The Daily Menu

Here is Claire's menu these days. This is actually handy just for myself as a quick reference when I feel like there's nothing for her to eat. Plus it's taken a while to work out a good eating plan, so I'd like to document this success.

Breakfast
Always starts with whole milk, and on alternating days one of...

• Whole wheat "baby" oatmeal
  
• Frozen whole wheat pancakes

She definitely prefers the "pancakecakes", as she calls them, and requests them often, even for dinner. It is often the first word out of her mouth in the morning.

Occasionally when I have time in the morning, I cook up a tomato/onion/pepper/cheese omelet instead, which she enjoys. (Hmm, I should try this sometimes for dinners to vary things up.)

She used to eat fruit in the mornings too, especially watermelon, but lately she is not so interested.

Lunch / Dinner
Start with a vegetable, which is pretty much down to one of:

• Sliced tomato (aka, a 'mato)
• Canned green beans
• Steamed brocolli (which she can actually say well and occasionally requests)
• Maybe black beans or black eyed peas
  

At either lunch or dinner, she gets 4 oz full fat yogurt or cottage cheese for the main course.

For the other meal of the day, she gets one of these for her entre:

• Frozen "Doctor Praeger's" broccoli or spinach and potato pancake
• Cheese ravioli or tortellini
• Sliced deli turkey
• Rice & beans
• A quesadilla, aka a "kadeeya!", such as a frozen one from Sam's Club, or a"Mini Me" quesadilla from Moe's if we're out. I have not perfected the homemade quesadilla yet.
  
• Random leftovers from our meals or eating out. If she's lucky it's beef brisket, pulled chicken, or something like that, ideally something with some fat and/or protein.

Then a fruit:

• A chopped up orange, which she usually likes
• A few strawberries, which she often requests as "strawburdy!"
• Grapes (sliced up to avoid choking!)
• Watermelon
• She's medium on most other "misc" fruit as everyday fare, but we have had some success with the occasional peach or pear.
• Bananas are completely avoided since they are constipating, although she knows what they are called and can say "banana" real well.
• Apples were on our no-eat list until recently, because one of Claire's doctors told me it was constipating too. That has since been rebuked by another doctor, so we might give them a try.
  

Finally, a bread:

• Usually a whole wheat pita
• Maybe some sort of grainy cracker
• Occasionally a tortilla or bagel
• A graham cracker if she's real lucky ("Cracker! Cracker!")