Food all around

I thought I'd update all interested and uninterested parties on our food habits these days. First off, Willa and vegetables. After my last post about her refusing everything, I decided to stop offering them. I gave her carrots at lunchtime, but stopped putting the dinner veggies on her plate in the evening.

After about two or three weeks of not pressuring her to eat her vegetables, we had peas for dinner one night. Willa LOVES for us to count her bites. Even if it's a food she likes, she loves when we count along and we'll pick a number like ten or twenty if it's the main course or something. I dished out her food and then as an afterthought, I counted out ten peas onto her plate. I thought she might have fun sorting and counting them and maybe, just maybe, eating them. And... mom success! She ate them, then she asked for several more servings of them and basically just ate peas for her dinner. Hooray! So now, I bring out peas more and more often and about 95% of the time she happily eats them. The only times she refuses is if she really has had them too much in the past few days.

She still won't eat former favorites like green beans, cauliflower, and broccoli, but I happy about the peas. I think in the summertime she'll start on green beans again if we have a chance to pick them from a garden somewhere (probably at my parents' house). I've been able to talk her into that kind of eating before.

I also realized that she loves, loves, loves salad. She probably loves it for the dressing, but she will eat all of the greens in there. So, I give her salad a lot with her lunches and dinners. She loves red bell peppers, so I give her that several times a week, too. The other day, I had put some red peppers and tomatoes in the salad. She was eating and suddenly stopped and said, "Uh? What's that?" She had eaten a tomato thinking it was a pepper! I told her it was a tomato and then she ate several more of them. She won't always eat them, but I was glad that she actually liked it when she didn't know what she was eating.

She also LOVES to eat frozen peas or frozen corn in a little bowl. It is a perfect little snack while I'm making dinner. The lady who came and evaluated her speech way back told me that she did it for her kids. It's strange, but she loves it and sometimes during dinner she'll ask for more. I don't really mind giving them to her because who cares whether she eats her peas frozen or cooked?

So, it seems like my fears of her never eating another vegetable her entire life were unfounded because when I actually add it all up, she is eating a lot of vegetables. I also want to give a shout out to Costco frozen veggies. I've started getting peas and green beans there. They are flash frozen so they're actually fresher than getting them in the produce section, they never go bad in my fridge because I've forgotten about them, I always have them on hand if I want to make something at the last minute, and they are actually pretty darn tasty. I can't tell the difference between the frozen green beans and the fresh ones I used to buy.

I was going to write a little about June's eating, but I realized that this post is already quite long. Here's the short story - things have been better now that I realize that she is independent and opinionated. Usually, if I put a bowl on her high chair and give her a spoon to try feeding herself, then I can usually shovel in some bites with another spoon. Sometimes she refuses food if it's ground up, sometimes she refuses it if it's bite-sized and she wants it ground up, sometimes she wants it full size instead of bite-size so that she has something to grip and gnaw on. Basically, I never know what to do, but if one thing doesn't work I try another instead of assuming that she's not hungry. Yesterday she threw all her ham, carrots (her favorite), and potatoes on the floor and screamed at me. I then went and ground them all up and she ate two big bowels of it. Then, she deigned to eat more ham not ground up, by holding it in her little fist. She also thinks it's great to wake up in the middle of the night and cry for two hours just because she can. Ryan's arm was cramped this morning from holding his pillow over his ears last night! Before you think I'm a terrible mother, this is the third night in a row she's pulled these antics and I won't be fooled by them any longer. She just wants me to cuddle and play with her at 1 am, which I'm not really interested in doing.

Desert Beauty

Driving down our street last week, I saw the most beautiful cactus in full bloom. I couldn't believe how large and luxurious the blossoms were. When I first saw it, it was just starting to bloom and I knew it wouldn't last long. A day or two later I talked Willa into walking there with me so we could take a picture (it's about a block away).

Isn't it beautiful? I'm so glad we took the time to go look at it because when I looked the very next day all the blooms had already all wilted.

This house has a beautifully landscaped yard, here is another desert bush they have next to the cactus.

