Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday.

In absolutely no particular order –

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Jude’s preferred menu:
Breakfast: Honey Nut Cheerios
Lunch: Macaroni and cheese
Dinner: Chicken nuggets
Anytime, including at 8 a.m. and bedtime and every hour in between: Fruit snacks

Now these are what Jude *asks* for constantly; this is not to say he gets them when he asks. I am a big believer in variety of foods, so he gets what he wants (within reason) but certainly not every day. Both my boys are fairly decent eaters. Simon will eat any kind of fruit you put in front of him, while Jude is my veggie man. They both do fine in the starch and grain department and drink enough milk to float the Titanic. Their juice intake is mostly limited to a glass or two in the morning, otherwise they drink milk or water, and they have never had soda. Sweets tend to be stuff I baked – I’d rather them eat a slice of apple or pumpkin pie, or an oatmeal or even a chocolate chip cookie, than a candy bar.

The meal rules are clear:
-Eat the little amount you start with and you may have more of whatever it is.
-Once you are excused from the table, your food goes away.
-If you do not eat a meal and are hungry later, you may:
1)if it’s lunch, finish your lunch
2)if it’s dinner, eat bread-and-butter.
-If you do not eat a meal, there is no dessert. I don’t care whose birthday cake it is.

So when Grandma starts in with,”Oh, you’re not done eating,” or expects them to clear their plates of the longshoreman’s helpings she starts with, or starts bribing and cajoling, “Oh, just eat two more bites of hot dog” or “If you eat all your hot dog, you can get dessert,” Dan and I start going bonkers. This is noticeable only because I thought it was just me going bonkers until Dan said to his mom a few evenings ago, “Mom. Look at those boys. They know the rules. Do they look healthy? They don’t eat sweets, they don’t drink soda. If they don’t want to eat, it’s fine. Leave them be.”

She looked surprised. Probably because the rest of the family seems to subscribe to the begging/cajoling/bribing method of getting their kids to eat. I refuse. Categorically.

Gosh, we have it all figured out, huh? Hmmm.

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There’s a review of Mary Roach’s Spook on Salon today. I may have to go buy it this weekend.

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Andrew O’Hehir reviews the movie “Shopgirl” on today’s Salon. I’ll bet this is the most accurate observation: You get the feeling he [Steve Martin] saw Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation" and thought, "I can do that." I had that very feeling just reading the review and knowing what I know from reading the book. (For the record, I remember the book being a joyless, depressing little piece of work, but I read it a long time ago.) Parts of this review made me laugh out loud. I will keep my eye out for O’Hehir’s reviews from now on. My favorite quote: Is Ray a damaged divorcé who falls in love with Mirabelle, after his own fashion, but can't express his feelings? I guess that's the idea, but you can't really tell. He could also be planning to add her to his collection of chopped-up girlfriends beneath the pool. He could be a narcoleptic. He could be the reanimated corpse of Richard Nixon, nervously sweating embalming fluid. He could be shot so full of Botox it's a wonder he can speak at all.

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So Katie Holmes claims that she is having no morning sickness. Well, now we know that being impregnated with an alien’s child does not cause one to be morning-sick. I’ll keep that in mind next time. Although the pregnancy-as-weight-loss-strategy seemed to work for me this time, as I can fit into jeans I haven’t been able to wear since before Jude was born. All that vomiting the first 6 months or so. (This rancor is pretty much driven by my disgust at all those women who claim they had no morning sickness and also proclaim, “Oh, I *love* being pregnant.” I hate them all.)

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Britney Spears named her son Sean Preston. If you recall (no, I really don’t expect you to remember), my little brother’s wife had a baby a few weeks before Spears had hers. My brother’s new son’s name is Andrew Preston. Family name, his wife’s great-grandfather. My brother is so pissed off he could spit.

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Ok, my cats *look* like they’re having sex. Although both are neutered and I *think* Septimus really is just cleaning Emmy. Nonetheless, I have the urge to throw cold water on them and scream, “She’s your sister, for God’s sake, you sicko!” I think I need to get out more.

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I am working on my eating-while-holding/nursing-the-baby skills. Poor sweet baby James wound up with a decent amount of chicken pot pie on his little ice-skating-mice sleeper this afternoon. I hope he realizes I did this with the other two as well. And before kids, I did it (and still do) with my books.

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There is now a site meter here on Behind the Stove. Now if I can just stop obsessively rereading posts and checking for comments, we may get some accurate stats.