First day in the high chairs, more than a year ago. Little babies, getting over a flu, not so sure what they think about their first taste of sweet potatoes.

Fast-forward, and I have two daring toddlers who have discovered a love for sitting at the table (or, as Daniel says, “peeebow! sit! sit!”  Plus, I have started itching to get rid of the high chairs that seem to collect so much residual nastiness after every meal.

But old table is too small to serve both duties: meal space for the kids and counter space for mom (which is woefully lacking in our not-quite-right kitchen).  A trip to the furniture store, and the ideal table is found. Counter-height, 36 x 48, four chairs with backs. On clearance, no less!  Pick it up in two days.

Big kids enjoying one of their last meals in the high chair (ravioli with pesto).  My, how time flies!  Using utensils, eating real foods.  So big.

After bed, M and I lugged the huge box in from the van, and made friends with a couple of Allen wrenches.  M’s comment: “this is what we take pictures of, now?”

A few hours later, it’s complete. Doesn’t match my kitchen at all, but I could care less. It’s exactly what I was looking for. Though I fear for the scratches and water stains… will have to make some kind of mat/tablecloth.  Still, though, isn’t it lovely? Boosters installed, as the kids are still too short. Four chairs!! Soon, family dinners.

Breakfast time!  New “peeebow.”  Kids got a kick out of it, and didn’t even scratch it up (yet). Daniel pointed out the animals on his new placemat. Rebecca continually reminded me that her cup is blue (“boooo!”). How time flies.  My big kids.

Welcome, once again, to Thursday Theater!  Every week, we are here to practice our mad video skillz and take some time to document things in movement and sound.

Please add your links (preferrably a link directly to the blog post that contains your video) to Mr. Linky, and play along!  Also, anyone using Vimeo for video hosting is encouraged to join the group I’ve set up for us.

This week’s optional theme is: FOOD!  I also presented a challenge to you: make your clip one minute or shorter.  More on that challenge in a moment, but first…. my video for the week.  Last night was chili night at our house, almost always a hit with Rebecca (Daniel wasn’t into it).  And tons of fun as long as you remember that chili night very quickly becomes laundry night.  Check out how Rebecca has learned to blow on hot food, her commentary on making a mess, and her attention to detail when it’s time to clean up.

Chili Night from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

Now, why did I try to have you get your clip in at under a minute? Because I think, here in the blogosphere, many of us suffer from under-editing. Hey, it’s the nature of the beast. “It’s my website, and I can do whatever the hell I want.” And that’s cool.  But what I’m saying is that sometimes you need to consider your audience and edit, edit, edit.

This is especially true in the context of posting video.  Consider your audience.  If you’re sending a video to the grandparents, they probably don’t want you to leave out a single second of your two-month-old’s day.  Just set up a live webcam and they’ll be happy.  But for the blog… let’s put it this way.  I have 120 feeds in my Google Reader that I try to keep up with. I write for three or four blogs.  Oh, and I have two toddlers who need love, attention, snacks, and a ride to gymnastics.  As adorable as everyone else’s kids are, I really only have the available attention for the Cliff’s Notes version when stopping by your blog.

For this video, I started out with more than five minutes of footage of Rebecca eating chili.  Way, way too much. It’s not that interesting, even to me.  But getting it down to 57 seconds wasn’t easy.  I had to keep asking myself: “what’s my point? What story am I trying to tell, and does the entirety of each clip contribute to the story?”  OK, yeah, it’s just a toddler getting chili all over herself.  But you know what I mean.  I had some other bits of Daniel doing funny things with his spoon, and more cute clips of Rebecca blowing on her hot food. I thought they were adorable, and you might even have agreed.  But to keep them all would have made the video too long, and lots of people watching would just have checked out.  This way, I’d like to think, I got my point across before people got completely bored. It’s far from perfect, but that’s what practice is for, right?

This morning, we hosted three lovely folks from Early Intervention.  For anyone out there who is not familiar with EI, it’s a pretty awesome thing.  Basically, if you or your pediatrician have concerns about your infant or toddler’s developent from birth through age 3, you can request an evaluation.  They will send out a team (developmental specialists, occupational therapists, and the like) and do a complete evaluation on your child.  That means, if you call because you’re worried about speech, they’ll evaluate your child for fine and gross motor, too.  The eval is free, they billed my insurance.  And if you qualify for services (generally by showing a 30% delay in one or more areas), they’ll send someone to the house to work with your child.  A win-win situation, if you ask me!

