Big Developments
House on Red Corner · 2005-08-30
I know that The Wanda loves me. She tries to crawl into my lap in the mornings when I am writing my morning pages. She jumps into my lap at night when I am writing on the computer. She rubs against my legs while we are eating at the dinner table. Wanda is a cat who has been won over. She will play games with me whether I have the Catfisher or an old balloon. She is totally hooked on me.
This afternoon, Squeaky and I had to go out for an hour or so and do some things in the neighborhood. After we were done and we were heading back towards the homestead, I suddenly had the urge for sushi. Lucky for me we were near the supermarket. We are so lucky to live in New York City where the local supermarket has a sushi chef. Or had. When we got inside and up to the counter where he is normally located there was nothing but prefab sushi that was on display and his station was vacant.
No worries. There is an inexpensive sushi restuarant just a block away. I was able to order two basic fish rolls for $6. They also came with a bowl of Miso soup and a salad. As my daughter has begun to master the art of reaching out for things and grabbing them, I realized as soon as the first sspoon of soup was travelling over her head that there was going to be difficulty.
The key to my philosophy has been to turn adversity into opportunity. This translates into a very practical approach to things, such as childcare. Rather than fight her while she is in the Baby Björn, I unbuckled the saddle and seated her in my lap in such a manner that I could pour a tiny bit of the broth into her gullet. Smacking her lips afterwards, I dfigured that we were in for a decent little snack of soup.
The last Doctor’s visit, we were encouraged to begin feeding her rice milk and other very western means of baby food. She lives on breast milk, but we have been introducing her to new tastes. Well, we have been doing that for sometime now, but with our doctor’s ‘orders’ we have been really pleased to see that she enjoys cantelope (Rock Melon for the Down Unders), watermelon, grapes, bananas and peaches. We sucked on a nectarine this morning and she just loves the taste of fruit. We very happy that she does.
Once I began to eat my sushi; which is really about the sticky rice, not so much teh raw fish; with my chopsticks, the Little Bug knew, she just knew that those sticks were supposed to go in your mouth. Her little mitt snaked out of my arm fold and snagged a hold of them on the return trip from my mouth. She opened her maw and tried to suck on them. After I wrestled them away from her, I thought about it briefly and then lifted from the lettuce some of the pulpy dressing and popped it into her mouth.
She really liked the dressing. I knew she would, for it was very refreshing and tasty. I spoke to the chef about the dressing and he informed me that he had made it by chopping ginger, apple, carrots, orange and lemon in a blender. He snuck a little mayonnaise in to hold it all together (please don’t tell me I have been eating mayonnaise for all these years in my Ginger-Carrot Dressings.) Both EJ and myself agreed that it was very good, and I continued to feed my baby with chopsticks.
After we got home, we were having some milk on the bed, sll snuggled on the pillows when The Wanda decide that it was time she was formally introduced to the Squeakster. The Little Bug was so surprised that she dropped the bottle and stared. Wanda actually stuck around long enough that Eliza-Jane could rub her belly and her tail! This was a monumental break through in Cat-Baby relations!! EJ was even inspired to sit mostly-up, on her own! Then promptly The Wanda left and The Bug began to rub her eyes and pout just like her mother does when she is exhausted. It really didn’t take very long in the crib before she fell asleep. In fact, she was asleep before I told you about the dressing and the chopsticks.
Tags: Dad EJ Squeaky SAHD Steph EckenrodeHouse Eckenrode Cat Wanda Sushi Fruit eating