How you do it: meals

(Redundancy warning: if you've really read this whole blog, skip ahead).


In this era of reality TV that include Jon, Kate, the Gosslings and the Duggars, people are a little fascinated by a noticeably large family like ours. They have a variety of responses, which sometimes includes a barage of questions they wish they could ask the famous people. But sometimes they just say 'I don't know how you do it, I can barely handle my x number of kids!'

So a while ago I began an attempt to answer that question with a series of blogs. So here is one about chow time. I'm not saying this is a good way to do things. It's just how we do things.

I cut pizza with a pizza cutter. Not just into pieces of pizza, but into bites for littles. Sometimes I cut the very edge of the crust off so they can't tell which bites are *crust* bites. I also cut pancakes, waffles, and quesadillas with a pizza cutter.

I microwave tacos for small people with cheese and meat just enough to melt the cheese. The cheese becomes the glue that holds the taco together.

I cut little kids hot dogs long ways into quarters, then slice them.

I add a little baby cereal to baby food so it has a thicker texture and is easier to feed them.

Bananas can be subdivided into thirds longways, great fingerfoods for babies.

I don't buy juice very much. I prefer my kids to drink water and eat fruit. And I don't serve drinks with meals at all. If they want one, I let them get it. And I encourage cup sharing.

I feed my almost one year olds with soggy left behind cereal.

I deliberately make my oatmeal too thick and add milk to cool it.

When I pack lunches I buy big bags of chips or '-ito's (any snack that ends with ito, Doritos, Fritos, Cheetos, and divide them into small bags. Or I make 'lunchables' with meat, cheese and crackers. Before our church's camp, when I'll make 11 lunches a day, I will make several packs up before the week starts. Then each morning I just throw them together. In brown paper bags.

I make baby food in my vita-mix. I just throw fresh fruit or veggies or both into it with water and blend. It makes more than I need, but I pour what I don't use into an ice cube tray in the freezer. I add a little baby oatmeal and formula (formula is optional) to it for thickness. I used green bell pepper and granny smith apple together. It was good, different, but fresh and I thought better than packaged stuff and easy. Before I had a vita-mix I had a mini-food processor, but I steamed the food first.

For a while I had a child who was allergic to eggs, and learned that a smashed egg-sized portion of banana could take the place of an egg in pancakes.

Babies who chew can eat anything you can smash with your fingers, and plain cheerios (not apple or frosted or honey nut) is good finger food. Also rice chex and crackers that melt easily.

You can slip a good number of carrots into a fruit smoothy and if your blender is worthy, no one will know.

When I make pancakes, sometimes I make bigger ones at first, then make small ones for 'seconds'. That way we don't have as many abandoned half-eaten eye-stomach disproportions.

I guess that's what I have for now. If you want to add a helpful meal tip of your own feel free.