Are you seriously going to make me eat THAT?

Before I began teaching, I worked as an IT assistant in a meeting planning office.  Periodically, my boss would come to me and ask “How hard would it be (to have the moon and the stars in a Fed Ex box by five for pick up and delivered by 10:00 AM tomorrow morning)?”  Okay – so she never asked for the moon and the stars…together anyway.

Often I could complete whatever task she brought to me and I often surprised myself at what I accomplished.

So now, in that same spirit, I think crazy things like I should be able to fix my own dryer, change my own oil, edit my blog’s theme, and make homemade baby food.  Notice I said “think” and “should” rather than more active verbs like “can” and “do.”

With the exception of homemade baby food. 

Night after night, I spoon liquid vegetables into Adam’s mouth.  Looking at the label, the ingredients seem simple enough: macaroni, tomatoes, carrots, peas, water, etc.  Easy, easy.

There is no shortage of labor intensive things we will do for those little ones whom we love. I boiled carrots and macaroni. I blanched a small tomato and actually skinned it. 

If Ismael came to me and asked me to start removing the skin from his tomatoes, I think I might actually tell him to go take a long, long walk, somewhere else… in a sweet voice of course, but there isn’t any way on earth I would do it.

I added what seemed like a small amount of spinach to the mixture then dumped it all in my food processor with some water.  The result seemed relatively smooth, but not quite the puree I expected.  I put it on his plate along with a jar of baby fruit (one thing at a time, one thing at a time).

 I thought it tasted as well as it could with no salt, onions, or garlic.  It seemed really GREEN for the small amount of spinach I used.  

Ismael gave it the hairy eyeball trying to figure out just what I was up to.  He seemed surprised, impressed and concerned all at once, looking at me like we had just met.  He forgets that I have a LOT more nutty ideas energy once school is out. 

Adam was not impressed.  He was surprised and concerned though. It was not a hit.

He is looking at Daddy for rescue! With every bite it seemed like he was asking, “Seriously? Do I have to eat this?”  Eventually he just clamped his mouth shut and absolutely refused to take another bite. 

So in retrospect, I can see a few mistakes I can rectify in the future:

1. Definitely use the blender rather than food processor to get a smoother, more familiar texture.  By the time I tried this tonight, it was toooo late. He was not going to have another bite of it no matter what I did.
2. Less is more when it comes to spinach.

I’ll wait a few days and try again with a new “blend.”  I didn’t buy an entire bag of ORGANIC carrots for nothing, I assure you.