Pregnancy Week 30: Sleepy, solo parenting

This is gonna be brief, because [see blog post title]. I’m at the end of Day 3 out of 4 of The Husband being out of town for a work conference. Just in time for pregnancy fatigue to come back in full force.

The Toddler is going through some sort of developmental leap this week. I’m calling it “Mommy, Look!” Week because he’s been saying it over and over again. Sometimes it’s cute (he has colored something or figured out how to open Mr. Potato Head’s storage hatch) but usually it means he’s standing on the dining room table while I’m trying to cook us something for dinner. It could also be called, “I’m No Longer Going to Tell You When I Have to Poop” week, which also has been fun.

Baby 2 is the size of a cantaloupe, or a platypus! (I know I’ve been complaining about baby size comparisons this whole pregnancy, but I’m pretty psyched about the platypus.) That equates to 17 inches and about 3.5 pounds. His or her lanugo will start to fall off this week (though judging by the full blown acid reflux that’s kicked in this week, he or she will still be covered in fur at birth).

Um, what else… I don’t know. I’m tired. I can’t stop burping. Or whining. I And I’m on solo duty for one more night. Wish me luck.

By John Lewin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Pregnancy Week 29: Holding my bones together

Oh, hello. It appears we’ve arrived at the point in my pregnancy, approximately 8-10 weeks ahead of schedule, during which I cannot fathom how I will go on being pregnant and managing my day-to-day life.

It must kick in earlier with a second baby because the terror of trying to figure out how I’ll survive with two children is so much more acute–the sleep deprivation, the diaper explosions, the perpetual leaking of fluids–that it makes evolutionary sense for me to be so blindingly miserable as a pregnant person that I’ll take anything to get out of this. Including childbirth, and the aforementioned sleep deprivation, diaper explosions, and leaking fluids.

Before I go on, though, let’s talk stats:

At 29 weeks, baby is pretty well fully formed and is just putting the finishing touches on everything — in the form of more fat and muscle, eyelashes, and lung development. The baby is about 16″ in length and 3 pounds, give or take. You know, pineapple-sized (or a butternut squash. Or an acorn squash. Wasn’t it already an acorn squash a few weeks ago? I hate these comparisons.) My Ovia app tells me that as space is becoming more cramped in there, the baby’s “movements are getting less violent and more regular as s/he grows to the bounds of your womb.”

Ha!

On Tuesday, it felt like the baby was nearly successful in tunneling out of the side of my uterus Shawshank Redemption style. While it was only painful in one area (just to the right of my belly button), the pressure was so intense it had me Googling, “Contractions or baby kicking.” The kicks had me doubled over, unable to talk. And I am speaking from the experience of already having one unmedicated childbirth behind me. I had an anterior placenta with my first pregnancy, and either that was some valuable cushioning or this baby is going to be a human wrecking ball.

In response to my agony, The Husband showed me an article he saw on Reddit in which a fetus actually did punch through her mother’s womb, almost killing them both. The top comment described a second incidence of this happening. In reading further, I found that both women had scar tissue in their uteruses (uteri?), from removing fibroids, but that is NOT COMFORTING NEWS WHEN YOUR BABY IS KICKING, SIR!

We’re now deep into Snoogle season of this pregnancy, which is marked by me spending the night embracing a big, G-shaped pillow that takes up 85% of the bed. While it does nothing to improve my maneuverability, I need it “to help hold my bones together,” as I explained to The Husband when he whined recently that he was falling off the bed. (I wake up in the morning and my spine sounds like an upturned rainstick. Without this pillow, annoying as it is, I fear I’d wake up as nothing more than a loose pile of bones in a skin bag.)

While all my joints have been feeling a little loose for weeks, this week in particular marked the beginning of another fun symptom that has flared up (again, happened last time, too): symphysis pubis dysfunction (self-diagnosed, but I’m pretty confident). As I understand it, this means that hormones have rendered my ligaments so relaxed that my hips are barely attached to each other anymore. I guess it’s time to quit hitching a leg over the electric fence to pet the goats every day.

Because of this, I was so miserable on Tuesday I made The Husband come home early-ish from work with takeout pizza because I couldn’t get off the couch to make dinner or adequately supervise our son after his nap. While I haven’t been formally exercising lately, I have been pretty active in doing chores and general toddler-chasing, but this is slowing me down.

