Help Wanted
Today was a somewhat difficult day in the SMIT household. Button has come down with a cold (right on schedule, 3 days after spending time in the church nursery), so neither of us got as much sleep last night as we should have.
Said cold has come complete with runny nose, which she insists on smearing all over my clothing at every possible opportunity - especially during the half-second while I’m reaching for the tissue. My clothes are now decorated with various lengths of dried snot snakes. Pretty, isn’t it.
She follows me around the house every waking moment and YELLS. Not cries. YELLS. I pick her up, she yells. I put her down, she yells more. Don’t call me during the day because I WILL HAVE TO SHOUT MY ENTIRE CONVERSATION TO YOU OR MY VOICE WILL BE LOST IN THE BACKGROUND YELLING AND I STILL! CAN’T! HEAR! A WORD! YOU’RE! SAYING!!
If any of you have a child with a tendency to yell when she’s feeling down, and have therefore been through the several-consecutive-hours- of-background-yelling experience, please leave me a comment just so I know you survived with your mental capacities in tact.
Fortunately, she napped a lot today (3 times, as opposed to the usual 1 nap per day). She wasn’t really sleeping the whole time, as I discovered when I went in to put a blanket on her and she immediately popped up and wanted out of the crib. But she was willing to rest when I put her down and shut the door. This provided me with 3 much-needed breaks in the day, which I was exceedingly grateful for.
Also, she is attempting to wean herself off the bottle and has completely lost interest in baby food. You know, the mushy stuff that comes in jars and is immediately accessible upon demand, requiring no preparation or thought process in order to appease a hungry infant? Yeah, that’s the stuff she refuses to let touch her lips anymore.
This metamorphosis has completely caught me off guard, so mealtimes are a bit of a challenge. I’m suffering from a total lack of creativity on toddler-appropriate finger foods. So far, each meal consists of various combinations of the following:
- Cheerios
- String cheese
- Organic Crunchin’ Grahams
- Snack cheese
- Yogurt
- Canned fruit (it already comes in little pick-me-up pieces - LOVE THAT.)
- Fresh fruit - banannas, strawberries, grapes, plums, pluots; she doesn’t like avocados and that breaks my heart.
- Chopped carrots (I’m putting that one in so that you know I at least attempt to feed her vegetables. It doesn’t really count though because she won’t eat them)
- Deli meat - chicken or turkey
- Pasta
- Green beans (this is a rarity - I have a hard time getting them soft enough that she’ll eat them…but she loves the mushy green beans from BBQ joints)
- Vegetable crackers (She won’t eat those either - apparently we can’t trick her into eating a vegetable even if it looks, feels and tastes like a cracker)
- The occasional bread - pieces out of the middle of a loaf, tortilla pieces, etc.
- Boiled eggs
So that’s about it. It gets monotonous after a few meals. I’m looking for ways to expand her diet. I should include here that I don’t cook, so I’m looking for non-complex ways to expand her diet. If it requires more than “open and serve” you’d better include (very detailed) instructions.
Any ideas?
