Time Is Love

There's a Josh Turner song, titled "Time Is Love."  I'm sure it's meant to be a romantic love song, but since becoming a mother, I often hear parent-child love in music instead of romance.  If you don't mind a quasi-country tune, check it out.  If country, or anything close to it, makes you want to ram kittens into your ears, then here's a sample of the lyrics:

I know I gotta put in the hours,

Make the money while the sunlight shines

But anything I gotta get done,

It can get done some other time

Time is love, gotta run,

Love to hang longer,

But I got someone who waits,

Waits for me and right now

She's where I need to be,

Time is love, gotta run

I only get so many minutes,

Don't wanna spend 'em all on the clock

In the time that we spent talkin',

How many kisses have I lost?

These lyrics sum up perfectly my work days.  I leave the house at 5:30 in the morning (it's an ungodly thing), so I miss waking up to her giggles.  I miss her singing to herself and shaking the sleep out of her curls.  I miss her demands of ice water once she's up (so much like her mama).  I miss the mornings, four days a week.

I have become a clockwatcher when I'm at the office.  As soon as the bell tolls, I'm out the door.  No chit chat about weekend plans, no acceptance of after-work drinks, not even an insincere "have a good night" offered to co-workers.  Nothing.

I remember, once upon a time, I was a driven career woman, plotting my moves up the ladder.  While I still have ambitions, I now have different priorities and they don't include spending 60 hours a week at a boring, thankless desk job.  Once I'm home, I do my best to focus on my family.

I gotta go.  My baby is waiting for me.

Toddler Nutrition 101, The Groovy Way

My kid is a picky eater.  For a true food-lover like me, this is disheartening.  In my quest to find appropriate, nutritious foods for her, I've searched on Pinterest and found all these lists of toddler lunches, snacks, breakfasts, etc.  They are great lists, with a lot of good ideas...but my baby doesn't eat most of what the other bloggers' kids eat.  No peanut butter...no Kraft slices...no deli meats...no eggs...no cutesy sandwiches...nope.

For quite awhile, I worried and stressed and cried over Babydoll's eating habits (or lack thereof).  I couldn't comprehend how in the world we ended up with a picky eater.  BD will eat anything but beets.  I am only slightly picky, in that I don't dig on swine.  Or beets (this is why we are a well-suited match.  Damn the beets!).  So how, HOW, could we have turned out a child who only eats strawberries and pasta?

Over time, I realized that I hadn't had a good kitchen challenge in some time.  Fine then, universe.  Challenge accepted.

When I was pregnant, I bought a copy of "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld on clearance at Ross.  Surely, I told myself, there will be no true need for this book.  But it was $3.00 and had a lot of puree recipes, so I figured it wouldn't go to waste.

That book was the wisest impulse purchase EVER.

I had always thought that I would be the parent who made only one meal, and if you didn't eat it, then you went to bed hungry.

Well, I'm not that parent right now.  And I don't feel badly about it.

As with everything else we've encountered in this parenting game, the kid is calling the shots.  She didn't sleep through the night regularly until she was 17 months old.  She didn't walk until she was 14 months old.  She is independent, affectionate, funny, smart and determined to do everything in her own time.  I'm still getting used to it and learning to let go of some of the control.

I've mentioned before that one of the main facets of attachment parenting is respecting the child.  One of the ways we do this is recognizing that her taste buds and preferences are not the same as ours, and that's okay. Her pickiness may not be forever.  Some day, she may dive into the baked hake and sauteed brussells sprouts with the same fervor we do.  In the meantime, it's my job to make sure that what she does eat is as nutritious as possible.  This means:

• The cheese sauce for macaroni and cheese is always made with a vegetable puree, like butternut squash or cauliflower.  Vegetables, like peas and carrots, are always added to the pasta.
• Snacks are cut up fruit, vegetables, yogurt, cheese, granola bars, and fruit puree pouches.  She has recently developed a taste for Goldfish crackers and Annie's Cheddar Bunnies, so she gets a handful of those in her snack cup.
• Quinoa is added to all kinds of dishes.
• Smoothies are made with flax seed, spinach or kale, Greek yogurt, almond milk, and lots of fresh or frozen fruit.
• Pesto is made with spinach and basil, flax seed, olive oil and Parmesan (I call it "Magic Sauce.")
• Milk, water, and herbal tea to drink.  Juice is high in sugar and low in nutrition.

