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These Shoes Are(n’t) Made for Walking

Monday, March 8, 2010 Posted in Exercise

shoes

Have I mentioned that I hate really don’t like running? I like to workout, and even like exercise classes, like Spinning or Gravity…but I’ve never been a runner. Now, don’t get me wrong. Even at my very fittest, I have totally admired people who could run.  Running for exercise is (at least in my mind) the epitome of absolute fitness.  And if that’s the case, then, long ago, I resigned myself to a life of not being absolutely fit.

Now, there are people, like Kristy, my sister-in-law, who actually enjoy walking and running, so when she completed her marathon several years ago, I was impressed, but not surprised.  I’ve long wanted to be able to enjoy running, but just haven’t dug deeply enough within myself to find the motivation.

And then, in January, my good friend Kris ran a marathon.  She ran the marathon, and I was in absolute awe.  Because she and I battle our love for food and were once in the same boat about our very strong feelings for running. I would read her Facebook status updates as she trained, and I thought she was a little crazy.  But still, I admired her determination, while determining that I would never be able to do anything like that.

And then, toward the beginning of the year, I was introduced to the Couch to 5K program.  My friend, Christen, had started the program and was singing its praises.  I was still skeptical, but then I read a little more about the program, I thought it might be doable.  I thought about it for a couple weeks, but kept thinking just how inconvenient it would be, to have to run/walk while continuously having to keep my eye on a stopwatch.  A watched kettle never boils, and a watched stopwatch seems to stand completely still!  But then one day, I realized that…true to what the commercials say, there’s an app for that!

I no longer had a truly valid excuse.  I downloaded said app to my phone, and decided that this program really couldn’t be so bad…could it?  I informed Nathan of my plan (and my excitement over having found yet another cool app), and he immediately decided to join me!  Our plan consisted of alternating days – so one of us could stay home with Iliya while the other runs.  I decided to start taking Gracie (our dog) with me, because I figured she needed exercise, too.

The first week was awful.  Getting up at 5AM and running in the freezing cold for 60 seconds at a time…who ever thought of such torture?!  Even with 90 second recovery, I decided that this whole running thing really might not be for me.  Week 2, I ran for 90 seconds with a 2 minute recovery period.  I decided that it really wasn’t for me.  But every other morning, I continued to get up, and the minute that I walked out of the bathroom with my exercise clothes on, Gracie would bound to the door, ready to rock & roll.  I know it might be silly to credit a dog for keeping me going, but I didn’t think it was fair to just stop cold turkey, especially when Grace enjoyed it so much (she stays inside the majority of the time, so I know fresh air is a precious commodity for her).  And then I got obsessed with it.  I decided that I couldn’t miss one training session, because if I did, I feared it would derail me completely and I would quit altogether.

And interestingly enough…this week, I am in the middle of Week 7.  Week seven of a nine week program!!  I am as shocked as anyone could be…probably because I can now run 25 minutes without stopping.  No, it’s not easy, and yes, I’m slow.  But I finally broke down and bought some new shoes…which made all the difference in the world.  I was fitted for the shoes professionally, and thanks to these shoes, my arches are supported much better and I’ve actually improved my “minutes per mile” time by about 2 minutes.

Through the past 7 weeks, I’ve shared a little bit about my C25K program on Facebook, and with close friends and family…but I haven’t been real open with it, here, because this is a very public place for me, and a part of me has been afraid I would fail for the whole world to see.  I was striving for the epitome of absolute fitness, and if I couldn’t do it, then I would have to admit that I had failed.  But now, I have proven to myself that I can do it, and I want to share, so that – if you think you might want to do something like this, but hate really don’t like running and are afraid you might not make it….you CAN!  Because I am a firm believer.  If I can do it, just about anyone can.

And I’ve had several people ask me if I set out with a 5K race in mind…and the answer has been and emphatic no.  Doing the C25K has really been about my desire to be able to say that I can run approximately 3 miles at a time, so I’ve had no plans of running a race.  But there again, now that I CAN run for longer than I ever thought possible, and, now that my time is beginning to improve, and, I’ve got friends and family who say they would run one with me, I’m starting to contemplate the idea of finding a good 5K to run.