A lot of the desert plants are in bloom right now and it's so so pretty. I really love the desert landscape and I'm amazed at the beauty and life that manage to exist in this ecosystem. People have gotten really great at landscaping their xeriscapes (or maybe I'm just used to seeing them now). Instead of just a pile of rocks, they use different colors to create more textures and designs, and when you punctuate it with some beautiful desert shrubs you can't lose. Not, that I don't love grass - especially with little crawling babies around.

Magicaboola

Willa loves singing Bibidi Bobidi Boo and other songs these days. Don't feel pressure to watch the video, it is mainly for family records and grandparents. Willa also loves to do puzzles. We have a few little ones from the dollar store and she can do them all unassisted.

 

Ryan's Birthday

Way back at the end of March, Ryan had a birthday! For the next six months, we are both 33.

I prepped Willa about his birthday for a week before and she was very excited. She wanted to visit him at work to ask if she could help him blow out his candles. I nixed that idea and told her that she could ask him when he got home from work. Well, as soon as he got home that day, the first words out of her mouth to him were, "Daddy, I help you blow out candles on your birthday cake?"

I can't remember what we had for dinner, but Rebecca and Brandon came over. I decided to make a cake from scratch this year and used this amazing Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse cake from my high school friend Lindsey, who is now a famous food blogger. And, as expected, it was extremely delicious and rich.  I actually halved the peanut butter mousse and it was more than enough. We topped off the slices of cake with some delicious Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream - available in Las Vegas since March!!!!

I feel bad that I didn't get any photos of the big day or the cake, but that's what happens when you've had 33 of these things. Ryan got a foam roller and some Happy Socks from his parents, dress pants from Rebecca, stationary from me, clip-on running lights from Willa, and definitely the best present of all - a quad copter from his brother Robert. He definitely got spoiled this year.

There was a little girl

It's been so nice having my parents here to visit this weekend. They have been a huge help while I've been doing this opera (which ended today, hooray!). We've all been commenting on June's temperment and my mom summed it up best with this old, favorite nursery rhyme. I looked it up again on the internet and guess what, it actually has an author.

There was a little girl,

            Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

            When she was good,

            She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

 - Longfellow

I believe the appropriate word for June would be passionate! So happy and excited and fun. So angry and frustrated and MAD when thwarted!

The Opera

One of the reasons I've been a little panicked about June is that I'm playing for the UNLV opera this week. It was a very last minute. The other harpist called me on Friday morning last week. The music was too difficult for her or she didn't want to spend the time (I'm not really sure, but after one rehearsal she backed out). She could get me the music that day, but the performances were starting in one week!

At first I said that it was too short of notice. Then I talked to my mom and decided to accept. When people ask you to sub, you've got to say yes or the calls will stop coming, at least when you're first starting out somewhere. It would actually be a good week to be busy since my parents are coming out and they could help watch the girls.

So, I got the music Friday. First rehearsal was Sunday from 2-5, then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from 7-10pm, and the performances are this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I was so worried when I first got the music that I felt sick to my stomach for the rest of the day. Then, after getting some encouraging support from other harp friends, I tackled it. It's a daunting harp part and everyone knows how I am so terrible at orchestra and worse at opera playing. The opera is Richard Strauss's Ariadne Auf Naxos and I'm happy to say that it is hilarious and a very fun opera.

Since I really bombed so bad playing La Boheme at BYU and since they were paying me now for this gig, I really wanted to improve. Now, some of the things I did might seem elementary to the regular orchestral player (Liz), but for me they made a huge difference. I think I've written before that my harp teacher didn't really see a future for being an orchestral harpist so we rarely had help from her in learning to read a score or mark a harp part. This time, I downloaded the opera from itunes and started listening to it a lot. Then, the former harpist had checked out the complete score and lent it to me. What a difference!!! It's amazing to listen to the music and watch the score and then watch my music as well. Instead of counting 100 measures, I can see what's going on and I don't become totally bored or panicked when I loose count. Thankfully, my harp part was extremely well-marked up, too. In fact, every spot where the harp is prominent, there are large, underlined letters marking SOLO!!! at the beginning of the phrase. Can I tell you how helpful that has been? I knew in the beginning to focus on those parts just learning the notes, then playing with the recording and knowing when to come in.

