Day 10 + Roasted Carrot Salad
Arthur slept in until 7:15 on Wednesday morning, which means I had a whopping 15 minutes of toddler-free time to get ready for the day! Honestly, it was much appreciated. It was a productive morning, with errand running, lots of breakfasts, and a bath. Arthur discovered how to splash in the bathtub today, and so that was quite fun.
Our day followed its now typical pattern of Arthur not permitting himself to nap on me, but falling asleep in the stroller after about 5 minutes of walking. He spent his usual 40 minutes sleeping before waking up completely quietly. He was still pretty groggy when he woke up, and surprisingly fell back asleep on me when I nursed him right afterwards. And this time, he napped for another solid 40 minutes on me - I was so proud of him, both for giving in to napping on me, and for getting over an hour of daytime sleep in. He didn't even wake up when the wind slammed my door shut! I ended up waking him up myself, because I hadn't been expecting him to nap on me and needed to use the bathroom. Plus I wanted him to go down easily again at bedtime!
Arthur had a good appetite at lunchtime, where he inhaled a full avocado in less than a minute. Later on, when he was less hungry, he really wanted to share his food with me, and kept holding out pieces of his meal for me.
Maybe it was the extra sleep, or maybe it's the same attitude shift that enabled the extra sleep, but Arthur was a bit more relaxed when I took a shower today. By a bit, I mean I was able to spend nearly 10 minutes in the bathroom without fussing, and even when he did start up, it didn't escalate to screaming. So, a major improvement!
I have to say, too, that Arthur's getting really good at conveying what he wants, even without being able to voice the words or properly nod or shake his head. He's had his hungry grunts for a while, but more recently, he's been holding out his stuffed bee to me and making a specific babble that means he wants me to sing its buzzy song to him. He also started bringing my index finger to his little pushback car when he wants me to make it go, and bobbing his head while on my lap to indicate he wants a bumpy "ride." I suspect he's going to be a great communicator when he gets older, as well as an empathetic chap like his pops. His gentleness with Captain Carrot and desire to share his food are good signs in that respect. God, I love the little bug so dang much.
Arthur was in an amazingly cheerful mood for the first half of the evening, which quickly devolved into a remarkably fussy one. At dinnertime, he kept grunting for more food, but dropped each of the three foods I offered him (skillet pizza, tofu, and the same avocado he had been so crazy about earlier in the day) over the side of his high chair tray. So he was really being a booger.
The one downside to Arthur napping twice as long as he has been over the past week was that I had to spend maybe three whole minutes rocking him to sleep instead of one. But other than that, bedtime was once again seamless and painless! And only one more bedtime without Papa to go!
We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled banana dessert recipes to post a dinner I made right before Miklós left on his trip. It was awesome, and a hit with both of us. I got the idea from this recipe, and adjusted quantities based on package sizes here. I also made it more substantial by adding in a can of chickpeas and serving it over some yogurt seasoned with lemon juice, salt & pepper, which I think worked well here, but the salad could be served as a side instead! It's really simple, but there's something about roasted carrots that is just so dang good. Here's how I made it:
Roasted Carrot Feta Salad (serves 2)
Ingredients
¾ - 1 kg carrots
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste
handful fresh parsley (or ½ bunch)
150g or so crumbled feta/similar white cheese
optional: 1 can chickpeas
optional: Greek (or regular) yogurt mixed with lemon juice, garlic, salt & pepper, for serving
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Halve the carrots lengthwise, and quarter the thicker bites. Slice them into pieces roughly an 2 cm long.
Spread the carrots on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper, tossing to coat.
Roast in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes, stirring once halfway through.
After 40 minutes, check the carrots - they should be tender, with slightly blistered surfaces and brown bottoms.
Let them cool just a bit, and roughly chop the parsley and feta.
Toss the carrots with parsley, feta, a bit more salt and pepper if desired, and chickpeas if using.
Serve warm, optionally over savory yogurt!
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