And then the lady that fitted me for my new shoes (who is an avid marathon runner) got excited when she started telling me about all these marathons I should start training for.

A marathon?  Highly unlikely…though one really never knows.  But one thing I DO know for sure?  These shoes are no longer made for walking.  No, my dear…they’re made for running.

by Melissa

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Stuff

Saturday, March 6, 2010 Posted in Around Our House, Our Busy Life

Well, it dawned on me that there are several things I want to tell you and just haven’t taken the time to sit down and write them.  So, here’s a post about nothing and everything, all at once.

I hosted a Sc.entsy party last weekend…had a great time.  These parties are typically “girls only” parties, but I ended up not kicking the boys out of the house for it…in large part, because our time together at home is limited through the week, so I told them they could stick around for it (unless, of course, there was somewhere else they just wanted to go).  So they stuck around and Iliya ended up totally overstimulated – either from all the company, or sniffing 80 scented jars of wax…or (more likely) both – but he had such a fun time showing out and suggesting scents for people to smell.  My friend, Shana, came to town to be the party consultant – and I had several friends showed up for the party.

This past Monday afternoon, I asked Iliya about his day at school, and he said, “I had fun playing!  And on the playground, out at the picnic table….I had a Sc.entsy party!!”  He proceeded to name the friends that came to the party.  I asked him if anyone bought anything, and he scoffed.  ”You don’t come to buy things,” he told me, “you just smell things!”  Ahhh, that boy…

Speaking of smelling things…

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This bush is right outside our front door.  It is blooming right now and smells absolutely heavenly…everytime we leave or come home, we are greeted with the aroma of Spring.  We’re told that there will still be a good deal of colder weather in our near future, and I am usually a cold weather fanatic, but every time I smell the tiny blooms on this bush, I am more than ready for the rest of the world to start blooming!

A couple weeks ago, Nathan was at Drill and Iliya and I opted to stay home and relax that weekend.  We had such a fun time – we woke up on Saturday, took our time heading over to the donut shop for a special breakfast treat….then went to the car wash and thoroughly cleaned the inside and outside of the car.  Our last stop was H0bby L0bby, where I wanted to see if I could find a piece of furniture that would store Iliya’s craft items and still fit into the decor of our living area (have I ever mentioned how much I would LOVE to have the money to purchase all of our home furnishings at P0ttery Barn?  ah well…such is life).  I had no such luck with the piece of furniture I was looking for, but I did happen to see a beautiful pre-made wreath.  Now, I have wreaths for our door for every season, except for spring…so I thought I might splurge and buy this particular wreath.  Until, of course, I saw the price tag.  It was $90.  Ninety dollars?!  Oh, sure, it was half-off that week, but I still couldn’t justify purchasing a wreath for almost $50.  So I looked at its construction – it was a basic grapevine wreath with some floral bunches stuck in it and glued down.  Pretty, but I decided to look around and see if I could find the materials to make one myself.  I located the grapevine wreaths, no problem…during the half-off sale, I think I purchased one for about $4.  And then I looked for the floral bunches that were on the inspiration wreath, but all I could come up with was a swag that was made from similar material.  I paid $8 for it.  I had the hot glue at home, so Iliya and I purchased the other materials and I put it together once we got home.  It’s not exactly the same as the inspiration wreath, but for $12 (instead of $50), I think it’s quite good enough!

And, it gives our door a somewhat springy look:

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Watch out, Martha Stewart…..I’m gaining on you!

