Life with a 3 yr old and a 3 month old!

Here comes another anual posting. Charlie is about to turn 3 in a few weeks, and his baby sister will be turning 3 months. It's been a busy year, and we are slowly starting to get out of the weeds (to use a common restaurant kitchen term).

I had a very challenging pregnancy, especially when it came to food. I had so much more morning sickness with baby Clara than with Charlie. It must be true that baby girls make you more sick. I was ill for almost 5 months of pregnancy. I was on a restricted diet, and barely gained any weight. I'm such an adventurous eater, but for those months I lived on baquettes, havarti, rice, olive pizza, oranges and apples!

Once the nausea subsided, I developed gestational diabetes. I managed to control my blood sugar levels with diet and exercise, but it was HARD! I couldn't eat fruit or carbs in the last month. I survived on eggs, cottage cheese and veggies. I was so hungry all the time, and didn't gain weight near the end either.

I'm so happy now to be rid of the nausea and diabetes. The pendulum has swung and now that I'm nursing and very large and healthy baby, I'm hungry all the time.

The downside is that I don't have time to cook. As soon as I put down the baby and attempt to make a meal, my 3yr old needs attention. As soon as I focus him on helping me cook, the baby needs attention. Enter convenience foods. After 10 years of being a frozen food product developer and homemade foodie snob, I have finally succumbed to the allure of pre-packaged meals.

The good news is that because Charlie had such a good start with a healthy varied diet, we don't have mealtime struggles. Lately I've been loving the PC masala hummus. Excellent product. We've always got crudites (fresh veg) available for us to munch on. This dip is perfect with raw caulifower, grean beans, cucumbers and carrots. All of which Charlie will gladly eat.

We've been living on PC frozen baked pastas, Yves veggie burgers and dogs and sandwiches. Another recent obsession has been chicken and waffles. I had it for the first time at the Grenadier Cafe and have been hooked. We make it at home with No Name BBQ frozen chicken breasts on the grill and frozen buttermilk pancakes covered in the maple syrup we picked up on St. Joesephs Island when visiting Dan's cousins.

I can't wait to start making Claras babyfood. Hopefully in 3 months I'll have a bit more time to cook.

I'm still interested in starting a baby food related business. I think its going to be a personal chef service. Also saw an interesting idea for a baby food tasting party. Could be a neat idea for an event.