Chicago Mama Spot

Girls Night Out and Belly Holes

It must seem like all I ever do is go out because it seems I have a lot of posts about drinking champagne.  I really don't go out very much, I swear!

But, I did have a great meal out at a top Chicago restaurant, X/O

I admit to having a delicious pomegranite margarita - really only to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.  I also did have a flight, plus one of champagne.  Very enjoyable evening with a few women I don't know that well and one I know and love.  Unfortunately, sometimes with two pregnant women, the slight slurring becomes a little more noticeable than it would if everyone had a few cocktails.  I had so few that I will even be fine tomorrow morning, but you know when you're around completely sober, pregnant people, you can feel a little self-concious.

Here's what I have for tonight's post:

Sweet Pea calls her belly button her "Belly Hole."  I'm not sure where she learned this, but she says it a lot while trying to peer over her big baby belly to see it.  It's one of the first things she's said where I just have no idea where she got it. 

Meal Planning Gone Bad

One of my favorite bloggers CitySlickerMom has posted about meal planning a few times.  The funny thing is that when I read her last post about it, I was in the process of doing a little meal planning on my own.  I am also gung-ho about it for a while and then it all falls apart. 

So, I finally got it together and had my meals planned for this week. 

Day 1 - Not an especially great outcome - I tried a new slow cooker recipe for Lemonade Chicken.  It tasted, well, too lemonade-y.  That shouldn't surprise me, I guess, given the name.  I guess I was expecting more of a lemon chicken taste.  Anyway, we ate it. 

Or, at least Daddy-O and I did, Sweet Pea tried it and then spit it out of her mouth.  Her spitting is a little more like pushing it out onto her lips and then letting it dribble down to her plate. 

It's as appetizing as it sounds.

Day 2 - Leftovers of the bad chicken

Day 3 - Pasta recipe with steamed carrots - Sweet Pea again with the spitting out.  My doctor says all you can do is just put it in front of them and if she doesn't eat it, it's her choice.  But, I can't let my little girl lose her chubby cheeks.  So, as she is spitting it out she starts chanting

"Pickle, pickle, pickle . . .  pickle, pickle, pickle . . . more pickle, more pickle"

"Peas, Mommy . . . Peas! (I can already picture her as a teenager with this impassioned please thing she's doing - Peas let me go to the party, everyone else is going, Peas.  Okay, she'll probably have the "l" down by then, but it's so cute to imagine her still saying it that way.)

What I haven't mentioned is that she wasn't so interested in the sandwich we shared for lunch, she just wanted the pickle that came with it.  She ate that and wanted more.  So, I gave her half of one from the refrigerator.  She slurped that down with her cup of water mixed with a little of the turkey from the sandwich, some bread, some blueberries and a few potatoes from the potato salad.  She loves her water mixed with all the food she's eating.   

So, I gave in tonight for more pickles.  But, I couldn't have her basically eat pickles for both lunch and dinner.  So, I told her she had to at least eat some non-sweetened applesauce too. 

You guessed it, the perfect dipping sauce for a pickle is . . . applesauce, of course.  She ate the two of them together like she'd just discovered the recipe for a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  She could call it Sweet Pea's Pickle Sauce. 

We got some video of her doing the pickle dipping and on video, Daddy-O looked into the camera

"How do you like Mommy's meal planning, Sweet Pea?" 

"What do you think she has planned for tomorrow?"

Then, they both started laughing into the camera.  She didn't get it, but Daddy-O thought it was so funny that she joined right in with the laughing.  Ha, ha, ha.  See how fast we go back to cereal and popcorn for dinner, Mister Funny.

Here she is in all her glory with pickle juice and applesauce smeared down the front of her shirt.  I'm thinking maybe we go for ketchup and mustard again as a dinner option tomorrow.