Feeding time blues

(From the Nov. 12 issue of the Citizen)

My daughter Cheilin is officially a toddler. Gone are her infancy days of doing nothing but sleeping, eating and pooping.

Now I have a headstrong, temperamental, picky, active little girl running all over the place and keeping me super busy.

One thing that has been the most difficult lately is feeding time. Cheilin used to be so easy to feed, eating pretty much whatever I fed her.

Since she was a little late teething, not getting her first teeth until she turned 10 months old, I had to mush up everything I fed her.

Up until about two weeks ago, she would eat porridge with a variety of vegetables and chicken breast blended together. It was homemade, usually made by my mom, who babysits.

She must have gotten bored of it, because now she refuses to touch the stuff.

At 14 months old, she still only has six teeth, four on top and two on the bottom. So even though she is ready to venture into more solid foods, I am afraid to feed them to her because I am still trying to figure out what she can and cannot chew.

So I have tried a variety of other foods for her to taste. It is tough because she loves snack foods, but I need her to eat meals. She needs nutritional foods and meals to get her through the day, not little crackers and yogurt.

And that is my dilemma. I do not know what to feed her. She is too old for pureed baby food and too young to eat regular table food.

I have read on various mother networking sites that many mothers feed their children whatever they happen to be eating.

I have tried that and it does not work with Cheilin. She likes her veggies and I think they make great snacks, but I cannot seem to find the right meals.

I have tried rice, pasta, mashed potatoes, Vienna sausages and many other foods, and she pretty much stops after a few bites. To make matters worse, she is determined to feed herself. Trust me when I say that does not bode well.

I guess it is still a learning process, even if she is my second child. I have been through this before, yet I am stumped.

Feeding Cheilin used to be something I looked forward to, now it is something dread. The fighting, screaming and the mess all take their toll. If she does not like something, she spits it out or she throws it. I am surprised I do not have food hanging from my ceiling.

So I guess I will continue on this little journey of finding the right food for my little girl. In the meantime, I am not too proud to say that I will welcome all suggestions.

Movie Night

(Published in the Nov. 5 issue of the Citizen)

I know it is cliché, but sometimes, it truly is the simple things in life that make us happy.

Last Saturday was a rare weekend where my family and I had nowhere we had to be, so we decided to keep things simple and order pizza and rent a few movies.

It was raining outside, so we really enjoyed this family time we could spend together warm and cozy in our house.

We rented “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and a Batman cartoon, two kid-friendly films the entire family could enjoy.

We settled in our family room, and pretty much spread out on the carpet while we watched our movies. We got to pig out on pizza, garlic bread, hot wings and Halloween candy and we couldn’t have been happier.

What was really nice was we were able to enjoy the movie while my daughter Cheilin, who is 14 months old, ran around and played.

She pretty much just played and did her own thing during the movie. We only had to take one break to get her some milk.

We don’t get to watch movies very often anymore since we can’t really take an active toddler the movie theater.

So it was kind of a treat to catch up on some of the movies that we have been wanting to watch.
Our pizza and movie night was really great bonding time with my son Deven who is 8 years old.

Little things like this really brighten him up and make him happy. We do not always have to go out and spend a ton of money to have family time; simple things like renting a movie can be just as rewarding.

It is not always about what you do, as long as you do them together. This is what memories are built on.

Regardless of how busy our schedules may be, we have to always remember to put some time aside to spend with our families.

We used to have lots of movie nights, but things have changed a lot since we added another member to our family.

Babies are very demanding of time and energy, so we kind of let our movie renting nights fizzle out.

But Deven was so happy after our movie night, and we all had such a great time that we decided to make it a monthly ritual. It was nice to see Deven’s face light up when I told him this.

On another note, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was a fun movie and I liked it a lot. Yes, it is unrealistic and cheesy, but it is a great family movie and it was exciting and I enjoyed it just as much as Deven.