Veggie Table

I've been trying the participation method of garnering the boys' interest in veggies. I find them a job to do in hopes that they will want to eat what they helped make. It's been successful with at least the first bite.

I planned some steak and veggie skewers for the grill and thought up the perfect jobs for the boys. They helped wash a bowl full of peppers and mushrooms and then I set them at the table and assigned their next job. I gave Isaac a basting brush and a small bowl of seasoned olive oil and told him to "paint" the veggies. I gave Ian a pack of wooden skewers and demonstrated how to fill them with veggies. I figured they might have that done by the time I sliced and skewered the steak. As I assembled my last steak skewer, Ian proudly announced, "Look, Mom! I made a scarecrow!" Sure enough, he had made Tinker Toys of the sticks and veggies and had built a tall stick man. I wish my hands had not been all meaty and I had caught a picture of it.

Today I gave each of the boys a baggie of crackers to crush. I figured they'd love that destructive job. I showed them how they could squeeze them and pound them into small crumbles. I put some pecans in the food processor and turned to check their progress. I saw two little boys happily munching on crackers.

They left me speechless with our snack yesterday. I sliced up some red, yellow, and orange sweet chilis and set them on the table with a bowl of hummus. I called it a rainbow snack. They actually ate it. The peppers - multiple peppers - went into their mouths and were summarily chewed and swallowed. Miracles happen.

Ian has reached a new level of independence. For some reason, now it is OK to try new foods or previously snubbed foods. He even gets up and completely dresses himself. I'm loving this phase. Well, most of it. The other evening, after our nightly insistence that he try to pee before bed, he comes bouncing back into the bedroom, looking like Pooh Bear, with nothing more than a shirt and a permanently sticky face. I requested, "Ian? Can you get some undies?" He replied, "I can bark like a dog," and "woofed" on out of the room.

There's A New Chef in Town

I struggle with thinking of what to cook for dinner. However, when I stumble into a good-looking recipe, I'll go all-out to make a tasty meal for my guys. Frequently, the boys will poke at it if it appears too healthy or unexciting, or eat whatever part strikes their fancy. One evening, while finishing up some Christmas shopping, I'd ended up getting the boys some hot dogs, and I wasn't feeling particularly hungry. Brian was totally cool with that when he got home, because he prides himself in being able to fend for himself. On this particular evening, Ian climbed up to the table to inspect & sample Dad's wares and I heard Ian say, "Mmmm. I like this meal!" I simply had to know what had captured my son's heart, and to my disbelief, it was a sandwich consisting of a soy sausage, vegemite, probably some other condiments, and a can of beets. Apparently, only a true bachelor-at-heart can appeal to the delicate culinary sensibilities of a baby man-in-training.

I will have to say, Brian does have his strokes of genius. Perhaps this next "recipe" speaks to my own highly-refined tastes. We recently discovered the creamy goodness of Greek yogurt. After we polished off a pint of it in one sitting, Brian went to the store and returned with an additional half-dozen pints of plain Greek yogurt. He began experimenting with flavoring it, using various sweet condiments. Thus was born [insert chorus of singing angels]: peanut butter and jelly yogurt! To clarify, this is a puddle of peanut butter yogurt in a bowl beside a puddle of yogurt flavored with Brian's very own muscadine jelly. Scoop a little of each on a spoon, and voila - my heart melts. It seriously almost tastes like a pie filling. Maybe I'll try it on a graham cracker next time.

On a side note, I wrapped up a bunch of stocking stuffers for the boys. This weekend I started letting them open 2 each night (since we will do our GA Christmas sometime this week) - based on a Skinner family tradition. One of the gifts for Isaac was a pointer. It looks like a pointing Mickey Mouse hand on a stick. I'm not sure why this cracked me up so much, but I was in stitches watching him walk around pointing to things with it. He first went to the Christmas tree and gently touched a few ornaments. Our rule for the boys is, when they are near fragile things in a store, "One finger touch." That lets them satisfy their curiosity and greatly reduces the damage potential. This seemed the perfect device for the job. Ian begged a turn, and his first undertaking as Pointer-in-Chief was to aim the finger at his Dad and say, "Go out." Isaac took the plastic digit back and tried his 'hand' at banishing his father. Soon they turned to other tasks, such as pointing out imaginary bicycles and buses. Now begins the countdown until it gets lodged in a nose.