Chicken Chowder

I first cooked this chicken chowder as lunch for Skyler when he was right about 8 months old. For older toddler, this is great to serve as a soup or a side dish.

I mashed part of the potato for 8 months old Skyler

At one year old, I cooked everything in a bigger chunk.

Ingredients:

1/3 C. diced and cooked boneless breast or ground chicken
1/4 C. cubed and cooked potato
3 T. shredded mild Cheddar or American cheese
1 C. milk
2 tsp. butter
Peas, carrots, and corn

Cooking Instructions:

Mix chicken, veggies, potato, milk, and butter in a small saucepan. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Stir in cheese. Serve warm.

Note:  I like to stir in some pasta, which makes a complete meal...for kids. To make the soup creamer, I will also mash some of the cooked potato, and stir into the soup to get the creamy taste. Don't forget I cooked this when Skyler was little, so I did not use any heavy cream or any kind of flour to thicken it, just some very simple ingredient with no salt and spices...still taste very good. 

Skyler eat eat eat..

Took so many pictures while he is eating....

Chicken Quesadilla

This is one of the quick lunch I like to cook during weekend when I get lazy. Take no longer than 15 min from preparation to done cooking. Well, still packs nutrition and great taste! Try it yourself, I bet you will love it.

Ingredients:

1 burrito size wheat tortillas
1/2 tomato- diced
1 piece chicken tender- grilled
1/2 avocado- mashed
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tbs butter

Cooking Instructions:

Melt butter and heat tortillas until bottom is a little crispy,
 use medium heat

Sprinkle cheddar cheese, diced grilled chicken and tomatoes.

Spread with mashed avocado (normally avocado should serve on the side with
sour cream, but I spread inside the quesadillas just to avoid mess by Skyler)

Sprinkle with cheese again.

Fold it and turn to the other side and cook until cheese melted. 

Cut it into wedges so that the little hands can pick it up and eat it without
making a big mess.

Then here comes the stomach virus....

Huh.. no time to write any post again this week, fever last week and stomach virus this week.... thank god he   is over it now, I think.. and start acting normal again the last two days, we went to the Dallas aquarium yesterday and Chuck E cheese's 2 days in a row just to reward him, poor kid has been suffered for the last two weeks.

The stomach virus started when he first threw up in the day care, I had noticed he did not had much appetite two days priors to that, the teacher said "he threw up a lot!". I didn't take it seriously until I saw it myself at home that same night.. his vomiting is frightening , yes.. the teacher was right.. it is a lot! The clean up is a mess too, the spaghetti that I forced him to eat during dinner was everywhere, things not only came out of his mouth but his nose too, eww... His teacher did mentioned that school has a stomach virus that is going on, a few teachers had to go home sick and a few kids at other classroom have the same thing.. both vomiting and diarrhea.

Ok, so, still sent the poor kid to daycare the next day, and teacher told me the same thing when I went picked him up, I did not forced him to eat dinner this time, he had only maybe two bites at dinner. So, I gave him some milk.. thinking it should be just fine since he did not eat hardly anything. Well same thing happened again... threw up in the room all over again.

Took him to the doctor the next day finally just to make sure, doctor did not find any other infection and he thinks it was a stomach virus as well, there is no medication that he need to take and he said it should last only 2 days, meaning we just have to suffer and let him be sick? ok.

So, Skyler is just not being Skyler, he is tired and no wanting to eat anything, or drinking. All I did is to give him milk hopefully he will at least have something in his stomach... I was so wrong, I guess... until I was talking to one of my customer about this... he said no more milk but to give him electrolyte to avoid dehydration,  sorry.. Skyler... you still has a mom that has a lot to learn.... I didn't know what electrolytes is until he told me about it, in short.. it's just like an adult Gatorade, it replaces fluid and electrolytes lost during diarrhea and vomiting to help prevent dehydration.

Decided to give it a try and went to groceries store to get one, gave it to Skyler  and he drank over half bottle within maybe 3 hours, I was please seeing it as he did not want any water or milk... I bought him a strawberry flavor, so I guess it tastes good as well. Who knows he is then jumping, laughing and running that same afternoon. Oh, realized my poor kid is probably just over dehydrated...

As I am writing this post, went and Google tips for vomiting, OMG, I did all the wrong thing, kept forcing him to drink milk and water, please see below tips, a little simple right things might cut a lot of suffer time for both you and your child:

For Kids 1 Year and Older:

• Give clear liquids (milk and milk products should be avoided) in small amounts ranging from 2 teaspoons to 2 tablespoons, or up to 1 ounce or 30 milliliters depending on how much your child can tolerate, every 15 minutes.
  
  Appropriate clear liquids include:
  • ice chips or sips of water
  • flavored oral electrolyte solutions, or add ½ teaspoon (about 3 milliliters) of nonacidic fruit juice to the oral electrolyte solution
  • frozen oral electrolyte solution pops
• If your child vomits, start over with a smaller amount of fluid (2 teaspoons, or about 5 milliliters) and continue as above.
• If there's no vomiting for approximately 8 hours, introduce bland, mild foods gradually. But do not force any foods — your child will tell you when he or she is hungry. Saltine crackers, toast, broths, or mild soups (some noodles are OK), mashed potatoes, rice, and breads are all OK.
• If there's no vomiting for 24 hours, slowly resume the regular diet. Wait 2-3 days before resuming milk products.