I've been to two rehearsals so far and they've both been positive! I'm definitely not perfect, but they've both been better than any opera rehearsal I had at BYU. I feel so much more confident. Maybe the music is easier. I know for sure that this conductor is very clear to follow and does a great job, so that has helped. Maybe I'm just older and more mature. At BYU, I had so many other priorities and playing for the opera was the bottom of my list. Rehearsals would make me sick and nauseated, but I wasn't fixing the problem during my own practice hours.  The fat lady hasn't sung yet, so things could get miserable. The conductor is pretty ornery, but he's been giving me wide berth since I was such a last minute replacement. He might come down hard on me one of these days.

I do have to comment that being with orchestra nerds just takes me back. They really do transcend all boundaries. I saw one of the double bass players. He has nasty, long, frizzy hair and a patchy beard. He was wearing some holey t-shirt. He walked past me and I thought, "Now, that is a bass player. I bet he probably has a German bow." Then I immediately thought, "Come on now, that's ridiculous." (There are two types of bows for the bass, German and French and they require different hand holds.) But, then we got in the pit and started playing and guess what, he had a German bow! I started laughing out loud. Of course, no one probably got this last paragraph except super Bassist Liz, but still, it made me laugh. I don't know why I always equate the German bow with exceptionally weird bassists.

I'm really enjoying the chance to get out and play. It's also been good for me to leave the children with Ryan. I think I'm probably a control freak with them. They have both been so attached to me that it's difficult for me to ever leave. Now that I go and see them happy when I get home, it is making it easier. I also think it might help wean June from help bedtime feeding since I won't be home to administer it for the next few days. I've been trying to stuff her throughout the day. I keep giving her food as she crawls around and being less picky about how much cheese or crackers she has eaten that day. Sometimes she surprises me with how much she can still put away after I thought she was full!

Skim milk?

The past few days June has been incredibly fussy during parts of the day. Usually it's after a nice long nap, when she should have been refreshed. Often I will nurse her and she'll end up coming off and then screaming and arching her back. I wondered if it was gas or if she was sick. Yesterday, she was so bad that I made an appointment with the doctor to get her ears checked. Then, as I was getting Willa lunch, June was frantically gesturing for some cheese (her favorite). I gave her some snacks and realized thirty minutes later that she wasn't fussy at all, in fact she was her regular self. Going back over the past few days in my mind, it seems like this has happened too. She's been really fussy and then is happy after having some snacks. Duh! She must be hungry!

I'm having the darndest time figuring her out. She is very stubborn and independent so sometimes she will throw food off her tray if she wants something else, or if she is mad at me for walking away, or if she is just tired, or if she wants to feed herself. I experimented by putting peas on her tray and then giving her peas in a bowl. Wow, she was so excited to have her own bowl that she ate almost all the peas. Then yesterday, I tried putting her food on a plate with a little plastic fork. She thought she was hot stuff. Food she would never have taken if I fed it to her, was actually making it to her mouth. And, if her little hand accidentally forgot to load the fork and brought the food directly to her mouth instead, she didn't complain. This morning we tried the same thing with her oatmeal. Her little hand wanted to grab the spoon and bring it to her mouth. It was slow, patient work and I had to guide a lot, but she ate so much more than when I just try to do it myself.

Still, she throws and refuses most food, then when I go to put her to bed, she nurses voraciously. I know my milk is not as potent these days because we are busy and she is supposed to be on more solids. I really think that hunger is why she has never been a good sleeper. I can tell if she's had a good dinner because when it's time to nurse for bed, she will suck a little and then just smile and giggle. On those nights she sleeps very well. It's too bad that I can count on one hand the times it has happened.

Anyway, I'm frustrated. I'm trying to give her healthy options, but I just want her to eat more. Also, have I mentioned how she HATES milk? I've been trying to introduce it and now she hits my hand away whenever I bring her a sippy cup because she's scared that I will have put milk in there. I have to unscrew the sippy cup, show her the water, let her lap some out with her tongue, then show her how I put the lid back on. Then, MAYBE, she will drink out of it.

Any ideas of foods for little ones that are soft enough for them to eat that they can do on their own? Here are the foods she will sometimes eat: toast, oatmeal, avocado, banana, yogurt, carrots, peas, rice cakes, cheese. She retains the right to refuse any of her favorites at anytime of the day and at any phase of the hunger spectrum.