Our Baby Size Life!

Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

Yes that’s a McCain cake pan on his head… He’d just finished scraping every little morsel out of the thing and he decided the only logical remaining course was to wear it like a hat… Which is normal for an almost-two-year-old. Right?? Hey! He was high on icing sugar at the time!!! This Saturday is Sam 2nd birthday and the gang is coming over to have some fun! Will it be a wacky and wild as this dessert session?  Either way, I bet there will be some icing everywhere, a few loose diapers and, definitely, a couple tired parents… We’ll be back soon to fill you in on all the crazy eating details!!!

Kick-ass Slippers baby!!!

Melissa and I are big proponents of raising Sam to experience the best of our own childhood experiences, while doing our best to avoid the pitfalls… Which of course will be next to impossible, but that’s life.  One of the favorite things from our own childhoods were the weekend morning breakfasts.  If only, for one day, I could open my eyes and gaze at the world as I did 25 years ago: with unlimited wonder and careless agenda!  I would get up earlier than anybody else and run to the kitchen, grab a big bowl, the milk, and a favorite cereal (usually Fruit Loops, Corn Pops, Count Chocula, Captain Crunch or Fruity Pebbles) and run to the TV to watch me some cartoons!!! Oh Hells ya! The Bugs Bunny and Tweety show was the staple of my Saturday morning cartoon schedule for years, and I still watch it today on the odd lunch break.

Continue Reading here…

The chair...

During the week, our routine is pretty standard: get home from work, get in the house, get some food in our bellies, get Sam in a bath and get him into bed.  It’s not always that straight forward, we do throw in some good old on-the-floor playin’ around time, but that’s the gist of it. And while we go through this daily grind, Sam has pretty much been nice enough to play on his own and let us prepare supper undisturbed… unless we forget to give him his cheese!  This kids loves the mozzarella and he knows when it’s time for it.  We have barely all shuffled through the front door and Sammy-pants B lines right for the kitchen to stand at the counter where we cut his cheese.  He also has a little plastic bowl that he goes and fishes out of his toy pile and gives it to the cheese-cutter. Then an impatient finger points into the bowl expecting his snack. Naturally, to keep the peace with his grumbling belly, we comply and drop in about a dozen little cubes for him to munch on. Sam likes a quiet meal, so he used to look around for someplace to sit while eating, usually in front of the sink or fridge, because he has to see what we are doing in the kitchen. But sitting in front of the sink or fridge is a recipe for toddler trouble.  So, the we bought him the chair.

Sam likes his chair.

We place it near us in the kitchen and when he gets his dairy payment to leave us alone for a bit, he grabs his bowl and heads for the chair. At first,

Just sittin', eatin' cheese...

we needed to pick him up and sit him down on it.  But Sam wasn’t going to take this pampering any longer; he wanted to do it himself!  Now I don’t have a video of this yet, but when I do I’ll throw it up here.  It’s the funniest thing to see.  He walks up to the chair, stops about two feet away, turns around so his back is to the chair and slowly walks backwards until his heels hit the chair.   Now, his reversing isn’t very good yet because he doesn’t look back at where his going; he looks up at you with a smile like he’s saying “Hey, check me out! I’m backing up man!” When his heels hit a part of the chair, his butt drops… And so does the bowl of cheese cubes! He’s missed the chair and cheese goes flying! We still find these little, hard and dried up cheese cubes under sofas and furniture across the house! He does manage to wedge his cheeks on the chair properly after a couple of tries. He then sits down with a smile and a new bowlful of cheese to watch us get his supper ready.

Hey! Get off my Dads grass!!!

On some evenings, maybe it’s the food were preparing or the pre-dinner conversation that bores him, he picks up his chair and puts it at the front door of the house!  Our front door has a big glass window inset, so he just loves looking out onto the world while scarfing his mozza.  He’s our very own little old man, guard person.  He yelps when he sees a dog or cat, and talks out loud when people walk by. He’s even knocked on the glass to get people’s attention, and when he does, they usually wave to him which is all he needs to flash back his cute little smile.  It’s pretty neat as a parent to see your child grow up and be so aware of his surroundings.  While Sam can only speak about five words, he understands a whole lot more!  And yet, when he does something an adult would do, we are surprised. Not through doubt that he’d never do the things he does, just astonishment at the fact that this little guy, only a year before, couldn’t even roll over.  Now he’s yelling at people to get off my grass!   Clearly, he’s letting us get to know him a little more every day, quirks and all, which is great! He makes us laugh cause not only does he do funny things like this, but he knows they are funny and laughs with us. My kind of guy!

