Food encompasses our lives and is typically on our minds the majority of the day. Of course our loved ones always have a place in our thoughts, but don’t you ever think about what to feed your loved ones? See, you can think of food and loved ones simultaneously.
Sadly, too many people only view food as something they eat and either tastes good or not. There is so much more to food than we realize and it affects more than our taste buds. From skin, hair, mind, how we function and recover, etc. food is a major player.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m a huge advocate of real food and try my damnedest to limit packaged products. Sure, there are many healthy packaged options, but whole foods trump all.
I could go on forever, but I’ll save that for another day and another post. Today, I’d like to start the first of a series of fun facts revolving around food. Some may be funny, some may be serious, but hopefully all will be of interest.
Going Mom and I went out last night to use her Mother’s Day gift I got her to attend a BYOB painting class. The chosen item to paint was a jellyfish and I’ll be sure to share our pictures soon.
For now, enjoy these facts and please feel free to share your own in the comments below. Happy Friday!
1. Broccoli and cauliflower are the only vegetables that are also flowers!
2. Onions, apples and potatoes all have the same taste. The difference in flavor is caused by their smell. Pinch your nose and try it – they will all taste sweet.
3. Lettuce is the only vegetable never sold frozen, canned, or processed in any way, it’s only sold as fresh lettuce.
4. The meat from a fast food hamburger can come from up to 100 different cows.
5. Best for last…..The largest living organism is a mushroom in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest. It has been growing for 2,400 years, killing trees along the way. The giant fungus covers 2,200 acres with an average depth of 3 feet into the ground.
Stay tuned for the second installment of foodie fun facts if for no othe reason than the joy of knowing it’s Friday!
And, of course I have to share a photo of Avery. Here she is working on her pull ups.
If you don’t remember or never read Weekend at G-Ma’s Part 1, we started our second day at G-Ma’s with this…
Sharing a room with your baby is rarely, if ever, an enjoyable experience, and Avery made sure to keep reminding us. We try to let her cry at night if we know her needs are met and it doesn’t go on for over 20 minutes, but things sure are different when you’re right there with the cries!
Avery slept surprisingly well through the booming fireworks, but still woke up for a feeding around 4 in the morning. Thankfully, Going Mom was there to save the day as usual. I have a feeling those boobs can be thought of as a blessing and a curse.
Once we were up, my mom/G-Ma made all of us coffee. Even though she has a Keurig brewer, Kelley and I have been working on reducing our use of plastics (k-cups can be hazardous to our health)so she ground coffee beans to make French Press for us. She also has one of those stainless steel reusable coffee pods and used that as well. Phew, I’m a coffee lover, but don’t want to contribute to growing waste from all of those pods!
As we enjoyed our coffee, we sat in the game room to let Avery play while we watched old home videos of me as a baby. My mom had her VHS cassettes transferred to DVD, and she had been waiting to watch them with us. Meanwhile, Avery must of had a rough night because she went for a little foam rolling session.
G-Ma made sure to get a lot of playtime in with Avery now that she moves more, and I think Avery enjoyed having all of the attention. What do you think?
With the home videos still playing, that’s actually all we watched all day, Avery tried to make a move for the open cabinets. She’s a quick and sneaky baby!
But, G-Ma to the rescue! She found Uncle Preston’s recorder from elementary school and attempted to entertain Avery with her beautiful tunes. By beautiful tunes, I mean random noise, but Avery didn’t mind.
Then it was Avery’s turn to make some noise.
But she decided to just eat it instead…
Once the recorder became a bore (see what I did there?), it was story time with G-Ma. The chose book was an old Barney and Friends book from Uncle Preston’s childhood.
One minute later, and I think Avery was happy to be done with it. Phew, I don’t want to get stuck watching that show over and over again. Is it even on anymore?
Our day mostly comprised home videos and G-Ma playing with Avery. I went for a run on Renfro Street, (literally) my old stomping ground, with nothing but coffee as fuel. After the run, I completed 31 burpees, push-ups, and squats like I’ve been doing every day since turning 30 and then ran to jump in Tim and Melissa’s pool. Ahhhh, refreshing!
When we all needed a break from baby, we found a battery operated cat toy to be the perfect solution. Turns out, this toy with a “mouse tail” that randomly revolved around was great entertainment for Avery and Abby as well as us watching.
Luckily, we capture it on video. Here’s my shortened version with the best parts that I uploaded on YouTube.
Avery actually had a nap late in the day, and she fell asleep with Going Mom rather quickly at night. But, once again, she woke up several times crying. Kelley tried forever to console her with “the boob”, but even that didn’t work.
I fed her the one tiny bottle we brought along and that helped. I think she was finally exhausted enough to give in and sleep. But she still let out her random cries throughout the night. Ahhh, this two night stay has been exhausting for all of us!
We’re convinced it might have something to do with the fact that we weren’t feeding her solids while at G-Ma’s. At home, we’ve been sitting down and feeding her broccoli, carrots, squash, etc. right before bed, and those must work to keep her satisfied over night.