(and I hope the rest of you have a fantastically wonderful weekend in this beautiful – albeit, probably temporary – weather!)

by Melissa

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Chatting

Friday, March 5, 2010 Posted in Around Our House, That Child of Mine

Until recently, Iliya hasn’t had much of an interest in sitting still for the camera to video chat.  We’ve tried it a few times, but he’s just been (as he puts it) too buuuusy to stay put and carry on conversation.  Until earlier this week, anyway.  We tried it again, and…well, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

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He gets a big kick out of watching himself in the smaller video pane…
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And then, he decided that he needed to multi-task.
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So the moral of the story is:  if you have Sk.ype and want to video chat with us, give me a holler!  I might have a child who would love to cut foam for you while you tell him a story.

by Melissa

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Stressful…but Thankful

Thursday, March 4, 2010 Posted in Worry and Apprehension

I wrote this post a few weeks ago, and I sat on it for a while…in part, because I am not very good at being transparent. To me, there is a big difference between opening up about frustrations with the adoption process and picky eating versus things like frustrations with finances and infertility. Since I can’t really put my finger on it, I don’t really know what the difference is between the two “types” of opening up, but I finally came to the conclusion that I sometimes just need to step out of my comfort zone and just say what’s on my mind. Afterall, this blog has a history of being therapeutic to me…and I never know if someone else in the world just might be able to relate to my ramblings.

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This past week has been a little stressful.

We’ve known since – well, forever – that we wanted more than one child. Given that our history of going about having children is a little…how shall I say it?…expensive, we really should’ve been preparing, financially, for that second child before we ever brought Iliya home. I guess a little part of me – though skeptical – hoped that we might have one of those <and they said this would never happen> sort of moments and we wouldn’t have to save the equivalent of my yearly salary just to bring another child into our family. I’ve been hanging our future on that moment and in a meeting with my doctor last week, we were brought back to the painful reality, that (while we know anything can happen), having a second child is probably not going to happen without a lot of money. No matter which way you look at it – the incredibly invasive medical treatments or adopting again – all of our options at this point involve a good deal of money. Either way you look at it, even though I’ve had all the faith in the world about this whole issue, my awesomely great health insurance simply isn’t going to pay for bringing a second child into our home.

So, while we are disappointed and a little upset that things aren’t working out as we had planned (is it ever really our plan?)…we also know that time is passing, and that we’ve got to be more proactive in paying down any debt that we have, while saving as much as we can. We want to be able to think about a second child, but we also know that we can’t go further in debt to bring that child home…so thinking is on hold until we are in a better financial place.

Once we determined our action steps, we were feeling much, much better. We had a plan!

And then, this weekend, our ceiling began falling in.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Since last weekend was a long weekend, we took (what we thought would be) a couple hours to run stereo wires through the attic to hook up the surround sound in our living room. What we didn’t realize was that our attic space above the living room is itty bitty and that the job would end up taking close to 8 hours of work – mostly with Nathan wedged in tight spaces trying to blindly feed wires to me while Iliya slept soundly in his bed. It was one of those projects we started and wanted to abandon within about 2 hours but, since there were already holes in the wall, we couldn’t.

Anyway, the ceiling in our living room and kitchen is a classic 1960’s cheap/easy way of putting up a ceiling. It is made of tiles that are (I guess?) glued in some points to furring strips attached to the beams in the attic. It ends up looking like a concealed grid dropped ceiling, but……okay, nevermind…it’s obvious that I’ve done a little too much reading these past few days. Anyway, the bottom line is that they are interlocking tiles that – while Nathan was in the attic – got nudged around just enough for a couple of them to become partially dislocated from the rest. They didn’t fall, but they sagged. We didn’t worry too much about it, because there are a few other “saggy” points in the ceiling. None of those points sagged nearly as much as this portion, but we still didn’t worry about it.

On Monday, I arranged for a couple of drywall guys to come out to give us estimates on replacing the ceiling with drywall. Replacing the ceiling was on our list of things ‘to do’ at some point…but our sagging ceiling tiles were pushing it up the priority list a little bit.

To make a long story short, both of the guys that came out to give an estimate said that the drywall should probably be hung directly over the ceiling tiles. To tear out the ceiling would bring all of the blown insulation – that is currently in our attic – into our living room. Not to mention the fact that I worry about the possibility of disturbing asbestos in those 1960’s ceiling tiles, if we were to tear it all down.

