First stop, every morning.

So Damian and I have been tweaking our share-parenting schedule recently, moving things around and trying out new configurations. It used to be that I only ever had Waits on half of a weekend day, usually the first half of Saturday. Which, after he started going to preschool 5-days a week, meant that I never got him all to myself for a full day.

On the day these pictures were taken – a Sunday – I woke up next to my baby boy and we were together until he fell asleep. It’d been a little while since I’d had that kind of day, and man we had a lot of fun! Here’s how it all went down:




Waits wanted chia pudding for breakfast. I do a heaping tablespoon of seeds with 3 tablespoons of oat milk. He ate this and then asked for another one, and ate that as well.




I’m never hungry in the way-am, so I just downed that giant mug of black tea up there (it had liquid stevia and almond milk too. double bag ’cause I’m hardcore.) Then, because I know I need to have *something* in my belly, I do my “food as medicine” in the morning.




Two tablespoons of freshly ground sunflower seeds, as part of my cycling seeds for hormonal balance, and one tablespoon of blackstrap molasses, for iron and calcium. Not much, just a little hit of protein + fat from the seeds, and some quick-burning simple carbs from the molasses. It’s actually a pretty good way to start the day!

A little later in the morning, Waits was hungry again, so I gave him some chlorella tablets to munch on . . .




. . . while we whipped up a batch of my “Better Than Larabars” real quick.





This time I used chocolate protein powder, and peanuts instead of almonds, and prunes as the dried fruit, and YUM. They came out great! And of course, we nibbled as we worked.

After that it was time to get out of the house. We decided to hit the park, and set out on foot for a long stroller walk across town. A bit of a trek, but this park? Is worth it.

Seaweed Snacks right before playing.


And he’s off!

And what makes it so worth it? Well, it’s not because of the playground (even though it does happen to be the best playground in town).

But no, the reason it’s worth the trip, is this treat:








And that, my friends, is heaven-on-a-stick. Waits calls this “ice cream”, and I feel lucky that he doesn’t know any better. I’ll let him think it’s ice cream for as long as I can!

He ate his “ice cream” on the walk home, and once we got there he turned the living room into a construction site . . .

Fun with dried beans.

. . . while I fixed us lunch. A tray for him:



Tomatoes (untouched, but I’ll keep trying) and carrots (he ate about half), peanut butter pretzel bites (he ate about half), olive mix (he ate most), and leftover pasta (he ate almost none), with a bit of the homemade Larabar mix. He also had a cup of oat milk.


For myself, I threw together a “leftovers salad” with mixed greens, arugula, shredded carrot, diced red onion, grape tomatoes, and kalamata olives tossed in olive oil/red wine vinegar/crushed garlic/nutritional yeast, and topped with leftover pasta which had olive oil, nutritional yeast, red and yellow peppers, crimini mushrooms, caramelized onions, and lentils. Whew, that’s a mouthful!

After lunch we had quiet time, and in the late afternoon we popped into my neighbor’s to listen to his new demo (my neighbor is also an old and dear friend, and a musician). Oh! but first there were snacks:



A half peanut butter sammie on brown rice bread for Waits.


And another vat of black tea for me.

For dinner we had a date at my godparent’s house, which we do about once a week. Waits loves it over there, mostly because he gets to spend his time playing with tools in the garage (supervised, obvi) or running around their property watering plants or digging in the garden or generally mucking about.




This time it was even more exciting, because my godfather has built Waits his very own box-car, to enter into a neighborhood “race” at the end of the month. Seriously? Little boy HEAVEN.




They worked on the car out in the driveway, while my godmother and I chatted in the kitchen. Dinner:



Photos can be so deceiving. This bowl is ENORMOUS and fed the three of us heartily. That’s a giant salad with red leaf lettuce, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, tons of avocado, orange slices, and pan-seared savory maple tempeh. Served with a homemade cashew cream dressing.

The Waits plate – bell peppers, carrots, jicama, cucumbers, and tempeh chunks. I drizzled extra virgin olive oil on the veggies, and he ate a bunch of olives as well.




After dinner we all went outside, where we foraged for dessert:




Blueberries right off the bush. Delicious!

We also took the box-car for a (er, about a million and one) test drive(s).





Waits fell asleep on the drive home, and I was able to work late into the night. Perfect.

♥

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