Anyways, I called about Daniel.  I had a very odd, specific concern.  Basically, he still drools what seems like an awful lot (though, of course, it slowed down noticeably once I made the call a few weeks ago!).  And he has some difficulty chewing certain foods.  In particular, ones that you can’t just easily mash, but have to really break down with your teeth.  Crackers are no problem, nor are most kinds of fruit.  It’s not that he dislikes crunchy things or smooth things.  But with, say, a piece of tortellini… he’s most likely to mash it up in his mouth (getting out the yummy filling) and then spit out the actual pasta if it’s even the slightest bit al dente.  And it’s not a question of dislike.  He’ll ask for more tortellini (or clementine wedge, or grape, etc.).  And he eats a reasonable amount of food, is gaining weight, etc etc.  It’s not a huge problem, and I honestly suspected that we probably would not qualify for EI services.  But I just wanted it to get checked out and maybe get some suggestions for how to work on it.

So, three women came to my house this morning.  All very friendly, all fairly young.  Basically, two of them played with Daniel while the third asked me some health history-type questions.  It was fascinating to watch.  Each toy or object they’d bring out of the bag was designed to get at a particular behavior.  See if he’d do pretend play, model behavior, stack blocks, match shapes.  As far as he was concerned, of course, he was just playing with these nice new people.  He was his usual charming, sociable, talkative self.  There were a few things when they would ask him a question, and I had to stop myself from chiming in “c’mon, buddy, you know that one!”  Especially when it’s something he most definitely knows/understands/is capable of.  But he’s a toddler, and sometimes he’s just going to elect not to participate.  And you can tell those times, because he gives you the Daniel face.  It looks something like this, but with a bit more brow furrowing:

Oh, and when it came time to check on his chewing? I gave him some clementine for a snack, which he always mashes and then spits out.  Except when the nice lady is there watching him.  Then he swallows segment after segment.  Show-off.  Way to make mommy feel silly.

At any rate, at the end of the eval, they will let you know how your child did, basically scoring them at a particular number of months for each developmental area.  So, if he were scoring right on target, that would be 19 months.  He would have to score at 14 months or below to qualify for services.  How did he do?

Gross and Fine Motor Skills: 19 months

Spoken language: 20 months

Receptive (understanding) language: 22 months

Cognition and problem-solving: 24 months

Social interaction: 26 months

Oh, and the feeding/chewing is under the umbrella of “self-care,” where he scored… 19 months.  She did notice the drooling, and said that he does show a little bit of low muscle tone in the lip area, which usually would lead to speech concerns. Not with my chatterbox.  She suggested having him use a straw (which he already does), and try sucking thicker things like yogurt or smoothies.  Also blowing raspberries, buzzing your lips, and trying to blow bubbles are all good for that kind of muscle tone.  For things specific to food, she suggested that we try to work on more foods with mixed textures, which is where he seems to have a hard time.  So try dipping things, like fruit in yogurt or cracker in hummus, or even try eating things like soup that have more than one texture in the same bite.

Yeah.  Basically, my kid rocks.  Obviously, as his mother, I have long suspected it.  But nice to have outside confirmation.   He did particularly well on imitating unfamiliar sounds (zoop! zip!), finding a hidden toy in several different variations, and grouping similar objects together.  He showed good understanding of basic shape puzzles, even if he couldn’t quite get the triangle to fit properly, and did a great job labeling familiar objects with the correct word.  I’m so proud.

All of this is not entirely just to brag about my own kid (though, it’s my blog, so I can do that), but also to say that getting evaluated by Early Intervention was a really good experience.  The people were nice and great with the kids, and gave immediate and helpful feedback even though we didn’t qualify for any ongoing services or therapies.  Birth to age three, people.  If you have any worries, use it!

Playing along again with Carrie’s Friday Foto Finish Fiesta!  Head over there to see tons of links for other people playing along.

I would say I make turkey chili almost every week.  It’s easy, tasty, and pretty healthy.  And, as a side benefit, the kids really like it!  Rebecca, especially.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t stay on her spoon as well as she might like.  So she, um, takes matters into her own hands…

She’s so lady-like and delicate, I tell you.

Daniel was less into the chili, but beyond cute as always.

I feel like I’ve done a lot of cooking in the last two days.  Maybe it’s because I’ve barely cooked a thing in the last month while I was at my parents’ house.  Maybe it’s because I’m trying to get back on the WW wagon.  Maybe I just missed being productive.  But anyways, it reminded me of a question on my Q & A post from MereCat:

Here’s my burning question.. what do you feed your kids? Food is such a pain at our house, I’m always looking for ideas. And it’s different with twins, don’tchaknow.

