Yo Baby!

Hannah, I did something today I thought I would never do. I drove to four different supermarkets in San Francisco - during the after-work rush hour - to look for a particular brand of yogurt that you love. Yo Baby yogurt, made and packaged by Stonyfield Farm. Hannah, you do not just love Yo Baby, you refuse to eat yogurt from any other brand or any other container. Yo Baby doesn't have any seeds, and it is smooth and creamy. AND Yo Baby yogurt has a picture of a happy baby playing with a leaf on its outside. Hannah, even If you see another container, you are lightning-quick to protest or throw a tantrum, and you absolutely refuse to eat any impostor-brand yogurt. Hannah, you love to eat Yo Baby yogurt every day. It is part of your routine. I think it has become an extension of your trust in me that I will provide you with Yo Baby yogurt at every meal. How crazy is that?!?!?

At the first supermarket, I did admittedly spend a few precarious minutes contemplating going home with a substitute brand of yogurt, but then, Hannah, I imagined how you would react, and I realized that I was on the verge of committing heresy. It is amazing, yo, how this little tiny individual serving size yogurt has taken total control over my ability to think for myself... Yo Baby is your favorite Hannah, and I sure am glad that you have lots of it in the 'fridge right now.

I know that I have REAL priority problems when I passively watch myself actively driving to four different supermarkets in my gas guzzling jeep in the middle of rush hour, spending easily $15 in gas and 60 minutes of time, just to seek out this normally easy to purchase staple. I know, as I am racing from Safeway on 7th & Cabrillo, then over to Cal-Mart on California & Laurel, then down to Molly Stone's on Fillmore & Steiner, and finally, in a last desperate, frazzled, frenzied effort to stomach the eternal-parking-lot-traffic-jam-HELL-that-is-the-Whole-Foods on California & Franklin... I KNOW that this is ridiculous behavior and I know I need to seek help. Help finding Yo Baby yogurt, that is!
What other products hold such power? Well, if there is one other brand that has us totally wrapped around its finger, it is your favorite mac n' cheese brand, Kraft Velveeta shells & cheese. Hannah, you probably love this as much as you love Yo Baby. In this case, Mom and I agree with you. Velveeta shells & cheese is DELICIOUS! Let's eat!

First PB&J Sando!

Hannah has been rejecting peanutbutter ever since we were first "allowed" to give it to her - which was probably attempted sometime before but close to her 2nd birthday. But by some miracle recently (or more likely, because we read a certain Sesame Street book where Chef Grover can only make PB&J sandwiches), she agreed to try one. This is doubly impressive because she will try almost nothing that is new or different anymore, and has become a very picky eater, just like her mom used to be. The difference being that all her mom used to eat was in fact PB&J sandwiches! Anyway, we haven't had many more of these, but we were excited to see her enjoy one at long last...

Like everything she DOES eat, however, she always tries to shove as much of it in her mouth as possible. And this mini sando was no exception.

So what does her daily diet exist of these days? Well, it is far from balanced unfortunately. Breakfast usually includes a cup of milk, some bites of momma's Frosted Mini Wheats, then either a toasted cinnamon raisin muffin with cream cheese or some pumpkin bread from Martha Bros. Lunch really depends on when she wakes up from her nap, but it's consisted of less and less lately. So then we just swing into dinner, which is most often Mac 'n Cheese, either 3-4 chicken nuggets with ketchup or fresh rotisserie chicken from the grocery, some mini slices of cheese pizza (but it must be fresh, and cold is OK too, just as long as it was never frozen!), perhaps an apple juice box, maybe a string cheese, a YoBaby yogurt, on some days peas, on most days, some fruit - a couple huge strawberries, a few bites of banana, maybe a load of grapes, or a handful of orange slices. Wheat Thins are a standby favorite snack, and the occasional graham cracker (but usually only if it's someone else's). So that's about it. For all that lack of diversity and lately, quantity, she doesn't appear to be withering away, and generally has an overabundance of energy, so we're not too worried...yet.

Let Me Eat (Chocolate) Cake!

This is just to prove that Hannah actually does eat cake, and especially enjoys chocolate cake, which she is taking down heartily with her affectionate pal Magnus above. She just doesn't like the Green Ham cake that her "MOM" (which she's been calling me lately...isn't it a little early for that??) makes. But she still asks for "green eggs haaaaaaam" often during mealtime, and isn't eating much of anything else we provide. I tried to appease her on her birthday, but I guess she's just following in her Ma's super finicky footsteps. We will have to ask Memaw when we're in Chicago if Hannah's eating habits bring back any bad memories. See you tomorrow Memaw & Bapa!

I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham!

Well, it wasn't the birthday party we had originally planned for Hannah back in Chicago with her cousins, Jack and Kate, as well as Uncle Eric, Aunt Joy, Memaw, Boppa, and Ben & Carole Bartolini. But I did my best to make up for it by making the things that Hannah had been asking for for dinner for the last couple weeks - Green Eggs and Ham. Although I never got around to the shortbread & jello "Eggs" (thank god!), the cake itself I thought turned out, while far from great, better than I expected, sort of. No fancy smooth fondant, and while I actually did attempt to make the cake from scratch, my cakes only rose about 3/4 of an inch - not nearly enough to get the kind of height I needed for my Ham. So the finished project owes thanks to Duncan Hines, box and can. I would be a very bad mom, and terrible wife, for subjecting anyone to such low-brow bakery experiments. But lucky for me, no one, not even the birthday girl, would touch the Green Ham. ?!??!? Who doesn't like cake??? Well, I guess I can kind of understand... But it started out so well...

Obviously, Hannah does not have her mother's undeniable sweet tooth. Here I am on my second birthday (with a much more appropriate looking birthday cake). Let the record show that I did not devour half of that enormous sheet cake on the spot, although it looks as though I would have tried. Pictures in this series reveal that I was presented with the remaining half of my mother's birthday cake (her birthday preceeds mine by five days), a tradition which was to remain in place forever more. Maybe that's why I happily ate much of the Green Ham cake myself...before finally sending it's remains down the disposal.

Hannah Banana

Salad Spinner

Salad Spinner
(Bill Berkson)
You must grab time by the hair,
couple subconscious helixes
in the space of a secret.
You must tickle the improbable
and believe in the impossibility
of crossroads.
You must learn to suspend
ten grams of white, five grams of black
in hopes of true scarlet.
You must know how to fall from below
to favor the zenith
of mornings to the manner born.
You must love the four mouths
floating around the silky doubt
of dead assumptions.

First Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia

As if you didn't all know what that is!
Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia is the scientific term for BRAIN FREEZE!
Popsicle headache is the direct result of the rapid cooling and rewarming of the blood vessels in the palate, or the roof of the mouth. The cold temperature causes blood vessels to constrict and then experience extreme rebound dilation as they warm up again. In the palate, this dilation is sensed by nearby pain receptors, which then send signals back to the brain via the trigeminal nerve, one of the major nerves of the facial area. Brain-freeze pain may last from a few seconds to a few minutes. Hannah is learning that some pain is sweet, tasty, and very much worth enduring...

West Coast Choppers

Fueling up for life on the road and posing on her hog named "Triple Threat,"
"Harleyetta Handlebars," Hell's Angels' newest disciple, is looking fierce!

Dad's First Feeding

Thanks Kristina, for allowing me this small but unforgettable moment.