A sea-themed snack for Sly!

Along with the obvious vanilla-graham goldfish, the water is melted marshmallows with a bit of blue food coloring; the clouds are yogurt-covered raisins, and the sun is made of banana slices.

She was quite happy with it, except that by the time the marshmallow goo was cool enough to eat, she really had to work hard to get the fish out. It was entertaining for her to play with, though! I probably should’ve gone with cream cheese instead.

They also have 8% of the RDA of iron, and 22% of the RDA for fiber. And Sly is devouring one as I type, so apparently they are tasty. Quite tasty, considering that she’s ignoring her raspberries and banana in favor of the waffle!

I usually don’t do syrup on her waffles; I put cream cheese on them instead. She needs the dairy, for one thing, and it also makes breakfast less messy than syrup.

And for non-run-of-the-mill cream cheese, I’ve been picking the occasional container from Einstein Bros. Bagels. Sly particularly likes the honey-almond and mango-and-peach cream cheeses, but they also have garden veggie, sun-dried tomato and a few other interesting flavors.

I try not to carry anything major that would spoil her appetite, and my goal with these snacks is to tuck them away and basically forget about them — but then they’re always there in a pinch. Having individually packaged snacks is extra convenient for that, so they’re unlikely to go bad or make a mess if they get a little squished.

These days, Sly’s new love is small boxes of Sunmaid yogurt-covered raisins. I was worried about choking on this kind of stuff when she was littler, but at two and a half, she does a pretty good job of eating them one at a time and chewing well.

I’ve also used Florida’s Natural Fruit Juice Nuggets.

Fruit Juice Nuggets from Florida's Natural

They’re not your typical fruit snacks in content or form. No high fructose corn syrup, which is great. They’re tinier and firmer than regular fruit snacks — sort of like squared jelly beans, only a bit smaller. The multi-pack I bought had green apple, strawberry, orange and blueberry flavors, and Sly liked them all. The packets are very small, so they are easy to tuck away in my bag — but they don’t keep a toddler busy for very long!

I also sometimes grab a snack pack of goldfish crackers or pretzel-fish. They’re more vulnerable to crushing, though!

The first is the Tiny Diner portable place mat. I’ve meant to get one for awhile, and it worked really well. It has suction cups on the bottom side to hold it to the table, and it has a little trough that hangs off the edge of the table to catch big messes. The entire mats folds and rolls up to fit neatly into the trough, which fits nicely into the side pocket of my diaper bag.

The second is a portable placemat/chalk mat by Jaq Jaq Bird. This was a big hit when we took Sly out to dinner last night — she was only so-so about the standard crayons that came with the kid menu, but happily marked up the chalk mat. It ties closed with a ribbon and also has a little pocket for holding the chalk. Worth its weight in gold for keeping a toddler happy in a restaurant!

And where better to find honey recipes than the National Honey Board’s web site?

They have a whole page of kids snacks with some ideas that sound really tasty! So I jumped the gun a little bit and tried out a version of their Banana Pops for breakfast today.

Basically, this just involves cutting a peeled banana in half and putting it on a popsicle stick, smearing the banana with honey, and then rolling it in the topping of your choice — anything from nonpareils to graham cracker crumbs to coconut.

I used vanilla-almond granola. The honey didn’t hold the granola very well, though. I spread the second half of the banana with peanut butter, and that worked much better to get the granola to stick.

Sly nibbled on them, but was much more interested in her oatmeal this morning. Oh, well — I think she’ll appreciate banana pops more at some point!

So, at the start of each meal, I go through the items on her plate. “This is macaroni. These are beans. These are apple slices,” on so on. Or, I ask her —  ”What is this? And this?”

She’s learning to recognize that peaches, apples and so on can come diced or sliced, and will tell me things like, “That’s cantaloupe, not peach.”

Since we’re not quite there yet, I settled for grabbing a new snack container recently. Although I do most of my lunch-accessory-drooling at Target, I found this at my local grocery store. It’s the Recycled and Recyclable Snack Container from Aladdin-PMI.

Recycled and Recyclable Snack Container in Lily

Not only is it BPA-free, dishwasher-safe, and recyclable (if your recycler picks up #5 plastics), it’s also super cute! I love the pink-and-purple lily pattern, but it also comes in black or bright blue. And it fits perfectly into the side pocket on my diaper bag.

I also like the fact that you can either pop it open or remove the whole lid easily, so it can be used for either small or large snacks.

All it really involves is having enough fresh fruit and other components at hand to pull something together in five minutes or less.

So this morning, Sly’s breakfast (and my prep) consists of a banana (peel), fresh cantaloupe (chop a pre-sliced piece into smaller bites), yogurt (scoop into a bowl and mix), and a cereal bar (open wrapper).

Fresh fruit in general is pretty easy for this, but when I want to add melon, I usually buy a small package of fresh melon slices at the grocery store. Whole melons are cheaper per serving, but we’d probably never get through an entire melon before it went bad — so it’s worth it to buy the slices, which last just long enough for her to eat them all without having to have melon at every meal.

For no-cook breakfasts, I usually keep multiple flavors of cereal bars and yogurt around, plus enough fruit to offer two kinds — a handful of raspberries or blueberries; a section of peach or apple; a kiwi; or Sly’s continual favorite: bananas!

Big sister Sly gets to hold Em for the first time.

But now that we’re past the newborn stage, I’m doing a better job of juggling and actually starting to try new recipes again. Although Sly is eating mostly what DH and I eat these days, feeding an older toddler definitely comes with its challenges.

Even though I often make a separate meal for Sly, I’ve never really considered myself a short order cook — she eats from what I offer and doesn’t determine the menu. But lately she’s been trying! She asked for eggs (“Wan fom eggs!”) the other night when I happened to be planning breakfast-for-dinner anyway, and I was like, “Okay!”

Then she changed her mind halfway through the meal and wanted grilled cheese. Sorry, kiddo. We’re not starting that. I told her, “No, we’re having eggs,” and reminded her of all the other things on her plate. She went through the obligatory whining, but overall accepted it pretty well. Crossing my fingers that we nip these attempts in the bud quickly!

So for the last few weeks, Sly and I have shared a lot of pretzels, plain pasta, grilled cheese sandwiches, and other fairly inoffensive foods that my morning-sickness-wracked self can stand. And I’ve relied a lot on my freezer stash of veggies, meat loaf or turkey loaf muffins, etc. — as well as my husband’s cooking skills, which luckily are as good or better than mine.

But last night, I cooked and ate my first real meal in weeks — mashed potatoes and breaded pork chops, which Sly shared with us (mostly the potatoes; the pork chops weren’t a huge hit). So I’m hoping that this is a good sign that after a rough first trimester, I’m on the verge of being back to normal — and back in the kitchen!