Cheese, Construction, + Korean Marinated Eggs

Monday

Arthur woke up at 7:00 on Monday, so not too terribly early. Lucky for him, I had just woken up myself, so he got a booby breakfast right off the bat. I had a general blood test to deal with that morning, so right after Arthur's first breakfast, I went with my two emotional support dudes to the hospital for that.

Arthur was quite sweet and helpful while I was getting blood drawn, though started getting a bit restless as his parents enjoyed coffees in the hospital café afterwards. At one point he started clawing at my boobs and pulling my shirt down, so I figured it was time to go home and give him his second breakfast. What a gentleman I've raised.

We ended up being done with both breakfasts an hour earlier than we usually are, so I opted to give him an extra solid snack to tide him over until lunch. I gave him some cream cheese just plain on a spoon, his most direct experience with cheese yet! He seemed to be happy with it, although he wasn't terribly hungry. I think he was enjoying the experience of playing with the spoon more than anything else. But the nice thing about the cream cheese is it stuck pretty well to the spoon, so maybe made slightly less of a mess. But only slightly - Arthur is still pretty good at working with what he's got.

A meal properly appreciated

For his afternoon snack, Arthur had a variety of foods - a three course meal, really. We started out with some more cheese as an hors d'oeuvre, which he seemed to like a bit more than he had in the morning. That was followed up a main of some of the beef-carrot-potato purée from yesterday, which he was very enthusiastic about. For dessert, Arthur enjoyed some more oatmeal, into which I mixed cinnamon and walnut oil (getting those allergens in!). Arthur seemed to be having a good time at the Mama Café, as evidence by the globs of oatmeal he left behind.

Dinner was more oatmeal, though this time I mixed in some peanut butter instead. He loved it, and finished it all off very quickly, so we gave him some more of the beef-carrot-potato purée to sate his hunger until we were finished with our own dinner.

So, on Monday, Arthur ate:

• cream cheese (new food!)

• carrot

• potato

• beef

• oatmeal

• walnut oil

• peanut butter

Tuesday

Arthur woke up around 10 to 7, and also around 10 to when I had to get up and take him, as it was an office day for Miklós. He was hungry and devoured his morning breast milk very quickly. Afterwards, he was in a very sweet mood, smiley, affectionate, and just wanting to play, cuddle, chat, and grab my hair. Luckily my (unassisted by baby) hair loss itself seems to be slowing down, finally!

After a busy morning full of tummy time, book reading, and dance parties, the little guy tried to take a nap on me during his second breakfast. Unfortunately there's been a lot of noise in our neighborhood lately. The past week or so, construction was going on in our street for a tree planting project. Today, that seems to be stalled, so of course our neighbors decided to do some home renovations or something, and some workers are throwing huge items out of their top window onto the street. Which, naturally, woke Arthur up and put him a bit on edge.

But, he was in pretty good spirits all things considered, and worked up quite an appetite helping me grocery shop; we had an extra solid snack when we got home, and he devoured more carrot-potato-beef purée, mixed with sesame oil for the allergen exposure and onion powder for the flavor exposure. Then he happily consumed a couple of pieces of avocado (drizzled in lemon juice), followed by an entire wedge of cream cheese! He seemed much more into the cheese today than he was yesterday; the addictive properties are starting to take hold.

For his afternoon snack, Arthur started off with some yogurt. At first, he made some faces - even though it was full fat and Greek, I think he was expecting cheese, and a bit disappointed with what was being served. But he did end up eating all that I offered him, and then finished off the rest of the carrot-potato-beef purée.

If you don't have yogurt in your eye, you're eating it wrong

We mixed things up a bit at dinner, and Arthur enjoyed some booby milk rice porridge, which he grunted his way through before a final dinner of full-on boobage.

Which brings Arthur's Tuesday solid intake to:

• carrot

• beef

• potato

• onion powder

• sesame oil

• cream cheese

• avocado

• lemon

• yogurt

• milk powder

• rice porridge

The adults had ready-made meals on Monday and Tuesday, but I did enjoy some delicious marinated eggs as a snack. I had found this recipe for mayak eggs (Korean marinated eggs) that sounded awesome, so I whipped up the marinade, cooked some eggs, and let them soak in there for a couple of days. And they were really good! A few more ingredients and more involved than I would have preferred, so if I make them again, I might try omitting a few ingredients to see how they taste without them. But definitely a nice snack! Here's how I made them:

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Mayak Eggs/Korean Marinated Eggs (makes up to 6 eggs)

Ingredients

• up to 6 eggs (the original recipe calls for 6; I used 5)

• ½ cup soy sauce

• ½ cup water

• ¼ cup syrup/honey or equivalent in other liquid sweetener (I used sucralose)

• ¼ medium onion, diced (I used red)

• 1 green onion, diced

• 3 garlic cloves, minced

• 2 chili peppers, diced (I didn't have these so just subbed about a tbsp of dried chili flakes)

• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds (I toasted raw sesame seeds in the air fryer for a few minutes until they started to get brown and smell like toasted sesame)

Instructions

1. Make "jammy" eggs by putting eggs in an air fryer preheated to 140 degrees Celsius for 12-13 minutes.

2. When the eggs are cooked, immediately place them in a bowl of cold water, running more cold water over them so they continue to cool down.

3. Peel the eggs in the cold water, then set aside.

4. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a container or jar that's bit enough to cover your eggs. I found the typical 660g jars that many beans and veggies are sold in to be perfect for this.

5. Cover the container and shake to mix the marinade ingredients.

6. Add the eggs to the marinade, and cover again.

7. Place in the fridge overnight, or for a day or two. Enjoy cold.