Master of Disguise

I have quickly learned that being a mother of a toddler necessitates becoming a master of disguise...of food.

I wouldn't say that Caleb is a picky eater, I would simply say that he doesn't care much about eating. He eats to live, not the other way around.

In typical toddler fashion, he likes a food one day, and not the next. So I'm learning some tricks...hiding food.

1. a new staple for when I don't know what to cook, but want to ensure that he eats: pancakes. So - how to disguise other foods in them....Banana pancakes, banana strawberry pancakes, and the new one of last night - PB&B pancakes - peanut butter and banana pancakes. I simply mash up whatever I'm 'hiding' and mix it in the batter. The wonderful thing about pancakes is that they reheat well and they FREEZE well, so I can always pull them out for later since one batch of batter makes WAY more 'silver dollar' sized pancakes than needed for one serving.

2. Spinach - nearly tasteless and easy to hide. Tonight, I made whole wheat corkscrew pasta w/ meat sauce and then diced up spinach really small and mixed it in. I was unsuccessful in getting him to eat much of the ground meat (he's not much of a meat-eater), but I'm sure the spinach got in there - and I prefer it that way!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of my favorite moms out there!! This has been a great weekend, even if Alex did have to shoot a wedding today...really, who gets married on Mother's Day? In his defense, Alex didn't know it was mother's day when he booked it...the date does change every year. However, we celebrated w/ his mom and sister yesterday at his parents house. While we were there, Caleb got to practice his new swimming skills - he LOVES the water! He also had a nice fall after dinner when he tripped over Daddy's foot and landed face-first on the tile. Actually since it was almost bedtime he actually landed pacifier first - which somehow scraped his gums and we had a little bleeder. He's ok, although today his frequent little stumbles have been accompanied by slightly more tears than normal.

Today, we had a quiet morning at home, the three of us, until 11, when I went to put Caleb down for a nap...while rocking him a little he and I BOTH fell asleep in the glider and woke up at 12:45! nice.

Here are some pics from the swim class that we started last week. We are going to Ocaquatics Swim school. I thought that the activities were really well-planned - it was like a Mommy and Me or My Gym activity class in a pool.









And - as an update - YES, I finished working. I am loving it!! Although, I must admit that I have exceedingly busier than I anticipated. This is mostly due to trying to catch up on some of those things that don't get done when all parties in a home are working, and the timing of some special events. We had house guests for two nights - Alan and Diane Sams, the parents of my best friend Jenn. The were headed off on a cruise to England to visit Jenn for several weeks, so I asked them to stay with us. We had a GREAT time and spent both nights talking way later than Alex and I usually stay up. I had several appointments (OB, hair, dentist) and also had to do some prep to help at the school for a Mother's Day breakfast for the kids' moms on Friday morning, and I also volunteered to make baked ziti for all of the staff for Teacher Appreciation week. That luncheon was also held on Friday - so Thursday was a busy, busy day. I didn't stop from 6 am when Caleb woke up until 10 pm.