Don’t forget to laugh folks! Have a great weekend… cause Sam may be watching YOU!

Checkin' out the neighborhood.

Sometimes kids get into messes on their own. Heck, even adults do that now and again, like me stepping barefoot in a full paint tray. Yeah, one of my brightest moments. But there are occasions when, oh I don`t know, Mom is feeling good and a little mischievous so she decide to have some fun by letting Sam have a little fun. Now before the ladies start “circlin’ them wagons” against me, saying that I’m blaming Melissa for what happened… Well, I’m not. If you’ve read this blog for a bit, you’re well aware of my penchant for having fun with Sam in all kinds of ways. Yes, they’re all legal and no toddlers are ever harmed in one of my little stunts!

Now, on this particular day, we were looking for something to feed Sam, and we had several choices. But Mom thought that Sam should try something new, which I am always up for. It had been a little while since he had done that, so we figured a little, fun experimentation was in order. Combing through the fridge, Melissa pops up with some spaghetti in tomato sauce. Hence me talking about “messes” earlier…

Yeah… He looks absolutely thrilled to have discovered spaghetti sauce don’t he?  You see, a good portion of Sammy-boy’s previous diet had been relatively sauce free. So the odd, mid-meal eye rub and head scratch generally went unnoticed.  With tomato sauce , however, Sam’s face became a canvas and his hands were the brushes At one point, he didn’t like the stickiness on his face and he began some hardcore eye rubbing.

You’re all smart people. You understand that tomato sauce in the eye is an immediate and effective sedative, which completely renders children into a calm, peaceful state.

Holy Sh*t did he scream!

With kids, things rarely work out the way you plan them. Melissa thought a nice, quiet, family spaghetti dinner would be great for Sam, and it was… until we were picking parsley out of his tear ducts!  We cleaned Sam up and gave him some plain noodles to finish up the meal. The second time we fed him tomato sauce was better as he kept his hands on his plate or in his mouth.  Kid learns quick!

But then again, I guess a little pesto in the peepers will do that!

Buon appetito!

P.S. Sam has since forgiven his mommy and is now talking to her again

Sam loves food.  Melissa and I love food, so I guess Sam picked that up from us. Now I know all babies love food. It’s one of the three main activities they can do: eat, sleep and sh*t.  But Sammy-boy takes it to another level.  This kid shovels folks, he doesn’t eat. Daintiness is a lesson lost on this guy when the chow lands on his plate.  Grabbed by the handfuls and pulled into his semi-toothed maw, Sam consumes with a fury not known to nature.  He claims every last bit of sauce, food particle or crumb on his fingers.  Sam even goes as far as getting all four fingers in his mouth to ensure that no survivors remain.  This kids an athlete. He could go pro next year.

But the thing that makes us laugh is that during the whole “eating us out of house and home” thing, he talks. He just goes on and on blabbing until he’s done eating. This can stretch up to an hour! Between every chew, before and after every breath, he just has to make a noise cause he’s so happy to be eating.

Just to sum up: he won’t shut up.

It’s not pretty to watch sometimes, but man is he passionate about his food! It’s a good thing Mom is a great cook… and Dad’s not too shabby either!

Just check out the video below instead, and watch Sam at his dining finest!

Take care and eat well!

Sam’s nutritional development is a never ending adventure for us.  From the bottle, he hit the easy grain cereals.  Then he started the veggie purees, and followed that with some fruit purees.  When Sam had become comfortable as a vegetarian, we totally threw every kind of meat down his little gullet… and the little porker packed it all in with a lustful appetite better suited for a fully grown human, like an NFL linebacker, let alone a 9 month old pamper killer.  Now a days, he’s progressed off the baby purees and into the chunky puree territory.  So, instead of eating a nice smooth mixture, he’s basically eating what looks like a good night of drinking, finishing the wrong way…  It doesn’t help that most of these pre-made baby suppers all have this orangey, beige type coloring… with little green pea chunks… yeah, gooood stuff! But as a concerned parent , I taste everything we feed Sam at least once, and if I don’t like it, well Sam doesn’t get it! Sometimes I feel like those taste testers from medieval times, you know the ones who tasted the kings food for poison before they fed it to the king?

