no more summer of george + baby smoothie

If you don't know what the "Summer of George" is then you best watch this Seinfeld episode. And if you're too lazy, it basically means the best summer ever. That's how this summer has been. Tom had a ton of time off, and since I work from home that meant lots of quality time. Sadly, it's back to work today and I hate that our Summer of George is over.

It was a good weekend though. We had a cookout with family and Carter ate plenty of blueboppies. There was also some swimming and park playing involved.

I finally made a genius move in the Carter's Food department. He used to devour veggies when he was younger, but in the past month or two it's been quite the struggle. Finally it dawned on me...smoothies (duh). For some reason I always just thought he was too young for them, but he's totally mastered the straw so smoothies it is. This is what he had tonight:

-4 strawberries
-1/4 banana
-handful of kale
-spoonful of full fat Greek yogurt (there's like 23g of fat per 1/2 cup in this thing...it's not touching my mouth with a 10 foot spoon, but I shovel it into my skinny little boy)
-splash of whole milk
-blend until it's a bit thicker than juice

As you can see, it was a success.

When I Don't Know What to Feed C

I look here for ideas.

Source

In short, Whole Foods is using this rating system (ANDI scores) from Eat Right America to quickly show which foods have the most nutrients per calorie. The scores go from 0-1,000 with cola scoring essentially a 0 and kale scoring a 1,000 since it is the most nutrient dense food (along with a few other greens).

I use these lists when I'm unsure which food to choose for C. Obviously, he eats a variety of foods and a variety is healthy, but for the most part I want him to eat the most nutrient-dense foods possible. If he's not eating much, he might as well get a lot from what he's getting, right?

So for example when I look at the fruits and think about what to make for him, I'm more apt to choose plums (rated at 157) than apricots (rated at 60). This doesn't mean apricots aren't healthy and aren't a good choice, it just means that there are more nutrients in the 2 tablespoons of plums C is eating than in the 2 tablespoons of apricots.

C only started solids about a month and a half ago so he obviously hasn't had a bunch of different things yet, but as he gets older I plan on referring to these lists more and more. I love them!

Whole Foods has these scores displayed in their stores, like this:

Source

And they even have recipes using the high scoring ingredients here! I love the Get Your Greens smoothie, but I usually substitute dino kale for the spinach. Delicious.

Fail and Fab

We had two fails last night.

Fail #1: We gave C avocado for the first time and he hated it. He gagged so much I thought he was going to vomit. He made the most horrendous faces. It was funny and sad at the same time. We will try again next week!

Fail #2: I was scooping ice cream and I flung it into the sink : (

I'm not gonna lie, the 5 second rule crossed my mind, and then I noticed it was sitting in a pile of dirty chicken sausage water. Gross. Not to mention the 5 second rule should never apply to kitchen sinks.

Actually, there is a third fail. The Sun Baby diapers are STILL not in. It's killing me.

Fab:




Enough said. They are so cute.