Lily & Leo

As I stand there for about 25 minutes, hunched over my kitchen island, with my neck straining from concentration, I meticulously peeled a bunch (literally) of grapes for my precious Lily pad for her snacks for the school week.  I thought back to when my mom would peel grapes for us, and boy do I have a new found appreciation for that!  Thank you mommy for all the little things you do just to keep me safe and happy!  Now as I do the same for Lily, I know one day she will appreciate all the little things I do for her.  Some fun facts about grapes are that they are very high in vitamins A and K and have lots of potassium and some calcium as well.  They are small but delicious healthy snacks for kids, and reduce risks of heart attacks, and reduces blood clots.  Grapes also can prevent muscular degeneration and cataract, associated with aging as well.  Also, 2.5 pounds of grapes make about 1 bottle of wine!  I guess that’s why they say 1 glass of wine a day is good for the heart (adult hearts at least)!  Anyways, I will do anything to make sure my precious Lily pad is healthy and happy, even if that means peeling grapes and cutting them in half for who knows how long!

More fruit snacks that Lily likes to eat are Kiwis and Tangerines and Cuties.  I won’t get into the science of it, but here are the benefits to kiwis!  They helps and improves your digestion with enzymes, helps manages blood pressure, boosts the immune system, helps clean out toxins, helps fight heart disease, creates alkaline balance (supplies a lot of minerals to balance out excess in acidic foods), which results in great skin!  Kiwis are easy to just peel and chop into little finger food bits that can be done ahead of time and packed ready to go for the next day!  Also, it adds a nice green to their colors of food!   Tangerines and Cuties talk a little more time.  I usually take out all the seeds in each piece of tangerine, and I tend to peel out most of the skin so that it’s not so chewy for Lily.  Cuties are a little easier since there’s no seeds and she doesn’t mind the skin compared to the tangerines.  Benefits of tangerines and cuties are that they’re loaded with flavonoids, which boast certain anticancer properties and can even prevent growth of cancerous cells and stop the growth of tumors!   They are loaded with Vitamin C and A, which helps the body heal wouds, and hold together tendons, ligaments, bones and blood vessels, and units of vitamin A also helps with the immune system, vision and much more.    Tangerines also have a lot of potassium that are important for the proper functioning of kidneys, muscles, nerves, heart and digestive system.  Although it takes some time to cut, chop, and peel these snacks for Lily, it’s important we take the time to make sure Lily gets the nutrients she needs.  It’s all about the little things!

Speaking of little, I wanted to share my most recent finds!  Check out these cute little drinking glasses that I got for Lily!  Her school at Le Port has them and when I saw it, I just had to find out where they got it from, and it’s from Ikea!!  I know what you’re thinking, it looks like a shot glass, but the glasses are beveled on the sides and that makes it easy for the tiny fingers to have a firm grasp around the glass!  I just had to get some for Lily and they were only $3 for a pack of 6!  Each glass holds a little less than 2 ounces of fluid!  It’s perfect for training Lily how to drink from a glass, and so far she’s able to hold it and even tried to drink from it a few times!  Half the time she tosses the water out of the glass but luckily it’s just water!  Also the nice part about it being glass is that she learns to hold something with real weight, and IF she drops it and it breaks, then she’ll learn about consequences (that’s the Montessori way).  So far, no broken glass yet, phew!  Also, her teacher put clear silicone caulking on the bottom to create a rubbery bottom to make it grip to the table surface and not be so slippery, brilliant!  So we did the same!  I also got these Duralex Gigogne glasses on Amazon that holds about 5.75 ounces of liquid for when she’s older, maybe next year! =)  These glasses are under $16 and come in a set of 16 as well.   They also have a slight ridge on it for little hands to easily grip as well!! Isn’t just so cute!  It’s a perfect size for our little Lily to master drinking from a glass!  Here’s a video of her using her baby size glass!

Also, my friend Luce gave me the recipe to make porridge, I mean it’s rather simple and I could have tried looking it up myself, but word of mouth is always the best kinds of recipes!  I recently made lily porridge with tofu, chicken and mixed veggies (corn, green beans, peas, and carrots) and added some chicken broth for flavoring, and boy does she love it!!  She was starting to want “REAL” food and so when I try to give her steamed veggies in it’s normal form, she would just spit it out.  So now I blend up the veggies and chicken, and mix it into her porridge and she eats it all up and gets a good amount of protein and vitamins all in one meal!  The best thing about porridge is you can put whatever you want in it, so this second batch I made has tofu, ground beef, and veggies!  I’m using ground beef cause her pediatrician says she needs more fats, so bring on the red meats!!  She’s getting so much better at feeding herself too, check out this super cute video of her eating yogurt all by herself!