For several days now, it's become really obvious to me, again, that even in the summer time when I'm not officially punching in and out at a job every day that I spend a LOT of time every day thinking about food. I didn't take into account how introducing a child also introduces the need to take food into consideration in a different, more complicated way. Constantly, I'm thinking "What is something new and interesting that Abby will like and is also healthy for her?" I find that when Abby rejects certain foods, it's probably not because she doesn't like them but probably because she's bored with eating roasted broccoli for the third day in a row. She lulls me into a false sense of security: Day One--love it, Day Two--can convince me to eat it, Day Three--throw it off my tray with incredible quickness whereupon it sticks to the wall or slides behind something so that Mommy finds it three days later.
So I'm always trying to think of new, easy, healthy things that I can prepare, preferably for all of us. But she doesn't care for or just can't eat everything that we do. If Ben and I want to eat a spinach salad, it's just not the best thing for her as she struggles with things like lettuce. I'm not sure if this whole food stuff is easier or harder in the summer time. On the one hand, I'm home all day and can figure this all out day of and have more time to work in the kitchen, BUT it means that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and usually make a greater variety of food for lunch and supper rather than just thinking about supper. On the other hand, I don't have to prepare everything the night before, which is time consuming, monotonous, a pain, no fun, and generally something that I've quickly come to loathe.
So this summer has been all about food in my mind. Last year, Abby was, obviously, not needing such time consuming attention. It's not that we think Abby is a picky eater, but it always helps to have humus around. Thanks be to the gods who invented it because it's already helped us through many a meal. Thanks be to fruit too as there hasn't been one yet that Abby hasn't adored.
On a somewhat sidenote, I started working on the basic background work for my Masters thesis about two weeks ago and am almost done reading the first of three books that I'll be using. I feel stressed about this upcoming semester already. I'm feeling stressed right now at the point that I usually get about 2 months into the semester. My semester will look something like this: one night class commuting to Ball State, writing my thesis, teaching full-time with four different preps and two of the four classes I haven't taught before *and* 2 sections of Composition and 11H each which are both heavy writing/grading classes (sidenote to my somewhat sidenote--Taylor H.S. offers essentially 14 different language arts classes that aren't electives, after this fall, I will at one point have taught all but 2 of them...that's insane. Ben has taught three different classes in five years. I've taught 12 at Taylor and another couple at Frankfort that aren't offered at Taylor. Constant turnover like that is always a non-ideal situation for a teacher.), and being what largely amounts to a single mom for about 2 months while Ben is coaching in the fall. It's going to be a busy semester. And then I'll also need to worry about food...
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