Molly had to work late today, so I was in charge of picking up Alex, feeding him, bathing him, and putting him to bed. Let me just come right out and admit what I did wrong: I forgot to give him his evening dose of antibiotics. Hopefully we won’t be responsible for creating an awful strain of drug-resistant sinusitis.
What I did that was right — or at least memorable — was feed him his first home-cooked meal that I wouldn’t be ashamed to eat myself. Normally, Alex gets exciting fare like plain vegetables, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or plain noodles. We’ve frequently tried to give him the same food that we eat, and he doesn’t touch it. So we keep giving him the old stand-bys.
Well, that drives me nuts. Yes, I know I was a picky eater when I was his age (and for a loong time afterwards), but I’m not a picky eater now, and I really want Alex to eat more than I would at his age. So as I cooked an evening meal of peas and noodles, I had the inspired idea of putting them into the same bowl with a little olive oil and Parmesan cheese instead of serving them plain in separate bowls. This is a better meal than many UW students would be eating!
At first, I thought this experiment was a failure. Within 30 seconds of getting the food, he was saying, “All done!” Luckily, I’ve learned that when he says “All done,” he doesn’t always mean that he’s done eating his food. Instead, he means… well, I haven’t figured out what he means, but he frequently keeps eating his food and gets mad when you try to take it away. And sure enough, he went on to eat half the bowl. I had to grab the camera to document this memorable occasion. Ignore the dirty face. This was history in the making — I didn’t have time to stop and clean him off.
Now, it turns out that having the camera out put Alex in the mood to get his picture taken. “Alex cheese!” he said. I got him to do one of our favorite facial expressions: He puts both hands up to his cheeks and says, “Oh no Mama!” (He’ll frequently go through the whole family. “Oh no Daddy! Oh no Cleo! Oh no Mo!” Don’t ask why.) Here he is:
When he got down from the table, he grabbed his own camera. He tried to take a picture of Cleo (she’s blurry in the background of one of the pictures). I think it’s funny, yet inevitable, that he’s not yet two yet knows what a camera is.