Fever!!

It has been a week that I did not have time to log on to my blog to post anything, Skyler had fever last Sunday and I have been busy for almost the whole week just to take care of this fussy boy. It was a low grade fever right around 101 to 102, not sure what cause it, I kept him at home Monday and he went back to daycare on Tuesday. No more fever after Tuesday but he has been very fussy and been whining about everything this last few days, I mean... everything! Hopefully the fever will not return.

I got nervous now whenever Skyler had fever because he had a seizure at about 15 months old, that scared me to death, it is one of the bad experience that any parents does not want to go through.  Of course we end up by calling 911 before we knew what was wrong with him, our house was full of paramedics and firemen while front door full of police cars and fire trucks! Paramedic told us he had fever of 103 at the time when they arrived, I said no, I just took his temperatures and it showed 99. Lesson learned... getting the right thermometer is very important, one or two degree of the wrong reading will lead to mistreatment. Doctor said since he had a seizure in the past, he has higher risk of getting it again whenever he has fever, so I need to make sure his temperature does not raise or drop rapidly to prevent a seizure from happening again. Well, that means I need a thermometer that gives me the accurate reading.

A expensive thermometer does not mean a accurate reading, we were using a temporal scan thermometer, one that comes with a transducer that rolls across the forehead, it is a infrared thermometer plus you just roll it across the forehead so it is much easier to take Skyler temperatures especially when he is sleeping. Been using it for a while until the paramedic told me that I have the wrong reading, and it was about 4 degree of the difference! After some research, I have decided to try the tympanic thermometer, it is also a infrared thermometer, it read temperatures by scanning the heat through the ear canal...hmm...those that stick into the ear. :) I try to make comparison from the two, and the temporal scan thermometer is usually about 2 degree less than the tympanic thermometer... wow... what a surprise to see this! Will never use my temporal scan thermometer anymore.

So, just to share my bad experience...please check and make sure the thermometer that you using now gives you the accurate reading.

Temporal Scan Thermometer

Tympanic  Thermometer

Skyler with fever at 9 months old!

Never share utensils with your baby!!!

I know expert always tells us.. do not share spoon or fork... do not sip from the same straw...with your baby, in short, our saliva can't never pass to our kid.. what's the big deal?  Most people will not take it seriously as it is your baby and you know your body better that you don't have any disease that will pass along to you kid anyway. right?

Well, I kinda follow what the experts said, there are maybe only a couple times that I have to use my fork and knife to cut Skyler meat while dining out, just so my bacteria will not pass to Skyler... ok, sometimes I myself wondered too, what bacteria? what's the big deal? My teeth are just doing fine plus I have routine dentist check up as well, so i did break the rules a few times.

Went to a new dentist today, the new technology being used in the clinic was just amazing... the procedure was so different than my previous dentist, they took about two hours to finish my initial teeth evaluation visit. One of the procedure was to scoop the saliva underneath my gum just to see what kind of bacteria I have and to check my bacteria count. They placed it under a microscope that transferred the image to the TV that is right on top of my head. I looked up and yelled "what is that? eww.." All different kind of "sperm" looking type little thing were moving all around in that screen. "It's the bacteria" she said. She then showed me all different type of the bacteria that are "swimming" there, "here is your white blood cell, your body is fighting back with these bacteria."... Oh my god!  She then said "look at this bigger one that is not quite moving.... it's not bacteria, it is under an animal category"... Huh??? I have animal in my mouth? What the heck? It is supposed to be just a simple teeth cleaning dentist visit.. I just can't believed what I am looking at, will never imagine this without seeing it with my own eye.

So, glad to finally meet all these bacteria friends in my mouth, a real eye opening experience to me.. ya, a scary one. conclusion.... I will NEVER EVER pass my saliva to Skyler, will never share spoon, will never eat of a same plate...I just don't want those nasty little monster being passed along to him.

Please, please do the same. Do not ever share any utensil with your kids!

Personal Mushroom Pizza

This will be another great snack or side dish that is easy to make. Happy cooking!

Personal Mushroom Pizza

Ingredients:

Mushroom or large portabella mushroom caps

2 tsp Olive oil

1 8oz can tomato sauce

1clove garlic minced

1 tsp dried Italian seasoning

½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Cooking Instructions:

-          - Preheat oven to 400F, line baking pan with foil, brush lightly with olive oil, place the mushroom cap stem down and brush with olive oil and baked for 10 min.

-          - Meanwhile, in a small bowl stir together tomato sauce, garlic and the Italian seasoning. Drain off liquid from mushrooms, turn mushroom stem side up. Spoon sauce into mushroom caps and sprinkle with the mozzarella cheese. Bake for 10 minute or until the cheese melt.