Anyway. Moving on.

We determined that – as long as the ceiling stayed put for a little while longer, we could save the money to have the drywall hung and our ceiling finished. No problem. I could live with a slightly sagging ceiling, even if I didn’t like it so much.

On Tuesday night, I noticed that the slightly sagging ceiling was sagging even more slightly (try saying that, 7 times in a row, quickly!) and mentioned it to Nathan. The interlocking nature of the tiles was causing the sag to actually spread a bit. It still didn’t seem too bad, but we figured that we needed to come up with a staple gun to reattach the tiles to the ceiling. We didn’t have a staple gun, and anyone we could borrow one from was probably in bed, so we decided to let it wait until the next day.

Nathan’s lunch plans for Wednesday included borrowing a staple gun from a friend…but it actually never happened, because as we were getting ready to walk out the door on Wednesday morning, we heard a loud kerthunk noise coming from the living room. We figured it was one of the cats messing with something, so Nathan ran to check it out….and the next thing I knew, he was shouting for me to come quick! The ceiling is falling!

I ran into the livingroom, and there was Nathan, standing on a chair with his arms up, holding a portion of the ceiling in place while another portion was threatening to come down. It was like a crazy domino effect. He was standing there, looking at me, and I was just staring right back – we were a little perplexed with what our next step should be. Iliya ran into the room, half-dressed and, with wide eyes, said, “Daddy! What are you doing? Did you break the ceiling?”

Looking back, the whole situation is a little funny just because it’s almost movie material.

Anyway, after fumbling around what to do, I held the ceiling in place while Nathan located some screws. The hope was that they would at least hold the ceiling up until it could be secured more tightly. It was definitely rigged up, and it looked it, but as long as it held, that was the most important thing.

So, at that point, our ceiling seemed to be a much higher priority than we originally had anticipated. I spent the day worrying if we would get home to ceiling tiles and insulation waiting for us in the floor when we walked in the door. A friend of mine stopped in around lunchtime to check on the house and she let me know that – so far, so good – everything seemed to be holding.

It’s a crazy thing…once you make a decision to be proactive about something in life, it seems like a million other things try to jump in the way to derail you. In our case, it wasn’t really a million other things, but one thing that felt like the burden of a million.

As it turns out, Nathan purchased some more screws and, last night, secured the entire sagging ceiling back to the original strips. It doesn’t look great, but it should will hold until we’re able to do something about it.

So yes, things have been a little stressful this past week.

But you know what? No matter what happens in our life…no matter what stress is present, I can be thankful that even if my ceiling is falling down, we still have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. That is so much more than many people in the world can say, right now. Even if I don’t have much money…I still am very rich by the standards of much of the world. Even if I ‘only’ have one child, that is one more child than so many people have, and I am so blessed with this child that is perfect for our family.

While we occasionally feel inclined to complain, I really have no right to do anything but be thankful.

And thankful – despite the tone of my post today – I am.

by Melissa

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Characters

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Posted in Iliyaisms

In case you don’t keep up with me on facebook, I thought I’d share one of our most recent dinnertime conversations.

Last night, I went to the grocery store on my way home from work…I do actually know that that is not the best time to go.  But when there’s (almost literally) nothing in the cupboard for dinner, something has to give.  So I ran by to pick up a few things for our dinners this week, and given the fact that yesterday was also pay day, there were a lot of interesting folks out and about. I love to people watch, so even though I had a task at hand, the trip was worth it in the people watching department.

Anyway, as we ate supper, it dawned on me that I hadn’t told Nathan about a few of the people I saw, and I started to strike up conversation…but then it dawned on me that I didn’t want to be misunderstood as making fun of people (we’re working hard to teach Iliya that just because someone looks or acts differently, it’s not good to laugh at them) so I caught myself at the last minute.

Me:  Oh! I forgot to tell you, there were a lot of…ahhh….interesting…characters at the grocery store tonight.