All that to tell you that recently, Melissa has been introducing Sammy-boy to manual food.  He now has half a multi-grain toast every morning and some cut up banana pieces for lunch and dinner. He loves eating like this.  I guess he sees us eat finger food, so he’s glad to be like the adults! I decided to put up Sam’s typical banana eating result for you to enjoy!

I swear, this was all Sam without any adult interference… but Sam doesn’t believe me, maybe you won’t either!

Take care all…

I know this post is long over due, but I figured I’d tell you about our Thanksgiving anyways, because we ended up in the hospital again!  Man, when it rains it pours!  I hadn’t been in a hospital in years, almost decades, and now it happens three times in a two month period!  So, with the American Thanksgiving right around the corner, I figured I’d sneak this post in now, while it’s got some relevance. My bro has some nice pics from that great Thanksgiving day, but I don’t have them with me now. It’s a bummer, but I’ll try and post ‘em later on.  We had some great family fun as my sis and her family made the drive up from Toronto.  My bro was there with his daughter and his new girlfriend and , of course, my parents were there… well we were all in their house.  So, yeah, it makes sense they be there…

Saturday was a busy day, we all had some fun on my Wii (Rock Band and Boom Blox), we played some street hockey in which my nephews once again felt the unforgiving wrath of their Uncle John as he totally and systematically destroyed their defense and piled on the goals without mercy.  I won (again) 53 to 38, and they were two on one! Yeah, I know I’m good, but what can I say… I’m a natural…  What? How old? Why they are 13 and 11… but that doesn’t mean anything! Have you seen kids nowadays?!?  They’re HUGE. My oldest nephew wears bigger sized shoes than I do! And you know what they say about a man with big feet… They wear BIG shoes! Let’s keep it clean folks!

So everything was going typically well, it was around 11 pm when things went south. My sis and brother-in-law were packing up the minivan to head back early the next day while everyone else was playing some cards and winding down after another great meal. Kudos to Mom and Dad who outdid themselves again! Check out some of the yummy food they laid out:

Mmmm... Look at that turkey. It was as good as it looks!	My plate...or I should say, one of my plates!
Apple, Cherry and Pumpkin pies!	Rollie-Pollies, a decadent recipe made of pie crust and brown sugar!

Colby, their dog, was out with my bro-in-law while he packed the car, when suddenly Colby bolts out towards the street after a couple strangers that were out taking a walk.  My bro-in-law reacted and spun to chase after the dog… but didn’t see the traveling bag he had placed on the ground.  He ended up landing hard on his left shoulder.  We walks into the kitchen, clutching his arm saying he can’t feel his fingers and arm, but his shoulder is in intense pain.

Luckily, my bro’s new girlfriend used to be a nurse and checked him out.  She thought we should get to a hospital to make sure everything was OK as she thought that his arm or shoulder could be broken!  So off we go, my Dad, my bro-in-law and me to the local hospital on Thanksgiving night, it being close to midnight.  We arrived at the hospital around 15 past midnight, and after a series of quick examinations followed by a couple hours waiting time, they recommended he get X-rays.  So we had to wait for the X-ray technician.  It was now 3 am. He got his X-rays and hobbled back to his waiting room for the doctor to give his diagnosis on the X-rays taken.  That took another 2 hours.  It was now 5 am.

Finally, the doctor came back and explained the situation to my bro-in-law:  his shoulder was broken… in two places!  No wonder he was in pain!  The doctor then advised him to go home and relax until they got into contact with a surgeon to evaluate how to proceed.  The problem was my bro-in-law had one clean fracture and another fracture that had detached a tendon.  They weren’t sure if the fracture would mend and the tendon would fuse back to the bone properly and needed the surgeons opinion.  My bro-in-law explained that he was leaving for Toronto in one hour and would have to pursue the matter when he got home.

And that’s what he did.  We drove home from the hospital and got back to my parents house around 6:30 am on the Sunday.  What an exhausting night.  My Dad and I were completely pooped out.  My bro-in-law, with his arm in a sling, climbed into his packed car with my sis and their two kids, and they left for Toronto.

