First Meal!

So tonight was Mikey's first meal--as in the same meal we had, just blended into tiny bits. He had golden mushroom pork with apples, rice, and mixed vegetables and seemed to enjoy it. (I get my dinner plans from www.e-mealz.com. It's great--for $5 a month, they post a week's worth of meals that you download, complete with a shopping list. With my plan, they are linked to the sales that Kroger has going on. They are pretty good, and although sometimes they aren't our favorite, not ever having to think about what's for dinner is worth it.) He has been eating for a while, and loves cheerios and fruit and veggies, just like any baby does. I was amazed at how quickly he figured the cheerio thing out. The first day, he spilled them all over the floor trying to grab them. When he finally got one in his hand, it was in his fist and he couldn't figure out how to get it out, just how to lick his fist. Within a week, he was grabbing them with no spilling, putting them in his fist, and then opening it into his mouth. Seems so simple, but I'm amazed at the complexities that our brain has to figure out. (This is a picture of him after Sam fed him his prunes.)


He is a very happy baby, although also very stubborn. He is also big. I took him to the doctor a few weeks ago and he weighed the exact same as Sam did at 15 months. And he is in 18 month clothes. Eric is still comfortably in 2T. He'll probably slim down once he starts moving, so I took some pictures so I could remember his chubbilicious thighs.


Ivan calls him the Baconator.

Back to School

I can't believe it's September already! And it feels like it. Last Wednesday it was 91; today it's 69. Fall is in the air.

I'm pretty relieved actually. It will be nice because Sam will be in preschool M-F so I'll get to spend a little one-on-one time with Eric while the baby sleeps.

Speaking of school, Sam just finished reading his first book by himself--the classic Seuss Hop on Pop. It was fun to watch him read it (we had never read it before, so I knew he hadn't just memorized it) and try to sound out the words. It brought me back to my own beginnings and I'm excited about the new world that will open up for him.

Not that Sam needs any new worlds, since he creates them in his own mind. He read F-A-N-T-A somewhere and asked me what it was. I told him it was a brand of soda pop. Later he told me that Fanta is the land where all of his dogs live and they can do whatever they want. They just sit around all day and drink soda. And when we were reading Hop on Pop, he read "he" as "hey". I told him that it was "he" and he said, well "hey" is how they say "he" in Fanta. So I never know when it's going to be brought into a conversation.

Here is a picture of the party we had for his dog whose name is Big Brother (and who Sam refers to simply as Big, as in, "Big really wants a birthday party today.") We made a cake out of starburst and skittles left over from last Halloween.



His other new word is "beefaroni boat". I'm not sure where he got the word beefaroni, since we don't eat anything close to that. A beefaroni boat is a huge container ship and whenever we are driving on Lakeshore and we see them, the kids both start yelling, "look at the beefaroni boat." (We live about a mile from Lake St. Claire, which connects Lake Huron and Lake Erie, and is big enough that you can't see to the other side.)

Sam still loves to cook--especially salads and soups. A few weeks ago, he wrote out the recipe for "Sam's World Famous Soup." Here is a picture of it. He started with onion, carrot, potato, then ran out of room so moved to the top and sides for radish and tomato (I think?).


He really does most of the chopping (except the onion) and cooking himself. Maybe I'm a bad mom for letting my 4 yo "play" with knives and hot stoves, but at least we have some tasty dinners! Speaking of things a mom should not do, right now Mikey is chewing on a Staples receipt, so I'd better go.