Desperate Times

Who has not heard that desperate times call for desperate measures? When one hears this saying they may think of dire circumstances. Or Desperate Housewives, the TV show I suppose. I'm learning that this saying is taking on a meaning in my own life.

What times are so desperate that I'm calling for desperate measures? The economic downturn has not affected us personally - thank you, God! I am feeling desperate when it comes to my son's sleeping and nutrition. OK, so the desperation regarding his sleeping isn't born so much out of my concern that his taking up to an hour and a half to fall asleep for naps or at nighttime is detrimental to his overall well being but out of a deep seated need for some alone time. Either time to do a puzzle or two while lounging in my bed or time to take a nap. Either way, it is restful and much needed, especially since I am great with child.

The real problem that is causing this feeling of desperation in me is related to his nutrition. Gavin isn't a small boy, he weighs 30 pounds which would put him in the 75th percentile for a 2 year old - he still has 2 months to go until he's 2. My boy is not wasting away, his cheeks are nice and chubby and super kissable. His eyes glisten, he runs around, he plays, he yells, he talks, he is even learning some letters from the fridge magnet set. But I still can't help but be concerned about what he is, or rather, is not eating.

Tops on his list to eat are yogurt (doke), milk (mick), juice (deuce), applesauce (bopple), peaches & nectarines (also, bopple), berries (of the blue, black and straw varieties - all called boo or bayee), cottage cheese (cheece). See any glaring omissions there? Say, vegetables? Non-dairy protein? He was eating a lot of peanut butter on whole wheat toast and apples with peanut butter but now peanut butter is off the list. He used to love black beans and rice with salsa. Now he will eat a few bites of rice but only if it has teriyaki sauce on it. Meat is off the list. He'll eat a piece of meat if it has enough of a sweet or tangy marinade but as soon as he chews all of the sauce off the meat gets spit out. Ryan and I don't really care if he's a big meat eater or not - heck it saves us money - we don't have to buy the hormone free, free range, raised by sweet fairies on the prairie meats. I've taken to adding ground flax seed to his yogurt and applesauce. With protein taken care of I need to turn my attention to vegetables.

In my desperation to get vegetables down his gullet I checked out Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook, Deceptively Delicious, from the library. He loved the pancakes with pureed beats especially with peanut butter and blackberries on top (yes, Ryan, you ate beats last week when I made pancakes for dinner), blueberry muffins with squash, banana bread with cauliflower but didn't like the turkey with pureed carrots and bell peppers. I tried the mozzarella sticks with cauliflower but they didn't exactly turn out - they melted into a pile of cheesy goo in the pan - AND the cauliflower was overpowering. Even I didn't like it and I like cauliflower.

Today I made him a grilled cheese sandwich with carrots - not a recipe from her cookbook but one from my own little noggin. I was in a hurry so I quickly chopped some baby carrots and nuked them for about a minute then threw them in the Magic Bullet (mini food processor that I'm really growing fond of now that I don't expect it to work like it does in the infomercials) then spread the carrots on top of the cheese. Gavin ate half of his sandwich - chock full of carrots! I felt victorious!

It was hard to not cackle an evil, evil laugh as he ate his dreaded enemy the vegetable. Even if the rest of the day is a total waste and I fail in many other areas as a mother I at least got some veggies into my son!