B-Boy in the kitchen again!

B-Boy can be a handful when we get home. And since Neb and I no longer commute together, it means that I get to handle it all by myself.

One option is to plop him down in front of the TV. I must admit, some days, I just need to do that while I cook dinner. Other days, we sit together and color while we wait for Daddy to return. We put stickers on paper (one of his all time favorite actiivities), or he tells me letters to draw, but all these activities require my interaction with him. And this means that I am delayed in making dinner until Neb gets home.

Sometimes this is not an option.

I am happy to tell you I came up with an idea that seems to work for us. I get B-Boy to make himself a pizza.

Our grocery store carries packages of whole wheat Naan. I had originally purchased it to eat with hummus, a yummy treat I acquired when I was not allowed to eat dairy for B-Boy's sake.

I put out a flat, shallow pan and placed one of the Naan on the pan.

I then set up a working station for B-Boy on the kitchen island. I take two blue ramkins and fill them up with fun goodies for B-Boy to play with. One gets a healthy helping of shredded white cheese, and the other gets some marinara sauce.

B-Boy gets really excited when I set this up, and will drag over a chair to stand on. I give him a spoon, show him how to put the sauce on the crust and spread it around. While he works with the sauce, I get our dinner ready.

Puttin' on the Sauce...

Then I showed him how to put the cheese on top of the sauce. Then I go back to cooking. B-Boy really likes the cheese part, mostly because one handful goes on the pizza and then one goes into his mouth.

Mmmm Cheese!

When B-Boy finishes with the cheese... into the oven it goes (400 degrees for 10 minutes on the top rack),

Once it goes into the oven to cook, B-Boy gets upset again. Which is why I have started doing the "Today Show" method. As soon as the pizza goes in the oven, I pull one out of the fridge that he previously made. Voila! Instant pizza!

I must admit, it does taste pretty good. And it looks fantastic!

Yummy!

B-Boy gets cookin'

B-Boy loves to help. He has always enjoyed sweeping and picking up items we ask to retrieve. This has always come in handy when he needed a distraction, he is so eager to help that sometimes you can deflect a meltdown by asking him to do something like feeding the kitty cats.

The other day, B-Boy was near meltdown status. He was upset, bored and missing his Daddy. We had just gotten home from work\daycare and I was getting dinner ready. B-Boy was not feeling very well, and so he was having a hard time with patience. I must admit that I was too.

I decided that B-Boy might just need to help me get dinner ready. I asked him to pull his chair over.

Side story:

B-Boy loves to play in the kitchen sink... he likes to play in the bubbles, wash his hands, and sometimes wash a cup or dish. Mostly, he likes to bend over and drink from the faucet and turn the water off and on. He won't wait for Neb or I to offer the opportunity to play in the sink, he usually announces that he wants to wash his hands. He then tosses the seat cushion to the floor and then pushes the chair to the sink. Game over.

So it did not take much for him to get his chair ready. While I waited for the chair to arrive, I chopped up the sweet potatos. By the time he arrived and climbed up to help, the bowl was ready with the cubed potatos. I gave him a spoon and asked him to stir.

While I added the spices and the olive oil, B-Boy stirred.

Stir stir stir!

Hmm, this is ORANGE!

He was such a good helper, and was really happy to be doing it... he even helped pour them onto a baking pan. Of course, the happiness ended there- he got very upset when I put the pan in the oven. The only thing that could distract him from that was his Daddy coming home!