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E-mail Tracey Princiotta at tprinciot@lohud.com
OK, I feel a little bad posting this after those inspirational posts by Swapna and Hema, but I’m not going to wallow in mommy guilt!
We recently celebrated JD’s first birthday & what celebration is complete without cake! We were having a small family & friends BBQ so when the local bakery said it wanted $50 [...]
We’re coming up on a major milestone in our house this week—JD will be 1 tomorrow! And that means starting the transition from formula to milk. Our pediatrician’s office recommends making the transition over a couple of weeks, starting by mixing 3/4 of formula with 1/4 whole milk. As long as there aren’t any adverse [...]
Our 2-year-old niece was visiting from California with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law last month and it was fascinating to get a glimpse of what may be in store for us, especially when it comes to mealtime. Our niece is a petite little thing, currently she only weighs 2 more pounds than JD, who’s 10 [...]
One of the best and worst things about working as a journalist in a small, close-knit region like the Lower Hudson Valley is that you come in contact with representatives from many charitable organizations looking to raise awareness about their cause. Name a problem (affordable housing, hunger, health care and mental health issues, disaster relief, [...]
We took a giant step forward on the road to eating “real” solids last week when JD actually chewed the tiny piece of Gerber Graduates fruit Puff I gave him instead of choking on it. Since I had broken the star-shaped Puff into such small fragments, I had to place the pieces in his mouth [...]
JD was perfectly content to have me do all the heavy lifting at meal time until the past week or so. At first I efficiently dodged his attempts to grab for the spoon, but then I had a [...]
As a first-time mom, it’s amazing to think how much time you can spend talking about not only what goes into your child’s mouth, but what happens at the other end. From the very first days when the hospital sent us home with a sheet on which to record feedings and wet and soiled diapers, [...]
Randi’s post about encouraging her children to relieve their boredom in the kitchen got me thinking about food memories from my own youth. I’m not saying my mom was a bad cook, it’s just that her meals never went beyond the basics. To be fair, food and cooking didn’t have the rock-star status they do [...]
I have nobody else but myself to blame I suppose. While preparing JD’s lunch Sunday—barley cereal & organic sweet peas—I opened the container of peas and put it on the kitchen table. Then I went back to the counter to finish preparing the cereal. Less than a minute later, as I turned back to the [...]
It’s hard to believe but my little guy is 6 months old; time to start experimenting with baby food. Our pediatrician had raised the topic at the 4 1/2-month check-up, but I held off on starting solids until a few weeks ago for a couple of reasons. First, this is another reminder that he’s [...]
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As most parents soon discover, feeding a family is rarely that easy, whether its nursing a fussy newborn or trying to get a hot meal into a squirming toddler (or attempting both at the same time.) And that's not even the days when work runs late, the main course burns, or your adventurous little sushi eater announces from now on she will only eat food that is pink. As parents ourselves, we've been there, done that, even learned a few tricks along the way. And we're pretty sure so have you. Maybe together we can make eating together as a family -- gulp! -- fun again.     Hema Easley has been a reporter for The Journal News since July 2002, first covering municipal government and then nonprofit agencies, women's issues and the South Asian and Muslim community in the Lower Hudson Valley. In her previous job, Hema was a correspondent for the Associated Press in South Asia. She lives with her husband and two sons in Orange County. Katie Ryan O'Connor, a Journal News editor and 35-year-old mother of three, never quite appreciated the work that went into feeding kids until she had to do it herself as a mother. If she had a food-and-kids philosophy it would be something like this: try your best to offer as much healthy food as possible, but sometimes fruits just have to be counted as vegetables and there are far worse things than chicken and spaghetti. Again. Tracey Princiotta, a 37-year-old mother of one, loves to cook, bake and eat, and is relieved that her son appears to be equally willing to chow down -- even if it's baby food and formula right now. Despite her husband's intense aversion to vegetables, she has high hopes of nurturing a true chowhound who will try everything at least once. And if all else fails, she's not above sneaking veggies into other foods. Marcela Rojas has been a municipal reporter with The Journal News since January 2003. She is a native of Putnam County and grew up eating Peruvian food. She didn't realize until she was 13 that rice did not come with everyone's meal. After several years of living in Los Angeles -- where she grew a fondness for Thai food -- she returned to Putnam County where she now lives with her husband and daughter. Zyla (rhymes with Lilah) just turned 1 in March and, so far (her mother is pleased to note), loves to eat everything. Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, a Journal News reporter, started her career as a journalist in 1999 after graduating with a master's degree from New York University. Before joining the paper in 2006, Swapna worked as a municipal reporter for the Home News Tribune in New Jersey, and took a baby sabbatical to care for her two children, now ages 7 and 5. She has currently outsourced feeding her children and husband to her mother, who is visiting from India. Her friend and colleague Katie O'Connor, informs Swapna that she wouldn't mind being fed Indian food by her mother, too.
 Amy Vernon, a 39-year-old mother of two was fortunate that she, her husband and sons lived with her mother-in-law for the formative years of the little guys' lives. Now, even though she has her own home, she instilled a love of oatmeal in the boys. And whenever she's in town, she helps make sure the guys are well-fed. Randi Weiner has been a reporter with The Journal News since 1989, having covered police, government and schools in Westchester and in Rockland. An Ohio native and 1976 graduate of Bowling Green State University, she worked for daily newspapers in Ohio and Michigan before moving east. She has tended bar and danced in a beledi troup and sat on the boards of two community theaters. She plays mandolin with the Shamrogues, ConnecticutÕs largest Irish band. Randi lives in Connecticut with her husband and has three children. |
Copyright ©2007 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties in New York.