I suppose in some ways this is good, as I’m barely 20% finished with a baby blanket I started knitting months ago, and I’ve also become a late adopter of the Internet craze that is bullet journaling.

After making and losing 100 important lists in the last few months, I’ve found this to be very helpful in at least containing the overwhelming thoughts and plans I need to wrangle as I approach the chaos of a new baby again. Mine certainly doesn’t resemble any of the more elaborate, colorful journals you find on Instagram (and has, in fact, been snatched up and scribbled on by The  Toddler at leasst once since its inception last week), but its utility is undeniable.

 

 

Postpartum Freezer Meal Prep: Twice-Baked Potatoes

In a fit of nesting, I decided to start scheduling a weekly cooking session dedicated to stocking the freezer with healthy-ish meals to keep us nourished in the few weeks following the arrival of Baby 2. (Informally, my first freezer meal was breakfast — that is, Moose Muffins.)

This week, I prepped some healthy-ish twice-baked potatoes. I love twice-baked potatoes, because they’re quick and easy to make, versatile, universally yummy and they freeze well. They’re also easy to eat: I confess to eating them one-handed like a taco in the days following Baby 1’s birth.

This time around, I stuffed them with mixed baby greens, white beans and cheddar cheese.

Baked potatoes, then allowed them to cool enough to handle. Halved and used a tablespoon to scoop out the innards into a bowl.

After mashing the potatoes, I mixed in shredded cheddar cheese and navy beans.

Mixed in some baby mixed greens.

Refilled the potato shells with the mixture

Added some more beans on top.

Topped with more cheese, of course!

Here’s a quick and easy recipe with recommendations for variations.

Freezer Friendly, Healthy-ish Twice-Baked Potatoes

1. Bake potatoes (I think I did 425 degrees for an hour or so in the oven.)
2. Allow them to cool for at least 15 minutes, or until you can handle them without injury. I do find the scooping and mashing goes a little easier when everything is still warm, though.
3. Halve the potatoes. Use a tablespoon to carve out the insides, leaving a decently thick shell to hold up to the filling.
4. Mash the scooped-out potatoes with salt to taste. Then mix in your choice of fillings (see below for some combos).
5. Refill the shells with the potato mixture. Top as desired (again, see below!)
6. If you want to eat them right away, pop them back in the oven until they are thoroughly reheated and the cheese topping is browned to your liking. For freezing, I like to freeze them first on the cookie sheet on which I assembled them (so the cheese sticks to the top) and then move them to their final storage container.
7. To reheat from frozen, preheat the oven to 400 or so and bake them for 35 minutes, or until they’re heated through and the top is browned.

Twice Baked Potato Combinations

Beans and greens

Mix mashed potatoes with: cheddar cheese, cooked white beans and greens of your choice. (I mixed in whole, raw baby mixed greens because I think the second baking time will cook them just fine. Spinach also would be fine raw, as I think would Swiss chard, if you took out the stalks. Hardier greens, including chard stems, kale, or cabbage, should be sauteed or blanched first.) Top with: extra beans and cheddar cheese

Taco potatoes

Mix mashed potatoes with: Cooked ground turkey or beef with your preferred taco seasoning, diced pickled jalapenos, shredded Mexican cheese or queso fresco.  If you’re not worried about them looking a little pink, mix in a little of your favorite salsa, too. Top with: Crumbled queso fresco/shredded Mexican cheese, extra meat, black olives. (Plan to serve with diced avocado and/or fresh salsa.)

Bacon Broccoli

Mix mashed potatoes with: Chopped, steamed broccoli, shredded cheddar cheese (I’d do sharp white cheddar for this one), and sauteed onions. Top with: Crumbled bacon and more cheddar.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Mix mashed potatoes with: Shredded cooked chicken, jarred tikka masala sauce, cilantro, and maybe some chopped, roasted vegetables of your choice or even chick peas. Top with: Probably nothing? I can’t think of a cheese that would go well on top, but you could garnish with some fresh cilantro after you cook them. All credit goes to my friend Marissa, who recently recommended Indian food with mashed potatoes instead of rice. Not something I would have thought of on my own, but DELISH!

All right, readers… let’s crowd source. Any other combos you’d try for twice baked potatoes? Let me know in the comments!

 

Four pregnancies. Two babies.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It feels a little extra scary to talk about loss in the midst of a pregnancy, but my pregnancy losses are part of who I am as a mom and a person. And I think it’s important to talk about them.

