Food finances

We have to start menu-planning again. I feel much healthier today, so I can contemplate food; we need to plan lunches and dinners and buy accordingly. The biggest problem with this is that Linnea has pretty much stopped eating anything with tomatoes in, so the usual staples aren't a sensible option. Luckily it's almost summer, but I have a feeling eggs are going to feature heavily.

We seem to have just about no imagination when it comes to food. Perhaps we're too tired.

That, and I love tomatoes, so I add tinned or pureed tomatoes to everything all year round, and fresh when they're cheap and plentiful.

Dhal and omelettes and beans, I guess. They take no effort, which is important.

My house smells of wee

But twice today Linnea has had unprompted and successful uses of the potty.

She's a nudist at heart, too - she even needed persuading that clothes in the garden were a good idea, when it was windy and the clouds were lowering and the skies were glowering and it was just generally inclement there on the bench there.

I was too tired to go to the shops so I baked two loaves of bread. Hmm. Also, I'm trying to decide whether I go to hell faster for feeding my toddler's delicate kidneys sardines or marmite.

Linnea's very understanding about Emer destroying her lego constructions, and asked me nicely to take Emer downstairs. "My am very sorry for leaving it here. I build it over here and now Emer can't break it," too. Oh, and when I say "See you later," she says "alligator," which I think is very cute.

Food preferences

Inspired by Another, I've tried to come up with my list of food no-nos. So far I've got:

Soy and soy products, which really makes me sick in large quantities. In smaller quanities it makes me seriously uncomfortable. I'll eat small amounts in other people's homes but not in restaurants where I have a choice.

Milk and milk products, as above but with less devastating results. Milk doesn't make me cry as much.

Seafood other than fish with tails and fins and things - though I'd like to learn to like it, I have an aversion to it without, as far as I can see, any good reason. I think it might be mostly texture. I'd love to be converted by really well-cooked examples of the genre. I do, however, eat rubbery squid when served it in other people's homes, though I admit to using my drink to wash down unchewed mouthfuls like big, plastic-coated pills, whenever I thought no-one would notice.

Mushrooms - I have eaten one I liked, ever, in my whole life; I can and do tolerate them in moderation if they're not too slimy. I ate them uncomplainingly for Mormor, but most places I pick them out carefully and quietly and leave them on the side of my plate. Now that Linnea is around I can feed them to her, because she loves mushrooms, so it looks more like I'm giving her a treat than avoiding them myself. I think if I lived somewhere with plentiful wild, fresh mushrooms I could learn to like them raw. They're no slimy raw and I don't mind the flavour much.

There are various things I won't eat on ethical grounds, but they apply more to when I'm buying than when other people are; if asked my preferences in advance I would state them but if served them for dinner I would eat them, so they don't count, I think.

[Poll #983027]

Bedtime story

I'm sitting downstairs listening to Rob reading Linnea and Emer a bedtime story. Three years ago, he read with pauses, stutters, and very odd inflection. Now, I can almost tell what's going on in the book from the sound of his voice, even though I can't make out a single word.

Linnea's not the only one who has been learning every single day.

(I learn most days, but not all, because some days I am made of ded.)

Meez

It reminds me of my sister, so it probably looks a little like me.
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