Cheese Quesadillas Revisited

What seems like forever ago, when Grace was first starting to eat solid foods, she started eating cheese quesadillas (is saying "cheese quesadilla" redundant or is it making it clear that there isn't anything else in the quesadilla besides cheese?) like they were going out of style. Gobbled them down like she hadn't been fed in days. At some point, she got tired of them, but I kept making them, mostly due to the convenience of only having to sprinkle cheese on a tortilla and heat it on the stove for a few minutes. She'd eat them, but rather than take bites, she'd pull off one side of tortilla and eat the cheese off of the other side. I moved on to other foods for her, but sometimes I would make a quesadilla for myself that had leftover chicken or pork in it. If she took some of my quesadilla, she'd take out the meat and eat the cheese, as usual.

A few weeks ago, I made chicken quesadillas for dinner, not thinking that Grace would eat any since she'd had dinner earlier. She proceeded to eat over half of a chicken quesadilla, taking bites of the whole thing, chicken, cheese and tortilla all in one bite. Since then, I've offered to make quesadillas for her for lunch. Some days she wants one and will eat it rather than dissect out the cheese. I feel like this says something about something, but I'm not quite sure what. I'm pretty sure it doesn't say anything about my parenting or anything that I'm doing, but perhaps something about her taste in food or something.

Relaxed lunch time with milk, fruit and cheese quesadilla.

My Hopes and Dreams Regarding Weight Watchers, Weight Loss, and My Future Eating Habits

I've been going to Weight Watchers every week for over a year (since March 2010, to be slightly more precise). I say "going to" as opposed to "kicking ass" or even "following", because for the past month or three, I've been, well, not. Haven't been counting points or even writing down what I'm eating. How can you say if a plan is working if you're not following it?

Am I a blogger or what?

I've been pondering this blog a bunch lately. Why do I have this blog? Why do I have the blog but never post anything? Why, if I have something I'd like to write about for the blog, do I not write it? Why do I write posts then not post them? Am I a food blogger who happens to be a mom or am I a mom/parenting blogger who likes food? Or am I a mom who likes food and talking about parenting and it doesn't have to be one or the other? If I want to post something about myself and not specifically about my daughter, does that mean I'm not blogging about parenting, or am I blogging about parenting by definition because I am a parent and blogging about myself is blogging about a parent?

This Week in the CSA Box: Week 1

Way back in January or so, we signed up for a CSA with Landisdale Farm, sharing a full share with Andrew's parents. It seemed like fresh, local produce would be forever away, but here we are with our first week's box of yummy-looking veggies (and cherries, yay!). Week 1's box included fennel, parsley, scallions, garlic scapes, lettuce and cherries. Monday, I made roasted chicken with fennel, carrots and celery from Bittman's "How to Cook Everything". Pretty boring, but we'll probably just use the lettuce in a salad. I'm thinking of grilling the garlic scapes (we only have 3, so we can't do anything too exciting). I'll probably end up shoving the cherries into my cherry-loving mouth.

Week 1 of CSA blogging is kind of sad, but I'll try to remember to take pictures of the veggies and foods I make with them in the coming weeks. I'm looking forward to being forced to use more veggies in our meals, as I know that we need to include them but I'm too good at avoiding them. Yay CSA!

Muffins!

We were playing up in the third floor, and I was glancing at an old issue of Cooks Illustrated, when Grace saw a picture of a tray of muffins and shouted "muffins!" I remembered that we had an old box of muffin mix and figured why not? So we went downstairs to make some muffins. I measured the ingredients and Grace poured them into the bowl. We took turns mixing. Waiting for them to cook, she kept grabbing the timer shouting "muffins!" Finally they were done baking, but waiting for them to cool brought more of the same.
Needless to say, the muffins made from an old mix were not really very good. Grace ate a little of one, but I'm thinking it might be ok to chuck the rest and try again tomorrow with better ingredients. As something to do on a rainy day, though, I'd say it was a success.

Putting the theory into practice

Remember how I wrote about the food division of responsibility and how I wanted to help Grace make her own food choices? Well, today that intention was put into practice. We were talking about what to have for breakfast, and she pointed to the cookies and said "cookie, cookie" all cute like. I told her that we could have a cookie at lunch or at dinner, but we'd have something different for breakfast. She had been talking all morning about peaches and grapes, so I was able to distract her from the cookies with those and she was happy.

I'm not pregnant and that's ok.

So many people, people I know in real life as well as people I know of on the internet via their blog or twitter, are either pregnant or recently were pregnant and now have adorable, sqishy newborns. I am not pregnant, nor do I have an adorable, sqishy newborn. There is some part of me, my ovaries or my hormones or something, that is screaming about how I should get pregnant ASAP. It's screaming about how cute newborns are and I should get on it. It's screaming about how the longer I wait to have a second child, the higher the chances are that Grace will wean herself before then and my small desire to tandem nurse will be crushed.

The other part of me, the rational and thoughtful part of me (not to say that people who want more children are irrational, just that the part of me that wants more children RIGHT NOW is irrational), knows that it will be ok to wait to have another baby. It knows the reality of what my days and nights with Grace look like. It knows that Grace still nurses three or four times a day so there's still a possibility that she won't wean before I have a second baby. This part of me also acknowledges that it would also be ok if she weaned before I have a second baby. This part of me knows that my days of having a baby aren't numbered but even if they are, even if I can't have any other children grow inside my body, there are other ways of growing our family. 

So there you have it. I'm not pregnant and that's ok.