In Which She Burns the Chicken

Any story that begins “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” usually isn’t going to result in a tale that has gone exactly according to plan.

I was feeling daring this evening. Jon said he’d just pick up something quick from the store for dinner. But no, I wanted to make chicken piccata. I found a recipe and laid out all my ingredients neatly across the counter. The garlic and olive oil began sizzling in the skillet and the kitchen filled with delicious scents of a culinary master. I had mouth-watering visions of the Cheesecake Factory dish – buttery angel hair pasta mixed in a lemon caper sauce coating thinly cut, melt-in-your-mouth, pan-seared chicken medallions. It seemed like such a good idea…

Then the fire alarm went off.

Jon put the muppets to bed while I pulled the dish from piles of parsley and caper ash and scraped charcoal off the chicken pieces. We sat down to eat and began sawing away at the meat before gnawing on the dry chicken for a bit. Swallow. The pasta was sticky and bland. Jon tried to make the best of it. “Well, I can tell that under better circumstances this could have potential.” This is what I get for trying to be domestic.

Yesterday, one of our little friends posted a story about an unfortunate blueberry experience. In an effort to avoid blowout inducing oatmeal, her mother thought a homemade banana/blueberry baby puree smoothie seemed like such a good idea… A bad blend of the blueberries led to a very cranky little one and a significant amount of arfing. This was followed by Pedialyte to sooth her upset tummy. (With both the berries and beverage being a lovely purplish stain tint when it is regurgitated back up onto a parent’s clothing and furniture.)

So far, the muppets have had meals of milk and the occasional bowl of rice cereal (mixed with milk). These recent (less than) successful mealtime experiments made me realize that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing when it comes to establishing a timeline of solid food introduction for the boys.

Earlier this week, Search and Destroy ate their rice cereal like it was the most amazing thing in the world. They absolutely inhaled it. Destroy would open his eyes and mouth wide as soon as you brought the spoon back up from the bowl. Search was giggling hysterically; then he figured out how to blow raspberries once successfully taking in a full bite of cereal.

What foods did your kids like best? When did you start introducing what? What the heck am I supposed to be doing?

So far, I’ve learned:

• Don’t attempt to prepare homemade baby food. I’m not that talented.
• Bad blueberries are a bad idea – both for babies and everything within their projectile puking range.
• Duck and cover when Search has a mouthful of rice cereal.
• If I think, “This seems like a good idea,” it is most likely decidedly not.