Nathan:  [nodding his head with understanding] Yeah, first of the month…pay day.  Everyone comes out.

Me:  Yeah…

[pause]

Iliya:  [eyes wide] Was Curious George there?!  He’s a character!

by Melissa

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Three Years Ago

Monday, February 22, 2010 Posted in International Adoption, That Child of Mine

This evening, I was working on making a book out of my blog.  It’s not going to be beautiful and it’s not going to be cheap, but I have this strange (probably irrational) fear that one day, I’ll wake up and my blog(s) will be gone…all of my memories and journaling poofed into thin air.  So, if nothing else, I want all of the words I’ve written in the past 4 years (my, how time flies!) to be in hard copy form.  As of last count, I had backed up about 2 1/2 of those years into W0rd docs…and in a pinch, they would do just fine, but I’d rather have it all in bound together one place.

Anyway, I say all of that to say this:  as I began flipping through all of the electronic pages of my blog, occurred to me that we are getting close to the anniversary of the point where all the action really started in our adoption process.  So I decided that it was time to do a “This Day in History” post, and started searching for today’s date.

And wouldn’t you believe this:

Three years ago, I was sitting at home on an innocuous Thursday evening, blogging about random stuff.  Talking about the car we finally decided to trade in, and the weather.  Seriously mundane stuff.  It had been a week since my previous post on trying to find the silver lining in all the w.a.i.t.i.n.g we were going through.

I had absolutely no idea that the next afternoon, that my new car and the weather would be totally old news, and that our life would change forever when….

iliya-referral1…this precious face showed up in my inbox.  On that night, 3 years ago, I had no idea how life was about to take a turn for the crazy (good).

And I had no idea that 3 years later, the little baby in that picture would have grown into this big-ole-kiddo.

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There’s no way I could’ve comprehended – that night 3 years ago – just how my life would change the very next day. And for that change, that baby, that big-ole-kiddo, I’m thankful.

by Melissa

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A Snowy Day

Saturday, February 13, 2010 Posted in That Child of Mine, Weather

As titillating as my snow updates were, I am also realistic enough to know that they are not the real reason you’ve hit refresh 13 times over the past 2 days.  I had actually written a post about the snow and how much fun we had in it…but then our internet connection pooped out on us and I lost it all.  Evidently the autosave feature wasn’t working if the internet wasn’t working…and of course, I didn’t realize that none of it was working! So when I hit “Publish,” I got an error message.  If that hadn’t happened, you would’ve gotten these pictures last night.

Anyway, enough complaining so you can get to what you came for anyway!

As you saw in my photos, yesterday, the snow got off to a slow start.  We had thrown around the idea of not telling Iliya about the snow…afterall, a couple weeks ago, Iliya had a little sore on his mouth, and he had asked me if it would ever go away.  When I replied that it would with a little time, he looked me in the eye, accusingly, and said, “well…you also said it would snow last week.”  Sheesh, the weathermen had contributed to my status as a liar………but this time, they were all absolutely positive that we would, in fact receive snow.  So we went with it and told Iliya that he might wake up to snow in the morning.

I had forgotten to turn my weekday alarm off, so I was up at 6:00, looking out the window.  Nothing.  And I was afraid that Iliya would wake up to the same thing, but…well, what could I do?  So I went to bed and tried to go back to sleep.  About 7:15, Iliya ran in our room, hopped in bed with us, and grinning from ear to ear, said, “I looked out my window and…it’s snowing!!”

He wanted to get out in it right away, but at that point, it was coming down really hard but not accumulating.  We held him off till about 10:00, when we finally decided to head outside.  My sister came over to play with us and, yes, you see it right.  Iliya has no gloves on in some of the photos.  As we were heading outside, he passionately explained that he didn’t want to wear gloves because he needed to feel the snow!  He wanted to see what it felt like, and I figured – who was I to deny him that opportunity?  (Yes, I know, I’m his mother…but I also know how cold snow is, and he wouldn’t last without gloves)  Sure enough, about 55 seconds into playing, and he decided that he needed gloves more than he needed to feel the snow.

