Baby Bird & Babysitter

Seems we have a new baby bird in the house. Although this time it’s not an actual bird – it’s Liam! His new thing is if you are eating something and he wants a bite, he’ll come up to you & say “Bite bite bite bite bite bite bite”…and so on, until you give him a bite, or at least ask him to say “please.” It reminds us of a baby bird for some reason. He gave this a good workout last night. We had a little impromptu picnic on the living room floor and so there was close, easy access to everyone’s plates. He ate most of what was on his own plate, and then probably had the equivalent of another half a plate of food between all the bites he got from Josh, Zachary, and me.

We also used a babysitter for the first time on Saturday – well, one that is not related to us. The boys have always been babysat by either my mom or Josh’s parents. We have never used anyone else (except one time when Zachary was only a couple of months old & had not started at daycare yet – a friend of mine kept him for a few hours while my mom & I went to a funeral). One of Zachary’s teachers who recently decided to take a leave of absence to focus on finishing school babysits, and even though she’s not working at the school right now, she still wants to babysit. So we decided to give her a try. They did great! We knew Zachary would be fine – Liam was questionable. He can be clingy & get a little upset if Josh or I are not around. But she said he didn’t cry at all – he looked at her a little funny when he first woke up from his nap, but she said he did great. It was such a relief. We won’t be using her all the time or anything (I mean hey, she costs money & grandparents are free!) but it was good to get in with her & try her out, and know that everyone had a good time.

I also need some help. Zachary’s class is having an “Around the World Lunch” on Thursday (even though it starts at 2:30, which is like, 3 hours after lunchtime there…). They have assigned each child a country, and have asked us to bring in a dish from that country – can be entrée, vegetable, dessert, or bread. Pretty much anything (although they also said “Let’s be creative” – so I think they would like us to think outside the box a little bit). Well, Zachary got assigned Italy, which at first I was thinking that was great because it would be really easy to come up with something. But the more I think about it, the harder it is because there is so much good food from Italy, and I can’t decide whether to do an entrée of some sort, a dessert, some fancy garlic bread…Decisions! So if anyone has any ideas, let me know! I’m looking for something creative, but also not TOO difficult. And it has to be able to be served the next day (I’ll have to make it the night before, and then it can go in a fridge at school, but they will be reheating it at 2:30). I’d love any suggestions or ideas you might have!