My sisters will be proud

I am the fifth of seven sisters, and I must say they are all fantastic and amazing at something, probably several somethings. Until recently I held the title of "boring sister" which might sound offensive, but a) it was true and b) I'm totally fine with being boring; ask my husband. The title has now been retired. I want to be more like my sisters. I feel a need to keep up with them, but not in a competitive way, more of an admirable way. I want to be better at some of the things they do so well.

One thing they put a lot of time and effort into is good food. My oldest sister has a goal to produce most of her own food from her garden this year. My Albanian sister is giving up sugar for a whole year. One sister is a vegetarian and another is on a quest to get people to eat more vegetables. She has vegetable birthday parties and always takes a vegetable dish to any potluck-type gathering.

My diet has not been great lately, lots of eating out and very little meal planning. I went the whole month of January without any junk and haven't touched a fry since, and I gave up sodas (except for some ginger ale when I had a cold a few weeks ago). I bought the newly updated How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman; the original is a favorite among my sisters. I also checked out his Food Matters Cookbook from the library, which is good, but a little too much for me. I'm not ready to make any drastic changes, but I am determined to eat better and get more vegetables into our diet.

Here's what we ate last night:



Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Tomato and Basil




Maple Glazed Sweet Potatoes and Parsnips

 I insisted the kids try one bite of chicken with the tomato and basil. That chicken is actually one of my favorites; I don't make it very often because I burn it every-other time I make it. I must've burned it last time. Cakes choked it down. Silly took at least 15 minutes to decide to eat it, saying over and over how he hates tomatoes. When he finally ate it Scott and I teased him while he chewed, saying things like, "I'm watching you very closely to make sure you don't fall over dead." After a bit of chewing he declared he liked it, but declined to try any more tomatoes.

I also made them eat at least one parsnip and one sweet potato. Cakes took one little bite of parsnip and said it wasn't bad. She took another little bite later and said "I actually kind of like these." Sweet! (I threw in a little reminder about having to try something 15 times before you like it. Guess I haven't tried grapefruit enough yet.) Scott fed Silly his parsnip, he said he didn't like it, but he could live on carrots and parsnips aren't much different. And most amazingly of all - SCOTT liked all of it! Even the sweet potatoes, and he is not a fan at all. Baby steps.

Speaking of babies, while I was typing about food very early this morning, Bubba woke up rather late (7:45), but he didn't go to bed until almost ten, so that wasn't entirely unexpected; however, Bubba crawling into my lap and almost immediately starting to throw up was. I mananged to get him into the bathroom first. Is there anything more pathetic than the sight of a little person throwing up? I don't think so. I took his temp when I got him dressed, 102.2. Coincidently, we already had a doctor's appointment for him this morning to recheck his ear infection. Lo and behold, his other ear is now infected so this time he gets to take the yucky medicine and we get to go back to the doctor in another 2 weeks. Good times. He is starting to come back to life now after a juicebox and a pancake.