The Gravy Train

truckin' through dinner

An average dinner for the Gravy Baby, consisting of broccoli, turkey meatballs with gnocchi, watermelon, plums and mandarin oranges

UPDATE: Tara C. is the winner of this week's Din Din Stainless Steel Platter giveaway!  Congrats, Tara!

I've spouted quite a bit these days about my love of organization, and that's due in no small part to the demands that a busy working schedule and a very active toddler place on making it through the day.   The hubby and I are still trying to figure out how to balance everything, and we're realizing that staying on top of things takes more planning than ever.

As a result, I've fallen in love with all sorts of products that take out guesswork so that I can spend more time hugging on the Gravy Baby (one day, ten or eleven years from now, he will tell me that he's embarrassed by my hugging and wipe away a kiss, and you will probably hear the sound of my heart shattering from hundreds of miles away, such is the level of how much I relish being able to cuddle my little one right now). One of my top favorites right now is the Din Din Smart Stainless Divided Platter by Innobaby.  

The folks at Innobaby were kind enough to send me one to test out, and when it first arrived, the hubby made some joke about finding a matching tin cup that the Gravy Baby could bang against the rails of his crib when prison livin' gets too tough.  After he saw how quickly and easily I could arrange all of the Gravy Baby's food on a single plate, though, he was hooked.  For those of you who might be scratching your heads a bit because your little ones either aren't eating table food yet or because you don't have kids, let me clue you in on one thing: toddlers are messy folks.  I have found the remains of day-old Cheerios and crusty bites of grilled salmon in places around our house where no food has ever been consumed.  To avoid catastrophic messes that take us hours to clean, we dole out the Gravy Baby's dinner to him, bit by bit, spread out over multiple plates.  Think of it as the culinary equivalent of a multiple-course omakase tasting menu, except that I'm not making any foams or gelees.  

Innobaby's stainless steel bentos are double-walled for keeping food warm

Anyway, we've marveled at the end of every day at how full our dishwasher is, and that's due in part to the fact that the Gravy Baby smears everything all over himself and his immediate environs, and using multiple plates is far easier than having to scrub smeared, dried food off of a 4-foot area.   With this smart, cute divided platter, we're now able to serve the Gravy Baby at once, and I don't have to sit at the dinner table with a cutting board instead of my own plate, doling out bits and pieces at a time.

If there's anything leftover, we're also using BPA-free stainless bento boxes, like the one pictured above, for storage.  I've become hypersenstive to this whole BPA thing ever since this story came out.  Yes, I am a neurotic mom.  Isn't that my main job these days?

For more products by Innobaby, click here.  You can also like Innobaby on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

Update: The folks at Innobaby have graciously decided to give a Din Din Platter to one lucky Gravy Train Blog reader!  Details on how to enter, after the jump.

sponsored post: little pim language dvds

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it before, but the hubby and I are raising the Gravy Baby in a bilingual household.  I'm trying to speak Mandarin Chinese exclusively to him while the hubby stays true to English, which means that most of the time I find myself sounding exactly like my mother.   No seriously.  I've even adopted her mixed-up Chinglish terms, like, "Shi bu shi yummy?," which means "Is it yummy?" The Gravy Baby is going to grow up one confused little Chinese-American, just like I did.  The legacy continues.

Anyway, to help supplement the constant mental flexing I'm doing by switching back and forth between English and Chinese, I recently discovered Little Pim, an educational DVD series focused on teaching various languages to babies, toddlers and young children.  Little Pim graciously sent me a copy of their "Wake Up Smiling" DVD, which really, I mean, those are words to live by, no?  The DVD featured an adorable Chinese-speaking panda bear and a constant, soothing repetition of basic words and phrases.  I found the DVD to be a godsend, especially because the Gravy Baby was transfixed by it and I was able to fold some laundry without him trying to cannonball-dive into my neat little piles, like he usually does.  The Gravy Baby learns, we have clean clothes. and I get help trying to instill a little Chinese into him.  Everybody wins!

Little Pim has extended their kindness to you, devoted Gravyheads, should you decide that a calming yet instructional language DVD is up your alley.  Visit their website to pick out your language DVDs of choice and enter the promo code PIMMOMMY at the checkout to receive a 15% discount off all of their products.  

That way, I won't be the only Tiger Mom out there.  Right?  Right?