Snowballs and snowmen were the main order of business – we only had enough snow to make a small leaf/pinestraw filled snowman – later, we would have enough for a pretty large snowman.  As you’ll see in the photos, Iliya loved throwing snowballs.  And let me tell you, he was no respecter of persons, when it came to throwing them.  But he didn’t care for it, so much, when the snowballs were thrown his way.  Anyway, didn’t I say that I was going to let you look at pictures in peace?  Alrighty then.  So, without further ado, I present to you, our snow day (in which we really, truly, had snow!)……

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Once we were all blocks of ice, we came inside to warm up.  Having grown up a bit north of here, Nathan and I both have a few (albeit, very few) childhood memories of snowy days…and these memories always include stripping off wet gloves, socks, and outer wear, and laying them all out in front of a fire to dry.  Of course, we usually joined the clothing in the warming up and drying off process as well.  We decided yesterday would be the perfect day to break in the fireplace in our livingroom.  Fortunately, Nathan had lots of experience starting fires in fireplaces…and he got a really nice one going.
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It was finally time to eat a bite of lunch, and take a quick nap…of course, Iliya and Gracie were ready to head back out as soon as naptime was overwith!
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The snow fell all day – without one break – from about 7:00a.m. to about 4:30p.m….and we had quite an accumulation!  We got close to the record set back in 1872, but I don’t know that it quite hit 3.83 inches yesteray.  Does that tell you how much longer we might have to wait to have another snow like this?  I can honestly say it was an absolutely magical, purely funfilled day!
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Happy Snow Day!

by Melissa

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Blizzard ‘10

Friday, February 12, 2010 Posted in Around Our House, Weather

So, it’s not a blizzard. But it’s almost just as exciting! When the weathermen predicted snow for us, we scoffed. Afterall, we are in the lower portion of AL and we never get snow…and they were predicting it for here (and south of us) rather than the northern half of the state. Of course they (the northern half) got theirs a couple weeks ago, and since this area of the state rarely sees temperatures cold enough for snow, we have been long overdue.

Granted, those of you in the north – who get real blizzards – are probably laughing.  But that’s okay, laugh away!  Here,we’ll take what we can get!

Before we went to bed last night , we told Iliya that it was supposed to snow in the morning…I was a little wary of doing so, since the weathermen occasionally get these things wrong, but they were SO sure of it this time, that we couldn’t not tell him.  I had forgotten to turn my alarm off this morning, so at 6:00, I was up and looking out the window.  Guess what?  No snow…and I was a little disappointed, but knew that the day was far from over.  I went back to bed and tried to sleep.  Iliya woke up at about 7:15 and ran into our room and hopped up in the bed with us.  He grinned at us and said, “I looked out my window…it’s snowing!”  Sure enough, it had started…but the temps were still too high for it to stick.  As the morning has progressed, the temps have fallen and the snow fall has become heavier.  I’m still hoping for that 3-5 inches we’re supposed to have.  As soon as we have enough accumulation in our front yard, we’ll go out and play in it.

My plan is to post pics throughout the day, so check back (if you’re not out playing in snow, yourself) periodically!

For now, here’s my 8:30 AM photos:

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Updates….

@ 9:30…
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Someone wanted to come outside and help me take pictures…
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@10:30 – finally!  Enough snow to play in!  I do have photos of playing outside in the snow, but haven’t gotten to go through all of them, yet.
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@12:15 – it’s turning into a regular winter wonderland!

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And we finally have snow laying in the back yard:
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by Melissa

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Move over, Betty Crocker!

Thursday, February 11, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized

There’s a new girl in town!

Or maybe I should be saying this to Mr. Kellogg?