Well, I feel like I’m in a bit of a rut, always making the same few things.  But then, I realized, other people are in different ruts!  So maybe we can all share our current toddler food ruts and switch things up a little. So here, in no particular order, are my go-to meals for the kids:

• Grilled cheese – This is pretty much the first thing I make when I can’t think of anything to make. I like a mix of American and Mozzarella.
• Pasta – Preferrably something filled like tortellini or ravioli, usually with jarred pasta sauce or pesto. Not to be attempted with light-colored clothing.
• Roasted chicken – An easy go-to for parents and kids alike.  I get the big package of bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, and roast a whole bunch of them at once and keep them in the fridge.  Cut ‘em up for a casserole, shred for tacos or burritos, or just cut some up for a sandwich.  Rub some olive oil and season with salt and pepper, cook in a 375° oven for about 45 min.  Let them cool, then store them (intact) in the fridge.  Cut or shred as needed.  For the kids, I’ll cut up chunks, toss them in a touch of barbeque sauce, and heat in the microwave with shredded cheese.  We call it “Chicken à la Mommy.”
• Turkey Chili – I make this recipe all the time for me and M, and the kids also love it.  Especially with some cheese. And cornbread.
• Hot Dogs – Second only to grilled cheese on my “aw, hell, I don’t know what to make” list.  I prefer Hebrew National (since they don’t have Vienna Beef in Boston).  And yes, I put both ketchup and mustard on it.  M makes fun of me every time.
• Fried Rice – Just made a big batch this afternoon.  Rice, frozen mixed veggies, eggs, and tofu with a little sauce.  Try to get in as many food groups as possible.  Medium-grain brown rice makes it a little healthier and stickier (easier for little hands to pick up, and doesn’t dry out as quickly in the fridge).
• Bell & Evans Chicken Nuggets – A little pricey and I can only get it at Whole Foods, but it’s awfully tasty.  Especially with some barbeque sauce for dipping.

Other than that, I do try to give the kids leftovers of whatever M and I had.  Do they love all of this stuff?  Hey, they’re toddlers.  Sometimes Rebecca will eat a big bowl of chili and still want some of her brother’s.  Sometimes she’ll look offended if I try to give it to her.  You just never know.

I’m trying not to get into the habit of preparing multiple things for each meal.  I’ll put a few different things on their plate, like a bowl of chili plus some cut-up fruit and some veggies.  But if they decide they don’t want chili, I’m not going to go make a grilled cheese.  And some days they eat very little.  Some days Rebecca will finish it all and Daniel will have none, and vice versa.  They won’t starve.

So, everyone, what’s your food rut?  What are your go-to easy toddler meals?  Maybe we can all swap ruts for a while, and it’ll feel new… right?

On the one hand, it’s exciting to watch their brains click with recognition and understanding, and to try to translate that into precision fine motor skills and independence.  On the other hand, it’s incredibly frustrating for them and for me.  Not to mention obscenely messy.  Ah, toddlers and utensils.

It’s a long process, of course.  They first figured out how to get a fork into their mouth a few months ago. But it has been a lot of me putting something on the fork and then handing it too them.  And, in truth, most of the time I still just let them eat with their hands and don’t bother with the utensils at all.  But I know it’s a good skill that we need to work on, so I’ve been trying to do it more often.

Cognitively, they’re really getting it.  They definitely know what the utensil is for, and they seem to get that it needs to be dipped into something, or you need to in some way get the food onto it.  It’s the execution… oh my, the execution.  Daniel in particular is getting really into it. He really wants to feed himself with the fork or spoon as much as possible.  But it’s not so easy actually getting the darn food onto it, and he doesn’t realize that the food doesn’t stay on when he shakes the spoon. He dips and dips that spoon, but the angle is bad and he only gets the faintest hint of the applesauce. I try to help, but at least 50% of the time, that just makes him mad.  I know, it’s quintissential toddler behavior with the burgeoning independince.  I know, I ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  But oh man…. here we go.

And Rebecca, well, she’s a bit neater and a bit less insistent.  And sometimes she just decides to go straight to the source…

You know how sometimes you try and try and try to teach your kids something?  A word or a particular skill?  And they just aren’t into it.

And then there are the things that they just start doing.  That you had no idea they were capable of.  That you didn’t in any way try to teach them.

File this one under the latter.  Daniel decided yesterday that he was going to have an apple for dinner (and no pasta or anything else, for that matter). What’s funny is that I never gave him an apple. He went and found one in the bags from last weekend’s apple-picking adventure.  He grabbed it, and I saw him carrying it.  “How funny,” I thought.  “Maybe he thinks it’s a ball.”  Um yeah, and then he started eating it.  I didn’t peel it.  I didn’t cut it up.  He just straight-up ate half the damn apple.  That’s what I get for underestimating his mad skillz!

I don’t know if you could tell by my generally pleasant blog-demeanor, but I am actually a horrible mother.  The meanest, actually, in the whole wide world. Not only do I refuse to let them do things like crawl straight off the bed or eat dog food, but I’ve now sunk to a new low.  I have begun intentionally starving Rebecca.  That’s right, I decided my tiny little girl was getting entirely too much food, so I’ve started withholding it.

OK, maybe not so much withholding as creating obstacles to it.

Or, you know, less obstacle than simply not the preferred vessel.