When I fill out paperwork at the doctor’s office and it asks me to relay how many pregnancies I’ve had, it feels very strange to write “4,” but it’s the truth.

That math breaks down to one first trimester miscarriage, one full-term baby, one “chemical pregnancy” (which is such a rough term, no? Early miscarriage, really), and the one I find myself in now, at 29 weeks.

I’ve already written about the first miscarriage, so I won’t repeat myself. (You can read about it here.) It was, as miscarriages go, not too physically taxing. Emotionally, it wrecked me. It made me feel deeply flawed. First it made me certain I’d never be able to have a healthy pregnancy, and then when I went on to have a healthy pregnancy, I couldn’t trust it.

I went through every day for at least the first half of my second pregnancy expecting everything to come crashing down. I envied friends who had never had to go through a miscarriage even as I recognized that I was among the lucky ones for whom a pregnancy loss was a smallish hiccup on the way to a baby instead of the first mile marker on a long-term fertility struggle.

When we decided to start trying for a second baby, our first was about a year old and my cycles were irregular as they started to return. So I took a lot of pregnancy tests–not because we were in a huge rush to conceive, but because maybe I wanted to have a few drinks or take some cold medicine or whatever and wanted to be sure I wasn’t pregnant before I did.

So on Valentine’s Day this year, when I spotted a faint line on a test, I was surprised. I didn’t feel any of the familiar hints of pregnancy that I recalled from the last two times. I took a few more tests over the course of the day, and while the lines remained faint, they were there. I presented a test to The Husband when he got home from work, and he was thrilled.

I still didn’t feel right the next morning. I took the rest of the stash of pregnancy tests, hoping to see the lines darken (nope). Even went and bought a few digital ones because I just wasn’t convinced. When I got a digital “Not Pregnant” that second day, I tried to subdue the growing certainty that this pregnancy wasn’t going to stick. That feeling was confirmed when my period arrived the next morning.

The second miscarriage was easier than the first, but it still wasn’t pleasant. No emergency room visit, no retracting excited announcements to anyone, no lingering pregnancy symptoms (no symptoms at all, really) to remind me of what I was losing. But it was still a retraction. It still was a hope extinguished.

I feel like a walking confirmation of the statistic I’ve often heard thrown around that about half of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. If it weren’t for extremely sensitive pregnancy tests, this one would have gotten past me without leaving a mark. As it was, I found myself quietly crying in a dark movie theater when I finally had a moment to let myself process how I was feeling.

Again, we quickly went on to conceive again. And here I am sailing through my fourth pregnancy, toward my second baby.

Here’s what I’ve learned about miscarriage in the interceding years since that first loss:

• Everyone’s journey is different. Miscarriage can be devastating, or it can be mildly disappointing, or both, or anything in between. What it doesn’t have to be, if we are willing to talk about it, is lonely.
• Speaking of lonely, miscarriage doesn’t just happen to women. While the physical aspects of the loss were mine to bear both times, The Husband also was excited about our growing family, was also sad when the news turned bad.
• Toddlers make a great distraction when you’re bummed out about a pregnancy loss.

If you’ve experienced a loss of your own, I’m sorry. It sucks. And you’re not alone.

 

 

Pregnancy Week 28: Sick and pregnant is nothing to sneeze at

Welcome to my third trimester, readers! Week 28 kicked off with a cold, courtesy of The Toddler. (More on that in a minute).

First things first, though: stats.

The baby is about the size of a coconut, an echidna, a rollerblade (I call B.S. on that one, Ovia), or a large eggplant. In less nonsensical terms, that is somewhere around 2 1/4-2 1/2 pounds and 15-16 inches.  Baby is working on self-regulating his or her temperature and is producing the hormones that will kick (my) lactation into gear after birth.

Pregnancy-wise, I’m feeling pretty good. After a quieter Week 27 (not alarmingly so, but the baby’s kicks went from “I’ve got a belly full of elbows” to light flutters and nudges, mostly in the evenings/at night), Baby 2 seems to have gotten settled in the closer quarters resulting from his or her increasing size, and is once again doing kick-flips throughout the day. I’m still relying on Prilosec to allow me to eat, which bums me out but is truly necessary for my well-being.

What’s really new this week, and a pregnancy first for me, is a cold.

You see, back when I was pregnant with The Toddler, it was very easy to avoid germy people. I had zero contact with children and a very large supply of hand sanitizer. My top priority, aside from snacks, was avoiding illness, and I did so with reckless disregard for anyone’s feelings.