Ah well, either way, in our attempt to be more frugal, I’ve had to get pretty creative. In fact, last week, I had thawed out some chicken and planned on Nathan grilling it when he got home. Alas, the weather thwarted our plans…it was raining and cold, and I just didn’t have the heart to send Nathan out to the grill in such weather. But then I was left with several pieces of chicken and no other plan. I decided to scrap the chicken plans – maybe save it for the next night.

I decided that pancakes might be a good option…and then, I remembered about that waffle iron I had received several Christmases ago from my parents. It’s one of those appliances that I just sort of forget that we have, I guess because it stays put up in the cabinet.. But on that rainy night, I remembered about it and decided to get it down to see if I remembered how to use it. Then, I remembered that Nathan isn’t crazy about eating pancakes (or in this case, waffles) without some sort of protein to help keep him full after the bread and syrup has been digested.

We were fresh out of bacon.

So I got the idea to make chicken & waffles. I’ve read about this dish…and it seems that everything I read tells me that it is a staple in southern households. Perhaps, but despite having grown up in the south, I had never experienced it! So I looked online and found out that, on a basic level, it is fried chicken, waffles, and syrup. Easy enough, right? So I just cut the chicken into tenders, shallow fried it, made some waffles, and it was a HIT with my 2 boys. I was sort of ambivalent about it, but it was much better than I thought it would be!

And then the thought occurred to me…if we’re being frugal, and I never do things like buy Egg0 waffles…couldn’t I make these and freeze them myself? That way, we’d always have waffles if the mood strikes us, and the only basic things we would be out are flour, milk, oil, and an egg or two.

So on Tuesday, I mixed up a double batch of waffles.

It was a messy project!…Nothing that Ithat Nathan can’t clean up, though!

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The waffle iron gets very hot…can you see the steam?

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Now…making a double batch of waffles, 2 at a time…

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…requires a good bit of patience and, well, nothing else to do.

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But then the patience pays off and you end up with a stack of waffles at the end!

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Nope, they’re not beautiful, but as far as I know, there won’t be any sort of beauty contest once they’re smothered in syrup and are making their way to your stomach.  The last few waffles were pretty nice looking…I had gotten the timing of everything down pat.

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Once mostly cool, they went into a box…

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…into the freezer…

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…and the next morning, into the belly of a perfectly sleepy, messy-haired little boy at my breakfast table.

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A boy whose cup and plate don’t match, but since they’re both functional, he doesn’t care this early in the morning.

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Grab your dictionary. Open up to the letter “d.” Flip on over to “devour.” I’m pretty sure this picture will be there!

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So it wasn’t an original thought…but it was one that was pretty cool for my little brain, and one that will work for us for those special mornings where we get a treat for breakfast. Or, one of those evenings that it’s raining outside and the grill isn’t the most practical thing for the chicken I’ve just thawed out.

Yeah, move on over Ms. Crocker & Mr. Kellogg…a new girl is most definitely in town!

by Melissa

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All Things Food

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 Posted in Food, That Child of Mine

When we first came home with Iliya, there was no food that he wouldn’t try.  His world opened up from eating bland chicken, porridge, and other similar things to all sorts of things he had never experienced.  He ate mushrooms, casseroles, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, green beans, fish, chicken, oatmeal, taco soup, rice, stroganoff meatloaf, fruit…you name it, he ate it.  Actually, it’s probably easier for me to just say that the only thing he’s never cared for is potatoes.  Of any kind, really.  But for the most part, if it was in our eating repertoire, he ate it, and ate a lot of it.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, now, you will probably remember, he screamed when it was gone.

And then we got to the point that he quit screaming when the food was gone, and we moved along nicely in the area of food.  Until a few months ago.

All the sudden, he decided he didn’t like much of anything.  It’s now easier for me to list the foods he does like, rather than the foods he doesn’t like.  Up for grabs: meat of any kind, as long as it’s JUST meat and not mixed with anything.  He also likes many vegetables, as long as they’re in their purest form and not mixed with anything (i.e., corn, but not creamstyle corn).  Fruit is also good as long as….are you sensing a theme here?  There are also many foods that he will eat one day and turn his nose up the next day.  I know this is normal, it just makes meal planning a bit more…challenging.