Shame on us, I think we’ll be more consistent with that now! The next day we enjoyed more coffee together and gathered our things to head home.
Ughhh, unpacking is definitely no fun, and we were at it non-stop most of the day upon returning. Such is the life as parents, huh?
Do you have a pet toy meant for a certain animal but another animal (or human) plays with it?
Okay, it’s getting back to normal at home after our extended stay over the weekend. And by normal, I mean constant chaos from a mobile baby on the verge of teething. We keep blaming her fussiness on the possibility of her cutting a tooth, but have yet to actually see a tooth.
I guess since Going Mom is still breastfeeding, she’s probably not trying to rush those chompy incisors too much!
Our 4th of July weekend started with us frantically gathering random things around our house and putting them in the car to take to G-Ma’s (i.e. packing) all while doing our best to manage Avery and give her the attention she needed.
Yes, attention, I NEED it!
I credit my awesome wife for tending to Avery most of the time and I’m not sure what I would do without my beautiful partner in crime parenthood.
Eventually, we had everything packed, including all of the cloth diapers we own, and were on our way to G-Ma’s. With virtually little to no traffic (uncommon for I-35W), we made it in around 40 minutes and were exchanging hugs with G-Ma and her boyfriend Paul.
Avery enjoyed a short nap on the drive and G-Ma wasted no time getting her Avery hug time in. But now that she’s a crawler, Avery was anxious to get down and explore new territory.
Our long-time friends and neighbors just a few houses down always have a 4th of July party, so we were going to head down there to swim in their pool and watch the fireworks at night.
G-Ma lives in the country where anyone can shoot off their high powered artillery. Kelley and I were excited for this because it would be the first time Avery gets to experience fireworks. #StupidNewParents
After a failed attempt at getting Avery to nap, we walked down to Tim and Melissa’s, our friends/neighbors, to go for a swim. I just finished an intense workout in the heat, and was in yearning to jump in!
We all spent a few hours relaxing in the pool and having a few drinks as Avery made her rounds.
Tough to please, but she kinda smiles if you tickle her a little. But not much!
She started to get cranky, even after Kelley fed her, so we decided to go back and try for another nap before heading back down to eat and watch fireworks that evening.
Avery had different plans; how about no nap and just staying up with everyone else. She had 10 minutes of this, which looked promising, but then woke up crying.
Suckers, I’ll wake in precisely 10 minutes!!!
I guess she really wanted to see G-Ma! Despite her resisting sleep, Avery kept showing all signs of being tired, but she remained stubborn…..and awake.
Caught with a yawn.
With the sun starting to set and fireworks on the mind, we walked back to our kind hosts to enjoy food and fireworks. But first, we tried another picture with G-Ma in hopes of a smile…..fail.
Tim and Melissa have 4 boys with the oldest being Uncle Preston’s age and the youngest just about to graduate high school. Every year, for as long as I can remember, they would buy massive amounts of fireworks and always put on a big show. But this year, they said they were going to keep it low key….
Ummm, yeah, not sure what happened there.
Maybe we have different views of what “low key” means, but that looked like a lot to me. Oh, and that was just what they could fit in the wagon, there were more fireworks waiting to be loaded.
After eating grilled chicken and a colossal salad topped with their homemade salsa using veggies from their organic garden, we impatiently waited for it to get dark enough to have the fireworks begin.
G-Ma holding down the fort/crabby baby.
Yes, “impatiently” because we had an increasingly fussy baby who needed to get some quality sleep!
But not before we made her wait to see bright lights and hear loud booms. Both great things to introduce to a sleepy baby, right?
Finally, the fireworks had begun, and instead of us watching as they exploded in the air, Going Mom and I were glued to Avery’s face to see her expression. G-Ma boldly held her as she actually showed a little sign of enjoyment!
The loud sounds and bright displays of light had her attention, but she hardly reacted as they went off. Not quite what we were expecting, but I guess that’s what happens after a long day of no sleep but a lot of swimming and having a fun time with G-Ma and Paul.
We hung around a little longer just to let “the experience” set in before Kelley and I returned to G-Ma’s for Avery’s bath and bed time.
Probably the last smile of the night.
As we walked back, it sounded as if we were in the middle of a warzone with the fireworks shattering in brilliant displays of light; not the best setting for a baby’s bed time.
With our white noise and a fan set on the highest setting, we hoped for the best as Avery was laid down for the night. There were fireworks still going off past midnight, but Avery actually slept through it all.
Kelley and I had to share the same room with Avery, which was difficult to try the whole “let them cry 10 minutes” thing, but we survived to speak of it today! I’ll share the day after in tomorrow’s post, and will leave you with what we woke up to first thing the next day.
How was your 4th of July?
Do you have any babies that got to see fireworks for the first time, or remember when your kids experienced them?
An at-home dad on a mission to keep it real when it comes to food, fun, and raising a healthy, happy family.
