Broccoli Conundrum

When Ella was a little thing, maybe a year or so, she started eating broccoli ground up in the baby food grinder with olive oil, salt and pepper, and parmesan cheese on top.  She would eat bowls of the stuff, even as she stopped eating other vegetables.  Fast forward and she is now almost four and a half, and she still loves broccoli ground up with olive oil, salt and pepper, and parmesan.  To this day, though, she refuses to eat steamed or grilled or roasted broccoli even with the same additions.  Most of the time we just make her a big bowl of her favorite ground broccoli and don't even offer her the big pieces because we want her to eat it and the 'grinded up broccoli' (as she says) is a sure thing.  I am torn between wanting her to start eating the pieces, darn it, mostly because making the ground broccoli and grating the cheese gets to be a real pain, and just being really glad she'll eat such a big serving of something so good for her.  I don't know what to do about this broccoli conundrum with her, but you can bet your last dollar that Dash gets his broccoli in pieces, straight up so as not to create another broccoli monster in our family.

Big! Huge!

Dash continues to be a verbal whiz kid which these days means he repeats pretty much everything we say in two words snippets.  He has also taken to describing everything he sees with his two favorite words, big and huge.

This is cute and sweet when he sees, say, a dump truck.  "Truck!  Big truck!  Huge truck!"

This is cute and slightly gross when he describes his diaper contents. "Turd!  Big turd!  Huge turd!" 

It's downright hysterical when he describes his anatomy.  When given the opportunity, he will grab at his own, um, boy parts and squeal with glee: "Peecee!  Big peecee!  Huge peecee!"

Boring

Sometimes kids have such knack for calling a spade a spade.  This weekend, we were swimming with my parents.  Josh and my dad were throwing Ella up into the air and letting her land on her tummy with a giant thud and a giant splash and then having her swimming between them.  They all thought this was really fun.  I could barely stand to watch it because it just seemed too dangerous (they were throwing her really high, OK?!).  Finally, not being able to take it any longer, I asked Josh to go play with Dash while I let Ella swim between me and my dad.  I told her that the flying fun with daddy was over and she was now stuck with boring old mom.  Her response?  "You aren't OLD, Mommy."

Guess what that must mean I AM?  That's right.  My four-year old just acknowledged that I am in fact rather boring.