Peanut

A few weeks ago I lifted the ban on peanut butter. THEY say children under the age of two should not eat peanuts - not to prevent allergy but to have the child be physically large enough that should he or she prove allergic, their little bodies can better deal with a reaction. Fine. But no one we are related to is allergic to peanuts (that we know of) and most of the allergies that do exist are environmental.

Also, we have not perhaps been the most persnickety and/or careful about keeping peanut content away from Zander. We love our Vietnamese food and homemade stir fries with peanuts. Picking the nus out for Z seemed . . . silly. Since we all know the peanut oil leached out and onto the food.

Then I was telling myself I had to be careful because peanuts were a CHOKING HAZARD! Meanwhile, I am giving him children's chewable vitamins at breakfast every morning. "Bite your vitamin, Zander!" "Crunch, crunch." (BTW, he knows "bite" because that's what he likes to do to me when he gets really worked up and I have to tell him to stop.)

Okay, so a peanut does not have the same dissolving capability that a chewable vitamin does but it came to me that if the only thing I was really worried about was him choking on the peanut, then why was I depriving my son of one of childhood's joys.......peanut butter???

I have pictures of his first PBJ experience but they're on the other computer. Well, you can imagine it - these pictures look like all the other pictures of Zander eating food.

So I mentioned recently that Zander was sick? Now that I am coming down with something myself, Zander is starting to perk up. For a week or two or three he's been eating about two bites of food a day. It makes me crazy but I don't want to start the food wars, so if he doesn't eat what I give him (provided that is reasonable to start with) then he gets down from his seat and maybe eats more at the next meal. Maybe.

Today Zander ate three bowls of frosted shredded wheat. A day ago he was practically throwing his bowl at me because he was mad that we didn't have Cheerios. At lunch he ate a dozen or more crackers with peanut butter, a whole pickle, and carrot sticks. And drank lots of milk. I suppose that sounds like a normal toddler meal to you but really, he's been eating like half a carrot stick at lunch! This is tremendous!

Now for dinner I made Uncle Andy's Bolognase - one of my personal favorites. Matt enjoyed it as well, despite the zucchini. Zander...well, I think he was still in fast forward from all the other calories. He vibrated in his chair and elaborately attempted to stab noodles. Not so much with the eating, sadly.

Since I am lacking decent illustrations today, I leave you with a picture taken with my MacBook's built in camera just the other day. The quality is not great but you can't beat the convenience.

(Talk about the camera adding ten pounds.
Zander's cheeks aren't that jowly anymore.)