Wednesday evening Andrew and I baked cookies for the first time together. When it was time to roll the dough out in a ball and put it on the cookie sheet, I sat Andrew on my lap and showed him to squeeze the dough from one hand to another and put it on the cookie sheet. After I rolled a cookie out to show him what to do I gave him a handful of dough and closed his hand to show him how to squeeze it in a ball. Well, he did not like the feel of the sticky, greasy dough in his hands at all. He barely let me close his hand around the dough and he just wanted it out of his hand. So I squeezed the dough into the balls and placed it on the cookie sheet in front of us and told him to pick it up and move it to another spot on the cookie sheet. He had no problem touching the dough for a second or two and after he moved the dough balls in the spot that I asked him we both cheered with delight. He was so tickled with himself that he touched and moved the dough ball like he did. After getting all of the cookie dough rolled out and placed on the cookie sheet they were ready for baking. After I placed the cookie sheets into the oven, I turned on the oven light so we could watch their development into hot, scrumptous cookies. Andrew would intently watch the cookies baking with Mommy and when they were finished cooking and cooling a bit we had a tasty treat. Andrew doesn't really eat too many sweets other than fruit so he cautiously took a piece of the cookie and put it into his mouth. Just then his eyes lit up and his eyebrows raised and he smerked and said "UMMMMMMMM" each time he ate a piece.
Hey Mom are the cookies done yet?
Since we've been home we have had a few food issues that I mentioned before. One day he'll eat scrambled eggs or whatever and a few days later he won't want any parts of them. It's funny though, I'll have a couple of different food groups in front of him and instead of him reaching for the meat or potatoes he'll want to eat the grean beans. He always seems to favor to eat anything green. He likes eating Mommy's homemade split pea soup or homemade lentil soup, however, he pushes away ice cream. Go figure. He certainly get that trait from me. I'd rather him push away the sweets anyway, don't get me wrong. I have noticed though that most foods that are not ground up or really soft to eat he will spit out. Even if their are a few fruit pieces in a yogurt (which he is used to eating baby yogurt, that is smooth..no chunks). He does eat cereal bars, bananas, peaches cheerios, however, lately he has been rejecting the banana (unless it's pureed), cereal bars (he used to love them), and eggs (which he used to eat all of what I put in front of him and then move on to eat Mommy and Daddy's eggs). I hesitate anymore when I go to feed him since one day he'll eat a particular food like it's going out of style and another time I go to feed him the same thing and he refuses to eat it, even if I put a little in his mouth to taste it at times he'll spit it out and at times he'll eat it.
My Mom thought she'd get Andrew a familiar food that was commonly served in the orphanage which is buckwheat. She picked some up at the store for me and I cooked it tonight with some butter, mushrooms, onions, chicken and water. I took his share of the chicken and ground it up and mixed some ground up carrots into the cooked buckwheat. After it cooled I gave him a little taste not knowing what reaction I was going to get. Andrew made the same face and reaction as he did eating the cookies. He raised his eyebrows and his eyes got real wide and he smerked when he said "UMMMMMM" after each bite. Of course he spit out the pieces of carrot that weren't ground up enough for him but all in all he ate most of the large helping I gave him. After he was finished with his dinner, I was able to eat my chicken, carrots and buckwheat. Andrew came over to my chair as I was eating and wanted to sit on my lap. So I picked him up and discovered his mouth open as I scooped up some buckwheat for me to eat. Well needless to say he ate another portion of buckwheat since he didn't get enough of it. Hopefully he'll eat the leftovers tomorrow. I don't think I have ever had buckwheat before traveling to Ukraine, but it is quite tasty and very healthy for you.
