Baum Squad: The Baum Family Blog: Rut

I have been in a serious rut for the past few months. I was going to title this post "blog rut" because my rut has mainly been blog-related, but then I realized that my rut extended to a few other random areas as well, so this post will probably turn out to be quite miscellaneous.

Re: the blog, I am not sure how I let it become so neglected. Actually that's a lie, I know the exact reason: life. For a long time I did such a good job of posting at least two times a week, and doing that helped me keep it in my routine. The "monthly" posts were actually a big part of holding myself accountable when it came to blogging, because one of the reasons I started this whole thing was to keep track of Lilly since I am clearly terrible at baby-booking. But as things (work, life, hello 18-month-old) started getting crazier, it became easier to put it off and continue to do so until now, when it is more rare for me to blog than not blog. I'm going to attempt to fix that!

Other ruts that come to mind relate to FOOD. This rut is actually two-fold: Lilly food and food in general.

My "Lilly food" rut is that I feel like she eats the same things all. the. time. I tried really hard to diversify what I was feeding her starting at a very young age to avoid this very problem, and when she was younger she was so good about eating whatever I put in front of her. Now, much to my disdain, she has developed opinions about what she likes and what she doesn't. I've read and been told (by other Moms, books, blogs, our pediatrician, etc.) that this is totally normal for most toddlers and she will not eat well again until she is at least 3. Joy. Lilly at least does not seem to be phased by the fact that she always eats the same things, but I get so bored preparing food for her that I can't imagine that she isn't bored with eating it. I do make her try new things, and it normally results in her spitting whatever I made her try out, but I feel pretty good that at least I'm trying. She does have a decent variety of foods that she likes, but still. Especially since she's starting preschool in a few weeks (three half-days a week, and I don't know why but I am feeling so weepy about it!), I want to see if I can diversify her taste buds a little. Does anyone have any good resources? I recently discovered Weelicious and am planning to delve deeper into that site as I have time. And of course there is always Pinterest, but I find that it can be so overwhelming. So, what are your favorite meals and/or meal resources for ~~picky~~ toddlers? Any help here is greatly appreciated!

My "food in general" rut is not really too much different than the "Lily food" rut. Since January, Dan's work schedule has been crazy, which means he has not been home a lot - maybe two week nights each week. This has made me beyond lazy in the kitchen, because I am not cooking for just myself, especially since Lilly is limited in what she'll eat. Even on the rare occasions that Dan has been at home, though, I feel like we eat the same things all of the time. Since we both work full-time, it is hard to find the time to get everything done, and our days are so busy that meals mostly fall to the back burner in terms of planning. I am lucky if I even think about what I'm going to feed Lilly for dinner in the car on my way home from work every day. I think the most important thing I need to add to my routine is meal planning. I know myself, and if I do not plan meals and grocery shop for aforementioned meals at the beginning of each week, said meals are not happening - at least not from the Baum kitchen. So that is change #1 that needs to be made. The second part of this is that I am just totally lacking in inspiration. I know that there are a TON of resources between Pinterest and the world wide web in general, but I often find that I just get so overwhelmed even looking through those things that I lose interest and new meals don't get planned. Unless I have a very specific idea of what I'm looking for (which I typically don't), those sites (to me anyway) can be pretty overwhelming and semi hard to navigate. Additionally, it's not like I have hours to spend on meal planning each week, so I need some quick go-to resources with good recipe ideas. A few sites that I have perused recently in addition to Weelicious are Skinnytaste and Peace Love & Good Food (written by my friend Nina, you'll love her!), and I like all of those. I recently read a post by Megan at Hello Newlywed Life where she mentioned her weekly meal planning and that her goal is to try 1-2 new recipes a week. I think that is a fantastic idea, and one that I'd love to implement in my own home. So, my second question of the day is this: what are your favorite recipes/resources for recipes to try?

The only other rut I can think of is a clothing rut. I literally cannot remember the last time I bought myself something new. My, how times have changed! This is partially due to the fact that I have a closet that is ~~way too~~ full of clothes that I never wear (don't tell Dan I admitted that), and partially due to the fact that I keep saying I want to lose weight before buying anything new, and partly due to the fact that I would rather spend ~~way~~ too much money on Lilly's sweet wardrobe. Sometimes, though, I want to feel like I am still semi-trendy and not have only mom clothes, ha! I am hoping to at least partially rectify the clothing situation this weekend by embarking on a massive closet cleanout. My sister is coming to visit, and I promised her first dibs on giveaways in exchange for helping me. Woohoo! Speaking of my sister, I can't believe I have yet to post about the birth of my sweet nephew, Mason, back in July. I'll add it to my "to do" list!

I think that's all of my random musings for the day. I'll leave you with a few photos of my girl from the past week.