In fact, I remember once in my third trimester, a colleague of mine who had stayed home sick the day before came to my desk to discuss a project we were working on together. I saw his red nose and watery eyes, heard the sniffles, and looked at the paper he set on my desk as if he had placed a petri dish labeled “Mad Cow Disease” in front of me. I like to think I wasn’t enormously rude, but the conversation did go like this:

“Are you sick?”

“Well, I was yesterday, but I’m feeling better today. Anyway, about the numbers–”

“No. Why don’t you go back to your office and I’ll call you and we can discuss [project] that way?”

Stares pointedly from him down to the paper on my desk until he picks it up and walks out. Gives him 45 seconds to get back to his desk before I call him to proceed as if I hadn’t just unceremoniously thrown him out of my office. Sorry, Dan.

Now, The Toddler licks everything in my house, including me. I am essentially a giant tissue, as he wipes his snot on my shirt whenever it’s convenient. If I washed my hands as much as I should, I’d have no skin on my hands. If I washed everything else as much as I should, I would get 15 minutes of sleep a night. I am, by necessity, a cesspool of germs.

Having a toddler while pregnant means that also having a cold while pregnant is hardly noticeable, though. It’s like being repeatedly but gently kicked in the head while someone is stepping on your foot, and also you have to pee. Just another generally unpleasant stimulus.

I have a lot less time to sit still with a cold, pregnant or not, so I’m often too busy to really notice how shitty I feel. That is, of course, until a sneezing fit hits and I have to go change my pants. Twice. In a span of 10 minutes. (Yesterday was fun. Do your kegels.) Even if I do notice how shitty I feel, I still have to feed my kid dinner and keep him entertained to some degree.

The other extra-lame part of having a cold, having a toddler, and being pregnant, is that of course The Toddler also has a cold (where do you think I got it?) and is sleeping terribly this week, nights and naps. So I haven’t been able to rest as much as I should. Fortunately, The Husband had yesterday off work, so I was able to catch about 40 minutes of sort-of sleep.

I had been thinking about getting The Toddler into a once-a-week daycare situation to give me more time to work on freelancing and get him around other kids (which he’s really into right now), but as I approach labor and true cold-and-flu season, I’m reconsidering. Having a cold while having a toddler while being pregnant sucks, but it’s probably nothing compared to having a cold while having a toddler while going into labor. Maybe I just institute a quarantine now.

Cooking with Toddlers: Moose Muffins

We recently checked out from the library If You Give a Moose a Muffin, and The Toddler loves reading it (along with the OG If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.) While I haven’t posted a recipe here in about 100 years, we just succeeded in a small baking experiment that works for killing some time, delighting a toddler, connecting literature to real life and prepping breakfast for the week, all in one.

Moose muffins! Very little added sugar, no added oil, contains both fruit and vegetables, and best served with a good book 🙂

If you’re anything like me, it also provides your young baker a lesson in flouting the specific measurements of any given baking recipe and enjoying or suffering the consequences. (Fortunately, this turned out pretty good!) I’ve never been one to closely follow a recipe, so consider this a basic roadmap from which you can detour depending on what’s in your pantry and what your family likes to eat.

The Toddler gobbled a few mini-muffins up as soon as they were cool enough to eat, and seemed pretty impressed that his pouring and mixing turned into food. He even helped clean up afterward!

I kept these pretty low-sugar so I wouldn’t feel guilty about serving them for breakfast and didn’t add any oil (though I use whole milk/yogurt in my muffin recipes and entire eggs.) I do find that the no-oil muffins I make tend to stick to the muffin cups/tins more than usual, so don’t be afraid to be a little liberal when greasing them.

Finally, thanks to The Husband for being a second set of hands during this activity; it’s doable with just one adult, but a nice weekend-morning family activity. (If you’re doing this solo, try to gather everything up before your little one is waiting anxiously to get started or you may run out of attention span.)