I suppose I should count my lucky stars and say that we are doing pretty well in raising a child that will eat healthy things.  But it’s still a little frustrating because I like to cook things that are…how shall I say?…mixed up.  I have always kept ingredients for casseroles and soups available for those nights that we need a hot meal but I don’t have time to make something time consuming…not to mention the fact that Nathan and I are homegrown folks who grew up eating lots of southern church potluck food.  Suffice it to say that we love casseroles.  They’re easy and delicious.  And comforting.

Unless you are my child, of course.  If you are my child, you would screw your face up, stick your tongue out, and utter the worst gutteral “uuuuuggggggcccccchhhhhh” you could muster.

Oh…well, actually…  You would’ve done that until I got really angry one night, because I was tired of cooking food for you to eat, only to be greeted by said reaction for the 5 millionth time.

I am of the firm belief that (while it frustrates me on occasion) it is okay for Iliya to not like certain foods.  It’s just not okay to express himself in such a rude way.  We had talked to him about the fact that (at least in our house) it’s okay to say you don’t care for something…just not okay to react so rudely.  And, we have a rule called “try it before you say you don’t like it.”  On top of that, I was exposed to some research once upon a time that said that children must be exposed to a food 5 different times  to be sure whether they truly like it or not.  I think this has to do with the fact that their tastes change from day to day and with their mood.

But I digress.

Anyway…

Iliya had been exposed to the polite way to turn down foods – he just hadn’t truly gotten it yet.  So on the night I mentioned above, I had been at work all day, had come home and fixed supper.  I was tired and hungry.  I put the food on the table.  I always make sure to include at least one (filling) selection that I’m sure he will eat, and I had done so that night, too.  Iliya climbed in his chair, took one look at the contents of his plate, made the worst face, and said, “uuuuggggchhhh…..uuuuugggggccccCCCHHHH…..UUUUUGGGGGGGGGGCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHH.”

He had reacted enough times in such a way, and that night, his reaction was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.  I lost it.

Now I can be easily frustrated at times, but I rarely just outright yell raise my voice at Iliya.  But this night, I did.  I fussed about working all day, coming home, slaving at the stove, blah blah blah…I’m sure Iliya didn’t understand half of what I was saying.  Afterall, I was probably saying it for my benefit – to get it all out – anyway.  But I ended with something like, “And if you don’t like the way something looks, that’s FINE.  But we will not say uuuuuggggccchh about food that I have spent my time cooking for you to eat.  If you don’t like it, just say, ‘I don’t care for that so much’ or whatever, but you must be polite at the dinner table.”

Did I overreact?  Pretty much.  Did it drive the point home?  You bet.

And it helped Iliya and I come to an understanding.  I cook one meal each night, but I make sure that there are options for him.  If I make a chicken and rice casserole, I try to save some of the chicken for him to eat by itself, and I’ll make sure to serve green beans, or some other vegetable that he likes, and he also receives a piece of fruit with his meal.  He also knows that he has to at least try a bite of everything I put on the table (unless he’s tried it several times and consistently doesn’t like it).  If he doesn’t like it, it’s perfectly fine.  But he’s since abandoned rude responses in favor of things like, “I don’t care for this,” or “No thank you.”  I also really try, at least once a week, to cook something that I know without a doubt he likes – like pizza or spaghetti or pork chops or roast and carrots.  He is free to eat as much or as little as he wants…also with the understanding that if he doesn’t eat at supper, he won’t get anything else until breakfast.  I’ve found that his eating “cycles” match closely with his growth patterns, so I rarely worry if he eats like a bird one week and like a horse the next.

Despite the occasional frustrating moment, this all seems to work for us.

And I’m hoping that one day, like many other children (probably even like me & Nathan), he will exit this “pickier” phase and come full circle back to the little boy who used to eat anything.  But without the end-of-the-meal screaming, of course.

by Melissa

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