See, here’s the thing.  Rebecca is quite capable of drinking out of a sippy cup. Will, in fact, sit for five minutes at a stretch and drain it of water or apple juice.  She also seems to enjoy milk.  If it’s in a bottle, she will suck it down.  Apparently there is no transitive property of toddler beverages, however, because if you combine the desired milk with the otherwise acceptable sippy cup, this does not equal Rebecca drinking milk from a sippy cup.  In fact, she takes the cup, has one swallow, realizes it’s milk, and turns up her nose and pushes the cup away.  Oh my lord, she is one stubborn girl.

We started doing the whole milk/cup transition several weeks ago.  The switch from formula to milk went just fine.  Over the course of a few days I mixed the old formula with the new milk until the balance shifted to milk, and voila.  No problem.  Then, one morning, instead of handing them a bottle of milk, I handed them cups.  Daniel just kind of shrugged and drank his milk.  Rebecca gave it the big “no thank you.”  We also kept the bedtime bottle, which may have been my downfall.  Rebecca is very good at exploiting weaknesses, and probably realized she could just hold out until the end of the day.  Which she did.

It was frustrating during the day when she wanted milk but flat-out refused it. I tried new cups. I tried straws. She would not be fooled. And then, we went on vacation, so I just kind of threw up my hands and went back to bottles of milk.  But we’re back home now, and just plain done with those bottles.  Not to mention the milk-instead-of-formula is making them extra funky to clean.  And the other day, Rebecca decided to actually take a few knowing swigs of milk from a cup.  “That’s it!,” I declared.  And yesterday I vowed that we were on to 100% sippy cups.  She has had almost no milk in the last 24 hours.

So, this morning, I believe she declared me “meanest mommy on earth.”  First, I tried to give her that blasphemous sippy cup full of organic whole milk.  Grr.  Then, just to add insult to injury, we were out of bananas for breakfast, so I put canteloupe on her tray.  THE HORROR!  But, eventually, the evil mommy will break her spirit, and she will drink her goddamn milk out of her goddamn sippy cup. And maybe even give her canteloupe again tomorrow. Mean, mean, mean.

I guess you don’t have to wonder where she got the stubborn thing from, huh?

Now that I have two no-longer-Babies on my hands, we’re introducing all kinds of new skills.  For one, we’re in the midst of transitioning from formula and bottles to milk and sippy cups.  I wrote about it today on HDYDI, so please feel free to leave any suggestions.  We’re down to half-milk, half-formula in their bottles, and I hope to be totally done with formula by the end of the weekend.  Hooray!  No more buying the giant cans of Enfamil, six-at-a-time!  The trick seems to be getting them to recognize their sippy cups (which they otherwise have no trouble with) as a legitimate source of hunger-thirst satisfaction.

The other thing I did was grab some new utensils.  It’s a big shift, to go from “no, please don’t grab that spoon and smear pureed sweet potato all over your head” to “here, try this!”  But we got the Gerber Fun Grips fork & spoon at Target the other day.  And last night, I decided to give it a shot.  I speared a piece of meatball, and handed it to Rebecca.  Would you know she maneuvered it perfectly into her mouth in under 10 seconds?  I guess I didn’t give them enough credit!  They got it right away, and Rebecca even attempted to feed herself some yogurt on the spoon (messy, but generally successful).  I managed to snap some pictures at breakfast this morning.

A quiet Saturday here in the Goddess in Progress household.  M had to work in the very wee hours of the morning last night, so he was out of commission for much of the day.  No worries, the kiddos and I made an always useful trip to Target, and even met a woman working there who was 15 weeks pregnant with twins.  I gave her my email address and she might buy my carseats.  Hooray for twin mom stalking!

I feel like I’ve become more bold in my outings, or at least more comfortable and aware of what I’ll likely be able to do.  I basically have two windows for an outing in any given day.  A short outing is possible between the morning and afternoon nap (around 11, maybe 11:30), and a longer one can be done after the afternoon nap (around 3:30).  Our short outings often involve terribly exciting errands, like the grocery store (hence this morning’s trip to Target).  The later slot can be longer walks, a friend’s house, or something more fun like that.  Yesterday’s later outing was a nice long walk with Aunt R, followed by a stop at Whole Foods, where they have some pretty cool double shopping carts.

Today, once M had finally regained consciousness after his very late night, we decided to be extra bold.  We took the kids out for dinner.  The last time we took them with us for dinner was when they were still able to be rocked to sleep in their infant carseats.  This was a full-on dinner for four.  It was a little too impromptu to be a runaway success

(I was short on fun toys and small snacks, and my new portable placemats have not yet arrived), but overall it went quite well.  It was a sort of Tex-Mex chain restaurant, and the kids really liked the seasoned rice and black beans.  Hooray for being able to eat table foods!!