 

Moose Muffins

Makes 12 regular muffins and 12 mini muffins

Dry ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
• 1/4 cup – 1/2 cup ground flaxseed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• pinch of salt

Wet ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup shredded zucchini
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 3 heaping tablespoons of raw sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of raisins (we used golden raisins)

Directions

1. Read If You Give a Moose a Muffin with your toddler. Ask, “Would you like to bake some muffins for a moose?!” If they respond enthusiastically, “Yes!!!!” proceed. If not, try again some other time.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
3. Strap your toddler in to a booster seat/high chair at the kitchen table so they can’t run amok with ingredients, and then pile everything up just out of their reach. Gather a wet ingredients bowl, dry ingredients bowl, a teaspoon, your measuring cups, muffin tins and muffin liners.
4. Have your toddler line your muffin tins. (We don’t have mini muffin liners, so I swiped at the mini muffin tin with an oil-soaked paper towel.) See note above about these being sticky; feel free to grease the muffin liners themselves to avoid this.
5. Put the dry bowl in front of the toddler and measure out each ingredient for him and let him dump the measuring cups into the bowl and stir in between. To make it even more educational, do lots of counting: “This is one cup of flour.” “We need two scoops of baking soda.”
6. Do the same with the wet ingredients, cracking each egg into the measuring cup and letting him dump, etc.
7. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet (or is it vice versa?Whatever muffin recipes usually say.) Try not to over-mix. Fold the raisins in last.
8. You should probably do the scooping of the muffin batter into the papers/tins, but count while you do it.
9. Bake muffins. The mini muffins were done in about 12 minutes, and the standard-sized in about 20-22 minutes, but your mileage may vary.
10. Allow to cool, serve with blackberry jam! (Consume while re-reading If You Give a Moose a Muffin.)

Substitutions and variations:

• Finely chopped walnuts would be really good in this (if your kid is of the age to eat such things.)
• Swap out some or all of the applesauce for pumpkin puree; switch the shredded zucchini for shredded carrot. (I’d also probably switch to regular black raisins for this alternative.)
• Don’t like raisins? Use frozen blueberries! Or chocolate chips! Or nothing!
• Don’t have zucchini? Shred a fresh apple instead to make these extra-appley. I’d swap out the allspice for ground ginger in this case.
• If we had any plain yogurt in the house while I was making these, I would have used that instead of milk.

Pregnancy Week 27: Bigger, bigger, bigger

Late again with my weekly update. I’ll happily blame a toddler cold and some well-earned social time this weekend. I seriously don’t understand how other moms carve out time to blog several times a week, or daily. Don’t you like sleeping? Doesn’t your kid assume an open laptop means an episode of Daniel Tiger paired with a barrage of snacks? Don’t you  have goats to feed?

Anyway, last week was Pregnancy Week 27, the last week of the second trimester. I’m officially rounding the bend toward the finish line (and, you know, the starting line to a much harder and longer journey that is parenting another child. Holy crap, we’re going to have two kids soon.)

Baby: Is about 2-ish pounds and 14.5 inches, head to toe, or about the size of a head of cauliflower or a bunch of bananas. Is opening and closing his or her eyes, packing on fat, and  undergoing some serious brain development.

Mom: I am feeling “bigger, bigger, bigger!” as The Toddler likes to say (not just about me, in general. At least that’s what I tell myself.) I’ve succumbed to the daily Prilosec, as heartburn has gotten the best of me, and I need to sleep. And also eat.

Speaking of The Toddler, this is also the point at which his bladder control is better than mine. Aside from one unfortunate nap-related accident (someone was too tired and belligerent to sit on the potty, or perhaps it was engulfed in flames I couldn’t see, judging by his reaction to my trying to get him to go), he’s been using the potty like a champ, and as soon as the next load of laundry makes it through, he’s got a new set of 2T-sized boxer briefs with trucks on them to officially move him into underpants territory permanently. We also are giving up diapers for nights and naps, because we’ve found a night pee buys us a much later wake-up call in the morning, and he never wets his diapers anymore, anyway.

Also this week marks the official beginning of my heavy-handed hint-dropping at The Husband in the form of strategically placed literature on his nightstand. I went to an honest-to-goodness bookstore this week (instead of Amazon, although it was still a Barnes & Noble) to pick up the latest edition of The Birth Partner, and I am confident (very hopeful?) he’ll get through all 400 pages before I go into labor. (Honey, I know you read this. You have the rest of your life to read about Ulysses S. Grant before bed. <3)

As I’ve mentioned before, we’re not hiring a doula this time around, even though having her was very helpful with our first baby. The combination of added expense of delivering at a birth center and the assumption (and sincere hope) we’ll have an even quicker labor than the last time just suggested it made more sense to equip The Husband with the tools to act as my sole labor coach this time around.

