Cooking for 1

Or should I say cooking for 1, the 1 army-sized eating machine that is my son?

Jeremy and I joke a lot about how much AJ eats, but in all honesty we are tremendously grateful that he is such a great eater.

Tonight's featured dish?

Spinach and ricotta tortellini with homemade marinara sauce.

I'm no Martha or Food Network guru, but lately I've been challenging myself to go a bit healthier with AJ's diet. While the kid has an all-you-can-eat pass to whatever he wants because he's so little, that doesn't change the ingredients of those golden arch chicken nuggets that are now ingrained in my brain.  Ew.

AJ eats anything and everything.  The amount he eats literally astonishes people.  If he doesn't like something, it is probably due to an oral issue or texture he is unsure about.  But it makes me happy to see him eat mini trees of broccoli and kidney beans.  If he doesn't want broccoli in that form, he'll eat it in soup the next day.  And not wanting it doesn't mean he won't eat it ever.  It means just not today or for this meal.  I was not surprised when school reported that he loved red beans and rice with hot sauce for lunch a few weeks ago.

I'm on the hunt to find more healthy fats, different proteins, and creative ways to get calcium into his body.  He's still taking those gummy vitamins, but they still haven't magically include calcium or anything else that should be in them-in them.

After a long appointment today, I ran through Starbucks to grab him a cookie and water.  He ate the whole cookie.  I thought to myself, who is that little man chompin' away back there?  It's the same little dude who didn't know what a spoon was.

How far we've come.

I think the cookie thing will be a tradition for appointments at the hospital.  And maybe, just maybe, Mom will get herself a delicious coffee concoction too.  Way to go AJ, Mommy is proud of you!