Last year I wrote a nice long post about how Bill is such a wonderful husband. This year, although I think our relationship is stronger than ever, I'm too busy cleaning my kitchen to come up with such eloquent words. Seriously. I used to stand over a sink full of bottle parts and dream of bottle-less days to come. But now I realize that bottles are simple, portable and neat. Its entertaining to watch babies eat food, but its a mess. And its sloooooow. And its a mess.
Right now the girls are eating three meals a day and having four bottles. Like their parents, they enjoy having multiple courses. I usually start them off with "appetizers," or foods that they can feed themselves to practice their pincher grasp and their hand eye coordination. Some favorites are Cheerios, boiled pasta "elbows," and pieces of bread cut into small squares (all whole wheat varieties). They also like grapes cut in half, small pieces of strawberries and small pieces of soft cheese.
Once or twice a week I do a big cook where I make some staples that will get us through for a few days. They enjoy apples and pears (peeled, boiled down and mashed), carrots, and sweet potatoes. I'm not sure if you can eat too many sweet potatoes but I hope not because if you can, we probably do. They also sometimes eat parsnips, beets, asparagus and blended oranges. I use these foods to form the bulk of my meals for a few days and then add in other foods that can be prepared quickly. The best foods that can be prepared in less than 5 minutes are mashed bananas, frozen peas, avocados, scrambled eggs and yogurt.
For example, our meals for a day might go something like this:
Breakfast: Cheerios, grapes, 1 banana mashed and mixed with 1/4 c plain greek yogurt, 2 eggs
Lunch: piece of toast spread with hummus and cut into 1/2" squares, handful of boiled elbows, large sweet potato mixed with a little apple and pear sauce, peas (frozen variety that are boiled and pureed)
Dinner: We eat dinner together (at 5:30) and I feed them tastes of whatever we are eating. Last night we had chicken chili so I gave them small pieces of chicken, black beans that I smashed a little, small pieces of cheese and small pieces of avocado.
All this cooking is very time consuming and the only thing I can say about trying to balance babies and nutrition is get re-acquainted with your crock pot. When I plan my week I usually try to have a couple busier days staggered with a couple less busy days. On the less busy days I might cook an actual meal and then put the ingredients for tomorrow's dinner in the crock pot dish and refrigerate overnight. On mornings of busier days, I then just take the crock pot dish out of the refrigerator, put it on the base and turn it on.
All I'm dreaming of for Valentine's Day this year is to not have to cook or clean my kitchen. Bill is taking all of us out to dinner this evening. The girls ate in restaurants twice last weekend; they are actually really good and so cute. We put them in restaurant high chairs and usually try to order a hummus appetizer because they love hummus and pita. Then we each save them a little bit of whatever we get for dinner. Before we leave we both crawl under the table to pick up everything that fell on the floor so we'll be welcome back. :) Its a glamorous life....
Spaghetti night last week and a few pictures from our Valentine's Day dinner out:
Right now the girls are eating three meals a day and having four bottles. Like their parents, they enjoy having multiple courses. I usually start them off with "appetizers," or foods that they can feed themselves to practice their pincher grasp and their hand eye coordination. Some favorites are Cheerios, boiled pasta "elbows," and pieces of bread cut into small squares (all whole wheat varieties). They also like grapes cut in half, small pieces of strawberries and small pieces of soft cheese.
Once or twice a week I do a big cook where I make some staples that will get us through for a few days. They enjoy apples and pears (peeled, boiled down and mashed), carrots, and sweet potatoes. I'm not sure if you can eat too many sweet potatoes but I hope not because if you can, we probably do. They also sometimes eat parsnips, beets, asparagus and blended oranges. I use these foods to form the bulk of my meals for a few days and then add in other foods that can be prepared quickly. The best foods that can be prepared in less than 5 minutes are mashed bananas, frozen peas, avocados, scrambled eggs and yogurt.
For example, our meals for a day might go something like this:
Breakfast: Cheerios, grapes, 1 banana mashed and mixed with 1/4 c plain greek yogurt, 2 eggs
Lunch: piece of toast spread with hummus and cut into 1/2" squares, handful of boiled elbows, large sweet potato mixed with a little apple and pear sauce, peas (frozen variety that are boiled and pureed)
Dinner: We eat dinner together (at 5:30) and I feed them tastes of whatever we are eating. Last night we had chicken chili so I gave them small pieces of chicken, black beans that I smashed a little, small pieces of cheese and small pieces of avocado.
All this cooking is very time consuming and the only thing I can say about trying to balance babies and nutrition is get re-acquainted with your crock pot. When I plan my week I usually try to have a couple busier days staggered with a couple less busy days. On the less busy days I might cook an actual meal and then put the ingredients for tomorrow's dinner in the crock pot dish and refrigerate overnight. On mornings of busier days, I then just take the crock pot dish out of the refrigerator, put it on the base and turn it on.
All I'm dreaming of for Valentine's Day this year is to not have to cook or clean my kitchen. Bill is taking all of us out to dinner this evening. The girls ate in restaurants twice last weekend; they are actually really good and so cute. We put them in restaurant high chairs and usually try to order a hummus appetizer because they love hummus and pita. Then we each save them a little bit of whatever we get for dinner. Before we leave we both crawl under the table to pick up everything that fell on the floor so we'll be welcome back. :) Its a glamorous life....
Spaghetti night last week and a few pictures from our Valentine's Day dinner out:
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| Milena |
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| Francesca |
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| Francesca loves her V-Day bib. Thanks Auntie Erin! |
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| Milena studying the menu. |
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| Mmmm hummus. Nice selection Milena! |
You are so right - feeding babies "real" food is very time consuming and very very messy!! I am enjoying our last weeks of only bottle feeding as I know life is about to get a little harder and lot dirtier. It is great that Francesca and Milena are eating all kinds of different foods - Andrew was so picky as a baby and is still very picky today. Hopefully Emily will like more foods than her brother. The girls are getting so big - they are precious!
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