Tuesday

Today we had a great playdate at Ruth's house. We have a nice routine of a weekly playdate and I am so thankful for my time with Ruth, and for the time that our kids have together. Ruth is a treasure and I always leave her house (or send her off from mine) feeling encouraged and with some new bits of wisdom. (Thank you dear friend!!)


Marco with his buddy Callen, who is just 10 days younger than him.


Big brother and big sister wanted to be the ones to show off their baby brothers!

Baby swap!

Before Marco was born, Ricardo and I sat down together and wrote out a list of things that we could do to simplify our lives since we would be a busy family of five. One of the items on the list was "Get Diego to eat real meals." The first half of this year was extremely busy for Ricardo at work and we rarely ate dinner together as a family. Diego and Alexia were used to eating simple meals like salads, yogurt, veggies, etc. So on those rare occasions that Ricardo was home for dinner, I would prepare a meal for us and serve the kids something different. About three months ago we told Diego that we were going to expect a change in his eating habits. At that time, I told him that in July (when he turned 4 1/2), he had to eat more foods and try cheese again (he had been on an almost year-long cheese strike). He was so against cheese that he would only eat pizza crusts and would not touch any part of the pizza that had cheese on it. We slowly introduced string cheese which was a huge hit and now he is eating entire pieces of pizza and macaroni and cheese! Tonight was a big test of how far he has come. I served pork tenderloin, quinoa and raw broccoli on his plate for dinner. I knew he would devour the raw broccoli because that is one of his favorites...but he devoured everything else and even asked for seconds of pork! Ricardo and I couldn't believe it...we were SO thrilled! The secret to the success of the meal is that I had prepared him since early this afternoon that we would be having pork for dinner and he had no choice but to eat it. When we sat down for dinner, he did not say a word, he just picked up his fork and dug in. Well, not true, he asked for a second fork and then dug in. Explanation: Diego is what is classified as a "Separatist eater" He separates his food and does not like one thing to touch another. So much so that he asks for one fork for his vegetables and one fork for his meat. I know this is crazy, but if that means he will eat everything on his plate, then two forks it is! You may ask where Alexia stands in all this fuss...she is an awesome eater and eats most anything...makes her daddy a happy man! :) I think it is a first-born thing, but Diego does much better when he is prepared for things in advance. If we would have expected his eating habits to change from one day to the next, we would have been faced with a lot of frustration. By giving him plenty of notice, we were able to expect more from him and have been pleased with the results. We still have a ways to go, but we're getting there...!