I guess I was counting my chickens a little bit with the whole 'Reid's become a good eater' thing. Tonight, Reid completely ignored a delicious meal I prepared, one which he had actually eaten like a champ about a week ago. Everything about it was deliciously prepared, and Reid destroyed it and ignored me entirely.

I made some strategic mistakes, of course. Last time, I cooked rice with golden raisins and seasoned the chicken with a delectable smoky pineapple sauce I found in our fridge. Reid tossed around the rice a little, but his primary mission was rooting out the raisins while I inserted chicken into his mouth, leading to his eventual consumption of a whole chicken breast. I judged the overall amount of rice rossed about the kitchen table as "acceptable."

This time, I was out of speedy rice. Everything about preparing food for Reid comes back to the need for speed. His hunger had snuck up on me, so I needed a super-speedy starch to go with my rapidly thawing microwave chicken. There's only one solution: cous cous.

Of course, Reid's level of destruction with something so much more granular than rice as cous cous was incalculable. There was cous cous everywhere. And the chicken. Oh, the chicken. So tragic. In the end, Reid essentially ate nothing, and I didn't get that much in either.

Apropos of nothing, here's a picture of Reid grimacing in his car seat. This weekend, Reid and I took a disastrous car trip wherein we tried to go Christmas shopping and failed. Reid fell asleep in his seat (moments after this photo was taken, actually), and when I arrived at Northern Virginia's favorite megamall, I was unable to find a parking space. Of course, I didn't have the right stroller (it's advantageous to have the full-size model to facilitate sleep-shopping, something I'd like to be able to do from time to time). Disappointed and not completely convinced that there wasn't some providential intervention involved, I drove on, eventually just giving the boy a huge nap in the car before heading over to a toy store for some distracting while daddy sipped his coffee.

I think we're buying K's gift online this year.