What’s for Dinner

Okay, I love living in California. This week in our CSA box we got a pint of strawberries—fresh strawberries! In the last week of October! We also got spinach, lettuce, bok choy, green beans, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, bell peppers, six apples (they’re Fuji, I asked; and last week’s tomatoes were, ironically enough, Early Girl), four plums, six of what look like Red Bliss potatoes, and some more sunchokes.

Tonight we’re having skirt steak and green beans. In fact, just now Davy started crying while I was in the middle of smearing marinade on the steak. Because my hands were full of garlic-rosemary paste I went about finishing what I was doing instead of going immediately to pick up the baby. Then he abruptly stopped crying, and that did bring me running—only to find that Robin was in there with him, kissing his toes and asking “What’s wrong, baby?” What a good big brother! Robin has his weaknesses—we’re still stalled out on potty training—but his strengths are wonderful strengths to have. He’s a friendly, generous, secure and loving boy, and frankly if I were told that I could have all that in a son in exchange for delayed potty training, that’s a trade I’d be happy to make.

I almost added something there about Robin not being very verbal, but actually I’m not at all sure that’s true. Even though he’s talking a lot more now, it’s still not as much as some of the other kids his age—but at the same time he’s extremely interested in written language. He recognizes all the letters of the alphabet and initiates a lot of conversations about letters, the sounds they make, and the words that start with various letters: right now he’ll often come running up saying “C! Cat! Kitty! K!” and then follow that up by going “cuh cuh cuh.” I’m pretty sure he’s working on the problem that different words can refer to the same thing, and different letters can make the same sound, which I think actually puts him a bit ahead of the curve for reading/writing. It’s not something I’m actively working on with him—I mean, we do read books, and when he wants to stop and pay attention to the letters, we do that, but I’m not trying to push him into being an early reader or anything. I’m just making a note to myself not to be too quick to make sweeping assessments of Robin’s strengths and weaknesses, because they may be more granular than I expect, and in any case they’re obviously still developing.

We got Robin on the waiting list for a preschool, by the way, and we’re signed up to take a tour of another preschool (the one that we could walk to) in February. Both schools say they will likely have openings next fall. I would like to get him more opportunities to socialize with kids his own age a little sooner, so we might look into signing him up for a Saturday toddler dance class or something like that. We watched Hello, Dolly! the other night and Robin loved the dance sequences. It was hilarious to watch him doing his best to follow along, twirling and kicking all over the living room.

Anyway, meal planning. Tomorrow night I’m roasting another chicken, along with the potatoes and maybe the sunchokes (unless I decide to just compost them instead). Wednesday night I’ll make a homemade spinach-and-ricotta pizza with whole wheat crust, and Thursday we’ll have grilled sausages, onions, and peppers, with a salad on the side to use up the remaining veggies. Friday will be for leftovers.

Bonus picture: Davy and Nonna!

Davy and Nonna


4 Responses to “What’s for Dinner”

  • Maike Says:

    Fun to see your update!

    Hey, does your area have a convenient Y? For single people their memberships seem overpriced but for families the Y in our area is kind of reasonable and, most importantly, has cheap childcare 🙂

    As far as I can tell from my limited experience, it’s maybe-not-the-greatest-care but for 2.5 and older kids it’s a great way to play in a new environment with new-to-them toys and other kids for an hour or so three times a week. And people with babies seem to go during during naptime.

    I don’t go to our Y anymore (since kids) but my friend taught gym ventures a while last year so I would pop in often to pick up or drop off her kid.

    I’m thinking of joining again mostly because they have kiddie swim classes, Our pediatrician recommended starting at 4- we haven’t started and our Robin will be 5 end of march.

  • Maike Says:

    I really enjoy your blog because of these types of things.

    Ah hum, we are also a one car family! Freaky huh? I get the car though!

    In theory I could easily commute to my current work location by light rail but with preschool/daycare dropoff/pickup and David’s work travel it’s just not my version of doable. So he works at home and uses his bike to get places- when home he often does kid pick up. We have his grandmas old bike which allows us to put one kid on the handle bar and another on the back.

    And on days he needs the car, we do awkward maneuvers that include either him dropping me off or gracious colleagues. It’s most annoying when we have foreign guests and we rent a car (so they can avoid insurance fees) and they get my car WITH yellow sticker.

  • Nina Says:

    ahahah Davy has a great ‘hawk.

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