Mind you, all this happened about a month ago now, so I can update you on his situation.  He was re-evaluated that Sunday afternoon in a Toronto area hospital and they ruled against surgery.  He was, and still is, under observation on a weekly basis.  Both fractures, and the tendon, seem to be healing OK, which is welcome news.  One thing I haven’t told you about my bro-in-law is that his job requires him to be on the road a large amount of the time.  And , yes folks, the day after they got home from the Thanksgiving trip, my crazy, yet dedicated, bro-in-law went on a road trip for his job!  He didn’t drive of course, but still, the guys got guts right?  Snaps his shoulder in two places and he’s out cutting deals with clients less than 48 hours later!

What a guy!  Hats off to you Mr. Bro-in-Law!  And that was our Thanksgiving 2008!

Thanks for reading.

Sam’s been eating his share of fruits and vegetables for the past 6 weeks know, and we’ve noticed that he keeps asking for more and more.  So, we decided that it’s probably time for his to have something a little more consistent in his little belly.  Up to now, Melissa has been making Sam’s purees from scratch which I must admit, have tasted very good so far.  Sam’s now tasted peas, carrots, squash, sweet potato, pears, bananas and apples.  That’s your basic start for any infants solid food phase, but now Sam was eating at an incredible rate.  Every meal we would have to give more and more as he would cry when his portion was finished.  He likes eating so much, that he gets impatient in between spoonfuls of food!  I don’t even have time to give him some food, swoop the spoon back to his plate and then come back to his mouth before he starts wiggling in his chair, slapping the counter top, turning beat red and making grunting sounds through pursed lips!  It’s funny to watch!

Melissa picked up some chicken puree from a company called “La Mère Poule”, that translates to “Mother Hen” in English.  It’s a company that specializes in frozen baby foods made from all natural products with nothing added.  The ingredients for the chicken puree were – water and chicken.  That’s it.  Since I have this little policy to taste everything we give to Sam (yes that included breast milk ), I was a little worried about how this would taste since it wasn’t homemade.  I dipped a spoon into the gray, pale, lumpy stuff and slowly raised the spoon to my slightly shaking lips…and it was good.  Melissa tried it next and was also pleasantly surprised that the kitchen floor wasn’t covered in our vomit.

Now we had the final test: Sam.  He was sitting there, expectant, in his high chair watching us eat what he knew was his food.  He had a slight smile in the corner of his mouth as Melissa approached with the little bowl full of chicken paste.  I won’t spoil his reaction to you in writing, but instead invite you to check out the clip below! We laughed and I hope you will too. Enjoy!

An annual event Melissa and I like to partake in is apple picking.  It’s kind of like a right of passage into Fall.  A day were we acknowledge that summer has passed on and the beautiful and bountiful Fall season is now upon us.  We love Fall and for many reasons other than the apple picking: the trees changing colors, the cool nights, Thanksgiving (lovin’ that turkey!), the Fall harvest, the return of the nice & thick wool sweater, an evening fire in the fire pit and of course Halloween!

We like going every year with friends and family, but this year was a big one as it was, of course, Sam’s first time apple picking.  Now I know that Sam, being only 7 months old won’t remember jack squat from this.  But you need to remember something folks, most people’s earliest memories are from around their third or fourth year of life.  So any parents that do these kind of activities with their relatively young children aren’t crazy and wasting time and money.  They are doing it for two reasons.  Firstly, we do it for the moment, the present, the here and now, the immediate satisfaction, if you will, of doing something as a family and the pleasure it brings.  The second reason is for the parents memories.  We do these things to be able to remember the early times with our kids.  I mean they go by so fast! Sam’s 7 months already! Plus we can tell our grown up children stories that begin with “I remember when you were only a little baby and we…”.  Plus, parents want to show off their kids and the best place to do that is in public!

So last Sunday we head out to the apple orchard with Melissa’s two sisters, Norm, and my godchild Jeremy.  We had a blast!  They place was packed, however, and we got snubbed on one of the main attractions of the place: fresh, hot, right out of the oil, homemade apple and pumpkin donuts!  Man o man they are a treat, let me tell ya! But, it wasn’t meant to be as I had been standing in line for 30 minutes before deciding to give up and go apple picking with the gang.  We walked for a few minutes into the orchard to find a spot away from most of the crowd and settled down on a blanket we had brought.  The sky was a perfect blue and the mountain in the back drop made for beautiful scenery as we ran, climbed, picked and ate our way among the orchard trees.