Though, honestly, it’s hard to imagine carving out any sort of time before Baby 2’s arrival to really focus on childbirth. I know I’ll feel differently when I’m as big as a house and truly can’t reach my feet anymore, but I don’t feel at all ready for this pregnancy to be over. There’s just so much to do.

Things my toddler won’t eat

I was a picky eater growing up, and the list of things I didn’t like included tomatoes, peppers, cheese (yes, seriously), olives, anything remotely spicy, most fish, onions, and a myriad of other things. Combine this with my on-again, off-again status as a vegetarian, and my diet was pretty much peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

When I was around 21 or so, I decided being finicky was an obnoxious personality trait and made it my mission to acclimate myself to a wider variety of food.

I realize calling pickiness an obnoxious personality trait is kind of mean, and everyone has the right to eat (or not eat) what they want. Sure, there are still foods I prefer over others, and some things I will never love no matter how much I try (looking at you, green bell peppers).

But If everyone can complain about sanctimonious vegans or millenials’ love of avocado toast, I can tell you to shut up about not eating mushrooms. If you don’t like something, just quietly don’t eat it. As they say, “Don’t yuck my yum.”

I’m digressing pretty stupendously, though. My point is that I hoped to raise an adventurous eater when I had Baby 1. We did the whole Baby Led Weaning thing, and I’ve made it a point to never say, “Yuck” to anything that wasn’t, for example, a ball of lint or a dead bug heading toward his mouth. When everything is new to him, there’s no reason to prime him to expect certain foods to be superior or suspect.

Being nonchalant about what he eats means that he’ll generally try new things voluntarily, but as the toddler years have crept forward, he’s become far more selective in his food choices. I suppose it’s inevitable.

Here’s a short list of things my 21-month-old won’t eat right now:

1. Anything sandwiched. Quesadillas, peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, a sub. Bread? Delicious. Cheese? Can’t get enough. Jelly? He’d gladly lick it off the rug if the opportunity arose. Put any of these items together in a stack and he’ll either dismantle it and eat just the insides, or stare at me like I’ve put a kitchen sponge on his plate and suggested he might eat it. This also counts for toast with a topping (usually), and pizza.
2. A mandarin orange if I’ve broken it into segments. Or other times, a mandarin orange if I haven’t broken it into segments. It’s impossible to predict which one he wants, even if you ask.
3. Similarly, apple slices. If I cut an apple up out of his sight, he’ll probably eat the slices, but if he sees the whole apple, it’s game over. It doesn’t matter if it’s the size of a softball, he wants the whole thing. Nevermind that he’s done with it in two bites and leaves it to slowly decompose under the couch while I’m not looking.
4. Shrimp. He called it “egg” when I tried to serve it to him at dinner the other night. He loves eggs, but wouldn’t eat the shrimp. Whatever, I get it. It’s a little weird. I’ll keep trying.
5. Cereal with milk. He’ll ask for it over and over again. He’ll pry my cereal bowl out of my hands so he can drink the sweetened milk. But if I serve him a bowl of his own cereal with milk, it inevitably becomes chicken food. (Parenting tip: If you have a picky toddler and hate seeing food go to waste, get some chickens. They eat pretty much everything.)
6. Sliced tomatoes. He’ll eat halved cherry tomatoes until he explodes, but if they’re any larger, they’re apparently poison.
7. Cheddar cheese sticks. He eats about 15 mozzarella cheese sticks every day, but come at him with an orange one and he’ll fight you. Similarly, I had to buy muenster cheese slices because they were out of provolone cheese at the grocery store when I went this week, and I’ve had to start cutting them into circles with a rocks glass because he will only eat “circle cheese.”
8. Rice. I can’t fathom how this is unpalatable to him, but it is. At least this week.
9. Pineapple and melon. Those cheap mixed fruit bowls they serve at restaurants, with the melons, pineapple, and grapes? They’re just a scavenger hunt for grapes with gross filler, I guess.
10. Leaves of any sort. I doubt this is an unusual toddler food aversion, but he won’t touch lettuce/salad, or cooked greens. He’ll also pick around them if I put them in a frittata, and refuses to eat pasta with spinach pesto. He will annihilate a smoothie, though, so that’s how I tend to sneak in any leafy greens.

None of this is helped by the fact I barely have energy to plan meals lately. Oh well, he’ll survive off cottage cheese, hardboiled eggs, broccoli and blueberries for the foreseeable future. That, and the half-eaten apples he has strategically stashed around the house.