fruit, checking the meat, and all the while hearing a nagging little voice in my head asking me questions like this: Are they going to eat it? Are they going to like it? Will they wrinkle their noses and turn away from their plates? Are they going to leave the table hungry because dinner wasn't satisfying? Am I crazy? I think I sounded crazy.

I would describe it as small scale nerve wrecking. (I put "small scale" in the sentence just so I appear less crazy.)

Let's see, the father of the children is a carnivore in the purest way. He does not eat vegetables, period. Not one iota of it. He will root out any green specks of herb that I sprinkled in a dish before he would even let the food near his lips. He'll spend an eternity on it, going over every inch on the plate patiently and thoroughly in case any little speck escaped his attention while I seethed at the other side of the table. Really? That harmless bit of microscopic parsley just had to be scraped off from your pasta or else it would ruin your whole dinner experience? I love the father of my children. I do. But sometimes it takes a lot for me to not grab his utensils and throw his plat away.

And then there's the fact that seafood can be too seafood-y, tomato sauce could be too tomato-y, and that sort of thing. I can never be completely sure if a new recipe is blend enough or if the pot of my new culinary attempt will be my lunch for the week.

The three year old is, unfortunately, much of the same way. So, every night, I sit beside her, cut up her food, and then try my best to look as though I've nonchalantly move on to other things rather than fighting the urge to bite my nails in wait of her verdict on this food that I served. As though I'm not straining my eye ball in order to watch while not appearing to watch her next move. Every time she takes a second bite of something non-carb without us issuing any threat, I feel like I've won the lottery. At least for now. Because the second bite could also be the last, and she'd just fill herself up with plain white rice leaving behind the rest of her wonderful dinner behind for me to swept into my frustrated mouth.

Now here comes the 8 month old, whom I have not completely figured out. She loves to grab, lick, and suck on the fruit that I'm having. But if I pureed that same piece of fruit into baby friendly mush and spoon feed it to her, she makes this face even before the spoon reaches her. Rejecting it even before she tried it. All the love and labor, thoughts and effort that I poured into making her this tasty, delicious food, gone to waste. I would have been a lot more frustrated if she wasn't so darn cute.