On the way out we bought about 30 bucks worth of food related to apples.  They sold a lot of yummy looking stuff, so I had to restrain myself in my purchases.  It was twice as hard to hold back buying everything in the store as we had not eaten lunch yet, and it was about 5 o’clock in the afternoon by then.  In the parking lot, which was really a now trampled field, a couple hot air balloons were being filled and getting ready for liftoff.  We decided to call it a day and check them out.  It was impressive to see the angry orange flame and hear its roar as the balloon filled up and took flight.  We’ll have to hitch a ride in one of those someday.

By that point, Sam fell asleep in his godmother’s arms as we walked back to our cars.  He was in her arms because his super suspension, big wheeled, off-road, SUV-like stroller was filled with apples!  It might seem cruel to kick Sam out of his wheels, but it was a simple matter of mathematics really.  Sam weighs about 17 pounds and the apples weighed about 40 pounds!  Case closed.  Sam gets evicted from the stroller.  Besides, there was no shortage of arms to carry the little guy.  He was great again for us, being a happy, smiling baby.  Needless to say, all that fresh air pooped us all out.  It was an early night for bed, our bellies filled with apple goodness.  Did I mention we had a nice warm, apple and maple syrup pie for dessert?  Freakin’ good. Go get one.

Below are a couple more pics,

Take care and thanks for reading!

Today our son, Samuel, started eating his first vegetable: Peas!!! He’s been tasting various cereals this past week and a half, and today, we felt he was ready to graduate to his first vegetable. We had a varied choice of veggies to pick from, since Melissa wanted to make the puray herself. So we thought about taking a sweet tasting veggie first, wanting to avoid the turnips of the world, and came up with a final choice of sweet potato or peas. Peas won out because… well they’re peas dammit! Cute, green, nice round shape, sweet… what more could you ask for in a vegetable?!

So in the blender a bunch of frozen peas went, add a little water, hit the button and presto… neon green pea puray! I told myself that when Sammy started eating “solids” that I would taste everything we give him, and I have been. Of the three cereals we’ve fed him (rice, barley and wheat) the wheat cereal was the best. So here I am staring down the barrel at a spoonful of radio-active looking snot , with Melissa looking on expectantly, as I raise the spoon to my lips and taste. “Wow! That’s really pea-y!” I say. But it’s good. It’s a raw, green, earthly taste that I rarely have the pleasure of savoring anymore with all the seasonings, spices and additives (like butter) that we put on our food. Melissa emboldened by my enthusiasm digs in herself and is pleased with the taste, although she wouldn’t eat a bowl full.

The peas have passed the parent test, now it’s time for the big show, the king of the crib, the dude of the diaper…Sam! We strap him into his highchair and remove all his toys from the tray. This is the signal he recognizes that food is on the way. Now by this point he’s already had a bottle, so he’s expecting a cereal since that’s all he’s ever had to this point. Melissa lets me have the honor of Sam’s first veggie feeding, so I load up his spoon with the green paste and send it in towards his expectant mouth at a leisurely pace, gentleman-like, not to rushed. Sam’s ninja defenses immediately perk up, arms and hands waving a complex pattern through the air to intercept any inbound intruders… like my cargo heavy, green-glowing spoon. Even though I’m only still a rookie spoon pilot, I deftly avoid his co-ordinated hand swipes and drop the spoon’s payload right into his mouth like Luke running the Death-Star trench. I pull the spoon up and away quickly, awaiting the look on Sam’s face… and we get this:

A happy smile and a “gimme some more!!!” look! Well, I guess we’ll have to give him some turnip to see those funny baby reaction faces. Maybe next week! Here’s a couple more shots from the feeding… and yes, it kind of got a little messy… but none of it was my fault I assure you!

Besides, as you can see, he was having a lot of fun! After his meal, Sam decided to kick back in his spaghetti pillow, do some reading and chew on a little after dinner “Q”… Ahhh the baby life!

Meanwhile, Dad finished the peas!

Thanks for reading!