A Few Things

On the Wiggle front - my previously picky toddler has become my little foodie again this week. For weeks now I feel like his diet has consisted of pizza (admittedly homemade, but still), hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly, bananas, and milk. We would get some tastes in of other things and a few vegetables would get in there due to my constant pushing, but mostly he delighted in saying "No." I know this is developmentally appropriate, but, come on, who turns down raspberries? Or sweet potatoes in yogurt with honey and cinnamon? Or anything green, except peas? A 2 1/2-year-old girl's mom's comment that her daughter had not eaten anything new in a year started to haunt me. C and I love food, was my son going to be someone who throws a hamburger out a second story window because it has mayo on it? (True story, btw.) Then this week with the promise of M&M's from Halloween as an incentive to even try something new, we turned a corner. For lunch yesterday, Wiggle had two helpings of ma po dofu, a very earthy, somewhat spicy, Szechuan dish. I couldn't believe it. He also devoured the dry-fried green beans and eggplant that C made to accompany the dofu. Today, he ate pastitsio, a sort of Greek lasagna, for lunch and dinner. I love pastitsio, but it is made with ground lamb which has fairly overpowering smell; he just kept munching it and munching it. I should say though, that neither dish seemed to compete with M&M's current top position in his food hierarchy. He holds them, sings to them, counts them, sorts them by color, picks them up and lets them rain down on the table; they are perhaps the best candy to give to a toddler ever. I'm not a big candy advocate, but at least it's easy to portion control the discrete pieces, and he gets a little learning in during the half hour it takes him to eat his 10-12 pieces. Last night he had peanut M&M's, which he called "biggers MnMs." While eating the last one, he really took his time, he sucked the candy off, and then bit into the peanut, leaving half an M&M on the table. C and I looked at each other, puzzled. Why would he leave half an M&M? Then he asked for "More!" When we said that he had already had one bag and that was it for tonight, he sulked for 5 seconds, and then took the last half and popped it in his mouth with a big grin. Talk about managing his own disappointment!

Also, while trying to brush his teeth tonight, he was refusing to open his mouth, and I was reiterating that we have to brush teeth every night - then, he said "timeout?" I said that I hadn't mentioned timeout, but he kept saying it, so I asked him if he wanted a timeout, and he said "yeah." Now, based on the fact that he did not, in fact, sit for his timeout, I think his mentioning it was a ploy to move out of the bathroom, so he could make a break for it. Does that make me cynical? Does it make him an evil genius? Does it make me a bad parent to think it's kind of awesome if my 21-month-old is an evil genius? The boy definitely has some skills.

In other news, I miss the Co-op grocery store, or Treasure Island. Things I haven't been able to find in our grocery stores? Chipotles, porcini mushrooms, ground lamb, muir glen tomatoes, liquor. And even my costco is letting me down, I was there yesterday for my weekly bulk cheese run (don't worry, it's not the same cheese each week, we just run out of them at different rates/times), and they didn't have emmantaler or gruyere. We had already been disappointed with Trader Joe's version of each - very rubbery. Chicago was a really, really good food city, and while we have a lot of things here, I'm not really going to drive to 15 different ethnic supermarkets each week, or even month, to get my basic supplies. At least we're not in Norman, OK. Or someplace like it. No offense to Norman, per se, but I'm betting I wouldn't find their local supermarkets adequate. We do have one facny-schmancy supermarket, but it's a little far and on the weekends it gets so crowded you cannot find a space in their giganormous parking lot. Admittedly, I can generally go on a weekday, but if it's the place to get that last ingredient, mon Dieu! Maybe I should just keep trying supermarkets and then look at real estate near the best one.