Nom nom nom

Even though our days can be as varied as going to the beach or stomping in the snow, one constant throughout every day is that we cook and we eat. This thought has been most prominent in my mind over the past six days because even though I have been reduced to misery by some kind of stomach virus I have still had to be in charge of all sorts of food coming and going through our kitchen. (Ick, I know, but I have been insanely fastidious about hand-washing with hot soapy water and wiping surfaces down with sterilizing wipes.) Kids gotta eat, you know.

Although Zach can be picky, he is definitely my food man. He went to town on the spinach pesto I made on Monday night (although for whatever reason he rejected it when it showed up in his lunch bag today) and tonight he downed two enormous pieces of gefilte fish. And if we go to In n Out Burger (like we did on Friday night), he has no desire for some namby-pamby kids' hamburger with just a bun and some meat. He wants the whole deal, lettuce, tomato, sauce, grilled onions, cheese, and all. Talk about a man after my own heart.

Oh, and have I mentioned his increasingly adorable desire to pack picnics? For the past two Mondays (my special day at home with him) we have gone to the beach (the first week I took him rollerblading and last week we just walked down on foot) and he has insisted on packing and setting up a special picnic for the two of us. Perhaps the sweetest part is seeing just how proud he is of his handiwork. This Monday he packed a bag and he handed it to me to carry while we walked down to the beach. I didn't realize until we were just out the door that he had put an open cup of water in there as our beverage - it hadn't spilled because it was so tightly packed in with all of the other food.

Luke is a little more of a puzzle. Dave and I have been at our wits' end trying to find some healthy protein that he will reliably consume. When I took him shopping the other day he agreed that perhaps he would eat ham for dinner; by the time we got home he realized that he really preferred Grandma Joan's honey-baked ham, not the thin-sliced ham from the deli counter. And tonight he decided he might like peanuts and sunflower seeds, but by the time they reached his plate, he decided that he really didn't care for sunflower seeds at all. You can see why this becomes exasperating. They say that you have to look at a kid's diet over a three- or four-day span to get a good sense of how well they are eating. In his case I think we'll have to look over three or four years to remember that he at one point ate like a reasonably normal person.

Today I was feeling better and I decided it was time to make something fun with the kids with no ulterior motive for the blog. We decided to bake snickerdoodles (all of that flour and cinnamon and sugar - the perfect thing to make in the kitchen just after the housekeepers have left! Not!!) and at some point we decided that since the cookies were the same color as a furry little groundhog we'd serve them as a special groundhog dessert, putting eyes on them and making them pop up out of some ice cream. So we did. And, sure, they were no homemade pasta or anything, but to a stomach that has only eaten plain bread since Friday, they tasted downright delicious.