Love at First Bite

My baby and I took a big step this month.  Let me clarify, we took a big bite.  His was rice cereal; mine was little tears over the loss of my little bitty, teeny weeny newborn baby.  As I write these words, my bottom lip sticks out and I feel sad.  Cry with me.  I am sad because with Food my baby is telling me "I'm growing up Mom, I'm going to be walking soon, I'll have teeth soon!"  I'm sad because I am saying goodbye to a very sweet chapter in my son's life.  I look at his Michelin Man body now and try to remember when he was only seven pounds.  As they say, "they grow up so quickly." 

As you can tell from the picture above, JT was not quite as sad to reach his new milestone.  He LOVED rice cereal.  You can tell it rocked his world.  He would reach out for every spoonful like a baby bird reaching to his mama for his morning grub, neck extended, lips up in the air waiting for the next bite.  We decided to keep feeding him food (our pediatrician would be happy), and last night fed him green beans.  He swallowed approvingly.  I'm scared of his next poopy diaper.  Will it be Incredible Hulk - like?

What was your baby's first food and did you weep like me?

Ode to the toes

If baby milestones could have ringtones, the 80's song "You're My Obsession" would be JT's discovery of his feet.  He has been spying his piggy toes since the first week of June.  He finally got these bad boys into his mouth recently.  He was sucking on his big toe so hard that when it came out it made a loud popping noise.

I wonder how long this song will be stuck in my head now....

I will have you, yes I will have you

I will find a way and I will have you

Like a butterfly, a wild butterfly

I will collect you and capture you

Let's go Krogering!

Even though I'm 30 (it still hurts to admit), I still don't have a clue as to how to put a meal on the table five days a week, let alone seven.  Now that we have a baby, cooking seems like a required skillset for a mother.  With all that said, it's been quite a bumpy road in the kitchen.

One of my good friends, Ellen, turned me onto meal planning. She plans a week of meals at a time and buys groceries over the weekend. At first, this seemed like a very daunting task.  So many decisions!  But, I worship practicality, and this seemed like a very practical approach to cooking.  As a bonus, it also allows my sweet husband the chance to "pre-approve" my meal decisions and rule out anything too weird or pricey.  We tend to not agree on all things culinary and he is quite a grocery penny pincher (we save $1,000 each year with our Kroger card). 

So, here was my first weekly menu: Monday - "meal of blah" (previously discussed); Tuesday - hot dogs, grilled tomatoes stuffed with pesto and artichokes and roasted corn on the cob; Wednesday - BBQ ribs + apple slaw ; Thursday - BBQ pizza + pesto pizza & salad.  Everything outside of Monday turned out pretty good.  Anyone have suggestions for next week?

Crock Pots...what a crock.

Someone gave me a Crock Pot as a wedding gift.  In theory it seems like a great tool in the kitchen, but, every slow cooker recipe I've tried has resulted in "eh, it's okay" reviews.  What's the deal?  Take for instance tonight's dinner - Coq au vin.  Since my husband doesn't watch the Food Network, I translate it for him as "French chicken."  From the start, I realize that my "Fix it and Forget it Lightly" coq au vin isn't likely to taste just like my $30 coq au vin from the fancy french restaurant.  But, there's a recipe and I have the ingredients (most of them anyway), so I get a little excited.  Now, I didn't have the red wine (used extra chicken stock) and I couldn't use mushrooms (J hates them), and we never have fresh thyme (or dried for that matter), but I threw it all in the crock pot and headed out the door expecting culinary mastery. 
When we return and I open my Croq pot present, I subconsciously realize that what I had was "chicken cooked in chicken stock with bacon and onions with a tomato paste sauce" and not necessarily coq au vin, but I thought my taste buds could still sing.  Think again.  The chicken turned out moderately juicy, but the sauce was ho hum and there was no resemblance of my fancy French restaurant coq au vin.  It was a nice plate of boring.  You know you have a nice dinner of "blah" when the highlight of the meal is the only thing that's fried.

So, tonight I wave my white flag of cooking defeat and plan tomorrow night's dinner of hot dogs and chips.  Hey - don't judge me.

Me Time and the MLB

It's a Friday night and the baby is asleep.  The hubs and I are alone.  I always look forward to this time so that we can reconnect as a couple and wind down our day.  However, I can always tell when a good baseball game is on.  I usually go downstairs after putting the baby down to bed to either clean up the kitchen or check facebook.  If I'm not back upstairs within twenty minutes, my sweet little husband comes down looking for me.  But, not tonight and my bet is that it's a good game between the Braves and Mets keeping him company.  So, I'm stealing a few extra minutes to update my blog.  Who knew that baseball could actually help my marriage?  Thanks Bobby Cox!

Yep, he's a momma's boy

For my ahem, 30th, birthday, JT rolled over for the first time.  Look how proud of himself he is.  And, keep in mind that he slept through the night for the first time on Mother's Day.  What did he do on Father's Day, you ask?  Nada.  He loves his momma!  XOXOXO my little puppy.

First Date Jitters

Sweaty palms, rapid heartbeat, inability to sleep....these are all symptoms of a fifteen year old on her first date.  Yet, thanks to the internet genious of meetup.com, I was experiencing these first date jitters in anticipation of my first Mom date. A bookclub, innocuous enough, seemed like a neutral enough venue.  Keep in mind, the only all-female get togethers I've ever experienced involved a basketball, buckets of sweat and plenty of unattractive athletic gear.  As a jock, the world of non-athlete women is as foreign of a world to me as a Yankee Catholic at a Southern Baptist revival.  I have NO idea what non-athletic women talk about all the time. 

So, I went into the unknown carrying my Rachael Ray appetizer and my copy of the Help, the month's designated read.  I was the first to arrive and the only one who found the group on the internet.  Despite talking a little bit too much about the book, I think I did okay.  There were six other women, most stay at home moms, half Southern, all thin (why did I notice that?) and (thankfully) nice. It was fun and my appetizer was the fanciest one there believe it or not...who would've thought?  The book was about the stories of Black maids that worked for white women in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1950's.  As we were discussing the women of the book, and families we knew who had help, it struck me that this was the first time I'd ever shared such a communal dialogue with a group of women outside of sports and family.  It seems significant.  There was a complete void of competiton and it felt very new to me.  Nice, but new.

Maybe this stay at home mom thing isn't so scary after all.