This Is How I MomSolving the puzzle of motherhood one piece at a time

My husband and I have completely different tastes. Since I lost a good 70lbs about 6 years ago, I’ve been eating pretty healthy. I like veggies, poultry and whole grains while my hubby prefers carbs, sausage and cheese. I used to cook separately for both of us and I didn’t really mind… I had the spare time and cooking is my hobby, so it seemed like a win-win situation. However, I want my child to learn good eating habits and I also want to start taking meals together.

Right now, things still are kind of a-jumble. My husband sleeps from 8am-4pm, so his eating rhythm is completely different from mine. Yet again, I find myself cooking separately for both of us.

Logan is starting to become very interested in food, so I make sure to always let him watch me eat when he’s awake. He hasn’t grabbed food yet, but I think within a month or two he’ll be ready to start slowly on solids. My plan is to introduce one type of food per week and have him get a taste of oatmeal cereal, bananas, avocados, sweet potato and squash by the time he’s 6 months old. Then we’ll branch out to all the fun stuff.

That also means that by the time he’s 6 months old, I want to have at least one family meal that we can all eat together at the table. Hopefully, my husband’s and my sleep schedule will be aligned by then, so I don’t totally throw him off by having his dinner prepared when he wakes up. I guess there are worse things, but I know my digestive system would revolt.

I might start looking into some “his and her” recipes, so instead of preparing two completely different meals, I can just make some changes to adjust his part of dinner to his liking. I think it might preserve my sanity.

Any tips on how to make having a meal together as a new family easier?

21 weeks, 3 days

I have an almost insatiable hankering for cherries every summer as it is – delicious, ever so expensive morsels! This is multiplied by about… ten since I’ve been pregnant, and FINALLY cherry season has rolled around. I’ve been eating pounds and pounds of lovely red crunchy fruit and don’t plan on stopping until it becomes unaffordable again. $7/lb, really?! $3-4 is already a luxury, albeit one that I’ll gladly splurge on while I still can.

There are so many delicious cherry recipes out there, but my favorite is to just devour them fresh out of the bag. Rinsed, of course. They share the same fate as many other fruits this summer; I seem to not be able to get enough of sweet, juicy fruit. Blueberries, bananas, melon, pineapple, apples, nectarines – and, of course, the lovely cherries. I see this as a step up from the chocolate cravings that I’m usually plagued with.

It seems all I want these days is fruit, potatoes, whole wheat pumpkin spice bread from Great Harvest, protein pancakes, eggs, fish and poultry. This is such a HUGE turn-around from the first trimester, where fast food and simple carbs were my constant companions.

I feel that I’m doing a lot better on weight management this month (although I refuse to weigh myself between doctor appointments), to the point where I eat plenty of nourishing foods for my baby, exercise and still enjoy my body – more or less.

On the downside, our only car – a Ford Focus 2003 – has recently started its well-known ignition problem, where we’re unable to turn the key without manhandling it with a hammer. Since at any point it could refuse to turn on entirely, we’ve decided not to make trips that require us to get out of the car unless we’re at home. So instead of frequent gym trips, we’re now limited to “food hauls”. Tomorrow we’ll call up a locksmith and hopefully he can fix the issue.

Baby boy has been incredibly active! A few days ago my husband felt him move for the first time, and it was a darn big kick that he gave his daddy! Such a precious moment. I’m glad that he finally gets to experience what I’ve been telling him about for a month. Fetal movement is amazing; it’s making the pregnancy seem all the more real. No matter how many aches my body will go through in the next 19 weeks, baby boy makes it all worth it.