I have long been an avid label-reader, even more so now.  If it has no nutritional value, she's not getting it.  I think of it this way: she doesn't eat much, so when she does eat, it needs to pack a punch.  We never miss an opportunity to add a vegetable, fruit or grain to her meals.  I often make several days' worth of lunch for her in one batch, usually in the form of whole wheat pasta cooked in vegetable broth, with veggies (Trader Joe's sells an Awesome Foursome frozen veggie pack that is perfect), some seasoning, butter or cheese sauce.  Muffins are made with fruit, vegetables, or both.

She's still a vegetarian, but I know that she's getting enough protein and iron, because we make a conscious effort about it.  She eats with a fork and spoon, though she still uses her fingers, too.  Sometimes, she makes a huge mess (she recently had a yogurt goatee - it was literally dripping off her face), but this is part of toddlerhood.  She can't learn how to feed herself exclusively if we don't allow her to try.  And here's the thing: sometimes BD and I want to have fish, or scallops, or steak for dinner.  We know she's not going to eat it.  We put a little on her plate anyway, but we also serve her something we know she will eat.  I don't have a problem with it.  I envy those parents who truly can cook just one meal that is happily devoured by the whole family.  Until that day arrives for us (please hurry), I'm satisfied in knowing that what she does eat is wholesome and good for her.

That's good enough.

Homemade organic plum-applesauce

Groovy Recipe: Zucchini Bread

Last week, I took Babydoll to her first dance class (EEEEEEEEE!!!  I loved dance as a little girl, and I hope she will, too).  While signing in, the program director showed us the huge zucchini she'd plucked from her garden.  "I don't know what to do with it," she said.  "You could make zucchini bread, or muffins, with it," I suggested.  "I don't cook," was her laughing reply.  A friend of mine, Diva's Mama, happily volunteered me to take that bad boy home and whip it into something edible.  I told the director I'd have Babydoll's Daddy bring her the results when he brought the kiddo to her play group the following week.

We brought him home.  He sat on the dining room table for a few days.  I wondered if he was, in fact, edible at all.  This was he, in his former state:

That is a full-size laptop, for comparison.

I conferred with my Facebook cooking group (yeah...I'm THAT kind of nerd).  The conclusion was that it would be suitable for baking, but nothing else.  Bread, or muffins, coming right up!

*This recipe is lovingly adapted from my kitchen bible, The Joy of Cooking.

ZUCCHINI BREAD

* makes 1 full sized loaf, 4 mini loaves, or 12(ish) muffins

Ingredients

2 cups grated zucchini, squeezed of extra moisture

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

2/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp vanilla

1 1/4 cup flour (I use wheat; you can sub white, or half and half)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

Before I get going on the method, let me show you how I dismantled this thing in order to get it ready for grating.  It was quite a process.  It involved my machete (a 12" Santoku knife), a non-slip cutting mat, a spoon, and a mandoline fitted with a grater.  The skin was extremely tough, so that had to be removed.  The center was reminiscent of a pumpkin.  I had to cut the beast into quarters, skin it, remove the membranes and seeds, then cut each quarter into multiple pieces.

Hacking away.

Now we can grate!

A big-ass bowl of grated zucchini.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease up whatever receptacle you're going to pour the batter into.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt.  In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla.  Using a few, quick strokes, fold the dry ingredients into the wet (don't over mix).  Fold in the zucchini with a few more strokes.  Pour the batter into the pan or tin.

Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes (for a large loaf), 35-40 minutes (for four mini loaves), or 25-30 minutes (for muffins).  Do a toothpick test to check if it's done.  Let cool in its pan for at least 20 minutes, then flip out and serve right away, or within four days.

That big-ass zucchini made four batches of the above recipe.