Food

Daddy was home late tonight, so we had the day to ourselves!  School in the morning, and then I worked in the green house a bit while Cocoa slept.  I made a wimpy lunch for the girls (I buckled and made Top Ramen.  It didn't meet the demands of this afternoon!)  Cocoa thought it was the best thing EVER, but then...he just discovered food.  Pretty  much all food is the best thing ever.  Nap time, and then out to play with the cousins.  After nearly a solid hour of at least one of the four children crying or yelling at any given point, I threw in the towel and brought my kids home to feed them large quantities of vaguely  nutritious dinner!  I chopped up the rest of our (getting sadder) pears, and threw them in a bowl with a bunch of stuff I thought might bake into a cake.  (1 cup each flour, sugar, and milk.  1 tsp each baking powder and vanilla and cinnamon.  3 eggs.  Maybe a 1/3 cup oil?)  Ernie loved it, Mimi despised it, and Cocoa thought it was great to munch on, and then throw.  Hey, it was a tasty cake :)  Kind of custardy....

Sometimes, you have the best of intentions.  Tonight's meal was totally going to be roasted asparagus, baked (breaded) fish, and a roasted sweet potato salsa.

Sometimes, it's time to pull out everything you can find in the freezer!

(peas, chicken nuggets, mandarin orange slices, and cinnamon sugar apple slices.)

Both girls cleaned their plates, which NEVER happens!  Hungry much? They ate their peas with their fingers, one at a time, rapid-fire.  I reminded Ernie that it would be easier with a spoon "But Mooom....then it would take a long time to chew them!"  Alright.  I ate a big bowl of peas, a mango, and a ham sandwich....I am so hungry this week.  So, so, so, SO hungry.  I ate for hours at my sister's house yesterday, and was full for the first time in a while! (I was hungry again a few hours later though.)  I totally embarrassed myself, too!  I had about a cup of falafel, a roasted squash or two (sliced thin a roasted, delicious!), 4 glasses of water, 2 bowls of pureed veggie soup...I decided today that next time I leave the house, I'm going to pack a sandwich in my purse.  I never like eating at other people's houses, is that weird?  I feel guilty for eating their food, and it shuts off my "oh yeah, I think I'm full" reflex.  I could eat everything on the table, but normally end up eating half as much as anyone else for fear of emptying a dish that someone else wanted.  My family is right now shaking their heads in disbelief, since I kind of regularly arm-wrestle my brother-in-law for the last bit of the salad.  And my father has the happy ability of purchasing food at Costco and cooking the entire package in one blow, because he hates dabs in the cupboard.  Ha, you never go hungry at his table!  But OTHER PEOPLE'S houses.  Ugh.  I'd rather go home hungry than load up my plate.  

Good thing I'm not weird about food, right?  :)  

(So, quick story.  My first date with my husband, I had decided I was just kind of angry at ALL men, and darn it I didn't care what he thought!  I didn't order a salad, or a tiny little plate of pasta.  I ordered a mushroom burger, the kind where buttery mushrooms just start to leap out as soon as you pick it up.  And I ate it all.  And I ate fries, the thick kind that come in a basket to share.  I felt so rebellious.  He never noticed, he was just, you know...eating a dinner.  But, he laughed at a joke I told that night....and NO ONE ever laughs at my jokes.  They normally don't recognize that I'm even telling a joke, they think I'm serious, and then I get super weird looks.  I think I might have started falling in love with him right there in Red Robins.)