A Little Macaroni

I have a picky eater in my family.
A very, very picky eater.
What he will eat varies from time to time.
He will eat something over and over for months,
And then one day he will throw a fit over the thought of consuming it.

Right now its:
Granola bars
Breakfast biscuits (kind of like granola bars)
String cheese
Grated cheese
Eggs
Chicken nuggets
Crackers of all kinds
Cereals of most kinds
Oatmeal occasionally
Bananas
Grapes
Peas
Breads
Chips
Spaghetti
Spaghetti-O's
French fries
Baked potatoes
French toast
Pancakes
Frozen waffles
Pizza

And...

Macaroni and Cheese

And that is, seriously, all my child will eat.
It could be worse,
But is seriously lacking of more fruits and especially, vegetables.

He will also consume some certain baked goods: donuts, cookies, cakes, cupcakes and... ice cream.
And M&M's.

He is very specific about how he will take the food.
It cannot be broken.
It cannot have air bubbles in it.
And he must be given the opportunity to prepare it.

Ephram starts every day asking me for macaroni and cheese.
He would literally live off of macaroni and cheese if I let him.

He really enjoys making macaroni and cheese.
He watches the water come to a boil,
Takes the cheese out of the box,
Pours the pasta in the pot,
And then tells me how many minutes to put on the timer.
He knows that mommy does all of the hot stirring.
Because everyone is big enough to do something,
(Thank you Daniel Tiger)
And Ephram is big enough to do cold stirring.

While we wait for the 7-13 minutes to pass,
He gets the butter out of the fridge
And I get the milk.
And he tells me this every time.

He stacks all of the ingredients together in the middle of the stove,
We get out the colander,
And wait for the last minute.
That's when our countdown begins.

After I drain out the water,
Ephram puts in the butter.
He always tells me,
"Ephram likes butter!"
And as I hand him a few slices to put in the pot,
He sniffs them each and says,
"Mmmm, good butter."
But it sounds like this,
"Eeeemmmm, guh buddy!"
Then he shakes the cheese powder down in it's packet,
I open it,
And he pours it in,
While I pour in some milk.
Then he stirs it.
All by himself.
When he is done, he tells me so.
And I come over and say,
"How hungry are you today?"
And he holds up 10 fingers and says,
"Ephram ten hungry!"
And then we dramatically fill up a bowl to the appropriate level.
He usually eats 2/3 of the pot.
(Because in between our macaroni days, he holds off and eats less of other foods.)

Then,
Happier every time,
He carries his bowl to the table,
And eats it.
With a big spoon.
In no time flat.

Yes,
This boy likes macaroni.
He used to like my homemade macaroni.
But now it's not macaroni unless it's Kraft.
I'm hoping that will change someday.

But because I've learned that he will actually cease eating until he gets what he wants,
I'm no longer trying to force his tastes to change.
He'll survive.
On his macaroni days, which come every 2-3 days, he is so happy.

Art by Charlie

Charlie was going through a pretty creative phase in March.

He really branched out in his drawings.

But somehow, they all seemed to have a rainbow in them.

Here are a couple of the pictures that he made!

The Visitor

Macie's sleeping patterns are a dream.
Sure - she's not that easy to put down.
But once she goes to sleep,
She is usually out until the morning.
I often wake up to giggles,
And babbling,
And the crinkling noises of a mattress that is hosting a playing baby.

And for a couple of weeks,
On a few select mornings,
Squealing laughter.
Which would curiously be followed by "tickle, tickle, tickle" in another voice.

Macie had a visitor.

He would wake up,
And nothing makes me happier than knowing that
The first thing Ephram thought of upon waking was
His baby sister and
Making her happy.

One morning I caught him.
I heard a little murmured babbling from his room.
Then he tried to sneak down the hall,
Almost reaching her room,
And then he ran back really fast.
Slowing when he reached his doorway,
He hushed himself,
Picked up his step stool carefully,
And tip toed with it,
(While it frequently knocked against the wall,)
Through her door.
It was quiet for
Maybe 15 seconds.
Then I heard the best little chuckle,
And they started to talk.
A best friend, brother and sister, I'm going to love you forever kind of talk.

I was so happy,
So touched,
I just couldn't interrupt it.
(Okay, I cried a little too.)
And then, as quiet as I could,
It was my turn to sneak.
Down the stairs to the kitchen,
Where my camera sat on a counter,
Back upstairs,
And right outside her door.

