Week in Review - Monday

Monday was a turning point for me.  It's silly silly silly on why, but my little baby is now a little boy and I'm having real difficulty with that. 

I remember when I'd take him to daycare and he'd have nothing but bottles every day all day long every 3 hours.  Then he moved up and had pureed fruits for breakfast and veggies for lunch and bottles.  Then it was fruits and veggies with cereal in it.  Then it became cereal or oatmeal at breakfast and a pick up type veggie and fruit for lunch with a snack after his afternoon nap.  Now it's like cereal bars and entree meals with sippy cups and a maybe one or two bottles. 

Monday as I dropped Hill off at daycare with his Wal-Mart sack of pre packaged, preplanned, non assorted meals for the week I asked the teacher what the other parents bring their kids for breakfast and lunch.  She said the same things I do.  I expressed my concern in Hill's diet and how Gerber rocks on having these little entree things for them you can just buy, but they don't offer much variety and I feel he's getting burned out on the same ol' same ol' and I don't want him to be a picky eater like his daddy!

She suggested maybe he try the plates from the daycare kitchen.  They would send me home with a menu that afternoon and I could go through the things he can and can't have and for $7.50 a week my son can have a variety menu, healthy state mandated organic and fresh fruits and vegetables and no more pre fab Gerber every stinkin' day!  I told them to sign me up twice!  It includes a healthy breakfast, lunch and snack every day Monday through Friday for seven dollars and fifty cents.  Seriously.

So they sent me home with a menu that afternoon and Chip and I went over it and found the only things he couldn't have were milk and peanut butter.  Everything else was acceptable.  We listed no strawberries, nuts or honey too just because he's not of that age yet. 

They gave him the plate lunch that Monday and they said they chopped it all up really well for him and he ate a hamburger patty, english peas, rice and corn...ALL OF IT!  Poor buddy, himz a growing boy!  He's done really well the rest of the week too, they put little hearts on his daily report card on the foods that he likes so that I will learn what he likes and doesn't like for home too.

I am so excited for my little big man and his food.  Yet, that's just it.  He's my little big man, not my tiny hiney baby anymore.  Why is it that this food thing has me heartbroken that my son is growing up?  I'm taking it pretty hard.....it's like he's Mr. Independent now.  I can sit down and watch tv and he just entertains himself by pulling up on the furniture, playing with his blocks or books, starting the music on his toys so he can dance, snuggles with Foster.  I mean really for Christmas he's asking for a dorm room mini fridge for when he goes off to college next week. 

All this emotion because he can eat the plate meals from the kitchen at daycare.  Seriously, is this what the rest of my life is going to be like?  An emotional roller coaster of how fast my baby is growing up?