Food Fight

I have a confession. My name is April and I am a picky eater.

I don't want to be a picky eater, I really don't...it just sort of happened. When I was a kid I ate whatever we were served for dinner, but even then there were "rules". The standard menu consisted of a meat, a vegetable, and a potato (not a starch, an actual potato).

Rule #1.
No two foods of different molecular structure can touch on the plate. Ever. For any reason.


Rule #2.
Meat should never be served "on the bone".


Rule #3. 
Leftovers belong in the garbage, not in a Tupperware container to be eaten at a later date.


Rule #4.
Milk is dead to me ON its expiration date.


Rule #5.
Gravy is for pot roast and only pot roast.

The rules are fairly simple and hardly ever inconvenience anyone else. Yes, at my parents house my dad cuts my meat for me so that I don't have to look at the bone. And yes, I occasionally ask for an extra plate so that I can avoid cross contamination. All that being said I really have no reason to think my perfectly reasonable eating habits will definitely rub off on my kids. After all Matt will eat ANYTHING, in disgusting quantities I might add.

Cue Lily.

We have spawned a child who will not eat. It isn't just that she is picky or has rules. Rules I get. Rules I could live with. Its that she changes the game every.single.day. Three days in a row bananas are God's proof that he loves her, but watch out...she may never eat another banana again, just because. She will not try anything new and she certainly will not eat yesterday's delicious dinner left overs for lunch today. Every meal is a complete and total crap shoot. Will she eat it? Will she throw it? Will her head spin around in a complete 360 while she tries to kill me with the lasers shooting from her eyes?!? I only wish it were as exhilarating at is sounds.

The one thing we have learned is that she eats best when left in the dining room alone. Lily, table for 1 please.  Last night to my shock and delight she ate a bowl of cooked broccoli without once threatening to kill me. And then she ate a hot dog too!! It was the most food she has eaten in one sitting in over a week.

I am desperately trying not to get worked up about it. I know she won't starve herself and that the best thing I can do is act like I don't care. But it is easier said than done.

Here she is pretending to like homemade pizza, I don't think she actually ingested any of it. 

I am sort of hoping in lieu of this post she will eat everything is sight... just to spite me!

#38 Eat Bud's Popcorn

To say that this popcorn is delicious is the understatement of the year.

One of my very favorite people on the planet, who was gracious enough to have been my maid of honor and one day soon will officially be Lily's godmother, happens to be the daughter of the World's Greatest Popcorn Maker. I have been accused, on more than one occasion actually, of using her for said connection. I dream about this popcorn. I don't know how he does it, and frankly I don't want to know...it would be like finding out how, in 1985, Santa knew all I really wanted for Christmas was a Barbie Dream House even though I was sick the day he came to school. Some things are better left to wonder. All I do know is that there is an electric kettle (which broke but THANK GOD still works), a very particular brand of popcorn kernel, salt, butter, and Bud's magic touch.

When we were in high school Bud would make popcorn for us almost every weekend. Sometimes it was to celebrate a great track team win, other times it was to mend a broken heart. I would arrive at their house, throw my keys on the kitchen table, and head down to the basement. Within minutes the lights would flicker (Bud's warning signal, haha) and he would call down, "Ape, you want popcorn?" My response then, and to this day, "Always!"

Fifteen years have gone by since I had my first bowl. As the popcorn makes its way from the kitchen Bud tosses it around in the bowl, I once joked that that sound was music to my ears. Now I simply say, "You're playing my song."

This past Tuesday, while home in Maine visiting with friends and family, I made a drive I could do blindfolded to the home of the popcorn king and bellied up to a nice big bowl. I am serious, to this day it may be one of the best things I have ever eaten. I literally can't wait for Lily's first taste!

Did I just write a whole blog post about popcorn?? You bet your ass I did, it is that good.

#38, done.

Small victories...

Is it bad that the cat just threw up in front of us and my first thought was, well at least it was on the hardwood?!?

According to Dingle

"Coocoo is an unpredictable tornado of feelings"

Nashua, you had me at mini golf!

My only regret from this past weekend is that we did not take more pictures.

Dingle and I had a great time on our "weekend mini-break". On Friday we drove Lily to Maine so that she could spend the weekend stuffing her face with cookies and watching R rated movies! She is going through a bit of a shy phase and it was a little harder on me than I thought it would be to leave her. I may or may not have cried over an Italian sandwich in the car. In any case after driving to Maine we hit the highway headed South to the great state of New Hampshire, live free or die!

The drive to Nashua was nice, at first. Dingle insisted on taking back roads which I was all for until the iphone died, the gps couldn't find us, and we had been in the car for more than 4 hours (including the drive to ME). We did eventually find the hotel and I was overall very happy with our groupon. On Friday we went out to dinner and saw Harry Potter, excellent date night activities. I only cried a little after getting off the phone with CooCoo...I cried much more during Harry Potter. On Saturday we sat out by the pool, went out to lunch, and then headed to the Anheuser-Busch brewery. The tour was neat, I was amazed by the literally thousands of bottles of bud light that were filing out of the factory. Dingle was very interested in the computer program that runs the factory...go figure. (*edit* I was just informed it is not a program it is a whole system, pardon). We were both in awe of all of the children running around...live free or die, indeed. The best part was the stable where they keep a full team of Clydesdales. You know a horse is huge when it makes Dingle look short. We bought Lily a stuffed animal at the gift shop, because we just couldn't go home to her empty handed! Turns out she freakin' loves her new "horsey" and has hardly let it out of her sight.

We kept our socially acceptable buzz going with a beer at Carrabba's and then headed out to play mini golf. I really love mini golf. It is only slightly irritating that Dingle is as good as I am, if only we could putt like that on the real course!! After 18 exhilarating holes...we TIED, arg! Afterwards, we had free dinner at the hotel as part of our groupon. (Note to readers; do get the Salmon, don't get the brick-oven pizza!) Our only real complaint about the hotel was the bed. All of their rooms "boast" sleep-number beds. Frankly, I felt like I was sleeping on an under-inflated air mattress. We woke up stiff and sore both mornings...and not for those reasons, geez get your mind out of the gutter. Seriously though, the bed was terrible. We sped drove at a reasonable speed to Maine on Sunday morning to get Lily. Seeing her was awesome!! It will be awhile before I leave her again, sorry grandparents.

I won't go into the 4 hours of traffic that we sat in to get back to MA on Sunday afternoon for fear that Dingle will make good on his promise to "NEVER DO THE DRIVE AGAIN"...it takes a lot to make my husband snap is all I'm saying. All in all I feel like we really made the most of our weekend "away". Did I mention I missed Lily and I won't be leaving her again for a very long time? I did, oh ok.