He was entertaining her with a couple of toys on the crib rail,
And it was clear that he'd passed her quite a few toys too.

And then, I was caught.

So I couldn't help but take a few pictures of my princess,
So happy with her morning visitor.

I am so grateful for their relationship.
I hope that they are always close.

Macie Plays the Triangle

Understatement: Macie loves music.

Her brother got a Band in the Box for Christmas that is full of percussion instruments.

The day she figured out how to consistently get a ding out of the triangle

Was one of the best days of her life.

Let It Snow

We had a delightfully mild winter this year.
(Which was a relief to me, because I'm not much for icy slippery walkways while carrying a baby.)
Yet, no snow for the whole winter?
It just wasn't right.

Then March 21st happened.
It was a hard day for Ephram.
He hadn't been sleeping well for a week or so.
And that night he woke up crying.
Three times.
And the last time, I fell asleep in his bed.
An hour or so later,
I half woke up to a weird crinkling noise.
Thinking it was Charlie,
I whispered to him to be quiet.
And then went the rest of the way back to sleep.

I woke up at 5am.
And his room was weirdly lit.
It wasn't quite right.
I stepped out of his bed,
Walked down the hall,
Glanced out the window,
And saw it.
Not just a little snow,
A sky filled with dancing flakes floating through the air.

That noise I thought Charlie had been making?
Sleet hitting the window.

There was already a decent amount of snow stuck to the ground.

I couldn't sleep after that.
I watched the snow fall for three hours.
It was beautiful.
The house was so quiet,
I swear I could hear it fall.
It was so beautiful.
One of those moments when you get lost in something,
And don't care about anything else.

And then I heard little feet running upstairs,
Laughter from my littles,
And went upstairs to show them our surprise.
By then the sky had cleared,
And we had a beautiful snow-covered sunny day.
The best kind.

Lucky 2 Dollars

My mom sent each of the kids cards for St Patrick's Day.

Inside the cards were a sheet of stickers.

And a $2 bill.

They could not believe their luck!

Yes, somehow even the baby understood how special it was.

She had a sweet brother that gently showed her how to open her card,

Take out her stickers,

And her lucky bill.

Here I was, all prepped to tell him 

"Please let Macie have it, you have yours and she has hers,"

But I needn't have had the thought.

He carefully handed it to her,

And even let her hold his for a time.

(A short time.)

Then he sat there and showed her all of the words in his card.

And all of the words in hers.

Meanwhile Charlie was saying

"Take a picture of me mom!"

"Please take a picture of me!"

"Mom!"

So I took a picture of him.

Ephram started playing peek-a-boo two dollar style.

And then Charlie,

"Look!  It really is lucky!  See how it stays on top of just one finger?"

Ephram,

"Ah!  Oh!  Ya-ya (Ephram)!"

And so there were some amazing two dollar bill balancing feats.

And here I thought we were just opening a few cards.

But we had more than an hour of "lucky" fun.

The next day,

While I was vacuuming upstairs,

Ephram wanted to do some art.

So I took out some paper,

And some crayons,

And gave him his card so that he could use his stickers.

When I came back he was so incredibly proud to show me this.

He used all of those stickers to stick that two dollar bill right to the page.

I guess, when you're three, a lucky two dollar bill

Makes for a great piece of art.

Cheerio!

I have the silliest baby girl.
She gets these little ideas in her head,
And then I laugh when I see what she has done.

So, what do you do with cheerios when you are 11 months old?

Put them in your mouth?
Drop them in your lap?
Try to catch them with a spoon?
Throw them on the floor?
Hold them up to your eye and try to look through them like your silly mommy does?

Yes, Macie does all of these things with her Cheerios.
(And she loves Cheerios.)

Yep, those are great things to do with a pile of Cheerios.
And then, there's this.

Even better, her three year old brother saw her struggle to get the next Cheerio up to its place.
She just couldn't reach it.
He's my little solution man.
This problem's solution was simple: push the highchair along for her when she gets stuck.
(And give her a few more Cheerios when she runs out.)

So then, we have this.

And when she's all done lining them up from top to bottom?
She's ferried back up to the top of the counter.
There she picks up the first Cheerio and pops it in her mouth.
And onto the next.
So at least she eats them.
(Although there are at least three Cheerios on the floor for each one that makes the counter.)

Such a silly and cute little girl.