Coop’s Culinary Conquests

As many of you may know, Cooper is my third child.  He is my baby boy and a delight in every way.  He is happy, he sleeps, he’s tough (well he has to be with two older brothers) and for now, he eats EVERYTHING I put in front of him.    Take a look…

This particular day was his first taste of blueberries, fresh from the farmers market I might add.

Now with my first two boys I was very careful to stay true to all the books and all the doctors advice.  I made their food at home, carefully picking organic produce, washing it endlessly in hot water, steaming it, pureeing it, on and on and on.  With Keegan, my 4-year-old, we made it to 6 months.  We had successfully gone through most of the veggies…beginning with sweet potato, moving on to broccoli, butternut squash, zucchini, he loved them all.  We went through the fruits next, peaches, pears, apples.  We sailed right through.  I spent whole days making trays of food and freezing them, but it was worth it right?  I mean, this was my first baby and all.  Then we tried an avocado and the world came crashing down.  I must have missed a tiny speck and a slightly larger piece went into little Keegan’s mouth.  What we didn’t know then was that Keegan suffered from acid reflux and has an incredibly sensitive gag reflex.  He gagged on that little piece of avocado and proceeded to throw up.  Being a first time mother I freaked out, called my hubby, rushed Keegan to the ER certain he was on the brink of death.  When we got into the car he started to do what all babies do when they get in a car…he started to doze.  Well I just lost it screaming like a lunatic all the way to the hospital, “Stay with me, Keegan!”  It was like a scene out of Terms of Endearment.  Uh, yeah, I was that Mom.  Anyway, four hours later we are on our way home and my hubby forbids me from ever home making food for the baby again.  So, what’s a girl to do?   I switched to premade baby food…uh yuck.

When Brady came along I once again returned to making his food.  I was going to make it work this time!  I followed the same path, marking down all the same foods (neither of the first two liked fresh melon) and progressing in the same manner.  Brady made it past avocado with ease!  ”Yea,” I thought, “we did it!”  It’s all smooth sailing now.  Brady is still a relatively good eater but I fell into the same trap with him that I did with Keegan.  It just got easier to grab a jar of baby food and throw it in the diaper bag on my way to meet the other Mom’s.

Then came the worst day in my children’s food history.  The day when we finally got to order off the kid’s menu.  At first I was so excited.  I thought it was adorable!  Look at all these little portions they make special for you guys.  They even give you crayons to draw with while you wait…

for your cute little plates…

loaded with calories…

and fat…

and sodium…Yippee!

I destroyed them.  My good eaters who enjoyed a vast array of fruits and vegetables became obsessed with fried foods, fluorescent orange macaroni, and animal shaped processed chicken products.  All my careful planning out the window faster than you can say, “You want fries with that?”

With Cooper, it’s been different.  Yes I still faithfully made his food, and I’ve only resorted to the jars a handful of times, but I will not let this one get away from me.  Cooper eats what I eat.  Now granted sometimes it’s a bit out of the ordinary but I realized with the third kid, anything goes.  You will not eat off a children’s menu and you will learn to love good food, just like you do now.  This was the epiphany I had while out to dim sum with my good friend, Ashlee, and I realized that I had absentmindedly handed Cooper a fortune cookie that he had been happily munching on for about five minutes.  Now of course most kids would love a fortune cookie, but Coop was only 6 months at the time…ahhhh, such is the life of the baby of the family.  Now Coop is my most adventurous, at only 11 months he’s a world traveler as far as his cuisine.  Ranking highest on his list, Japanese, Chinese, and Greek, though don’t get between him and one of my homemade meatballs!

So this section of my website will be dedicated to my little gastronomic masterpiece.  I will report on all of Cooper’s culinary conquests as we travel the road from kid menu to full blown foodie as I vow to avoid the ubiquitous chicken nuggets I’m so desperately trying to break the other two of.

Today was Dad’s favorite…Chicken Pot Pie.

Coop’s assessment, a big thumbs up, the dogs didn’t even get bite!

Stay tuned…

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