Fickle Eating

A friend recently posted on Facebook, "Instead of beating my head against the wall, I am going to take comfort in the assumption that a lot of you likely have tales of your children miraculously thriving on graham crackers and air. Please tell me I'm right." She had plenty of comments reassuring her of successful children living on air and graham crackers. I nodded my head, and couldn't forget the statement. Beating heads because of food woes is such a temptation!

I am thrilled to say that Jackson has moved on from his water and cheerio only phase, and it's like breathing fresh air. Independent play and less food-pickiness has just lightened my mother-load significantly this year. I disclose that he is still plenty picky, but some days he'll eat a solid 5 fruits/vegetables. We had baked potatoes last week, and he popped the peel in his mouth and exclaimed "Yum, yum, YUM!" I tried not to drop my jaw. 

Last week at our joy school/collaborative preschool, I taught the book "1 2 3 Peas." Our snack was just various versions of peas: green, snow, and dried Trader Joe's "Inner Peas." Every kid there ate an entire bowl of green peas. I again avoided the jaw drop as I dutifully gave them 3rd and 4th helpings.

I write and recall all this to remind myself that someday, Allie will be a more consistent, less picky eater even though it will likely get worse before it gets better. Most days I remember this, and I don't get flustered with her fickle eating patterns. But it is so tempting to beat my head against the wall when Queen A refuses foods that she loved last week, and doesn't seem to eat anything at all! I suppose it's especially frustrating because it has to be dairy free and toddler friendly food--fresh enough to digest well. BAAAH! [You can see her snarfing the peas in the above picture--she seems to either love eating them or love throwing them... so consistent].

As I think and moan about this, I am completely humbled by having this as a thorn in my life. I'm reading "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" right now, where the young girl, Francie, is always hungry, and will eat almost anything even if she doesn't like it. The book (written about the early 1900s) coupled with the devastation in the Philippians, reminds me to feel a huge sense of gratitude to have more than enough food for my children to eat--even if they choose not to eat it.


And on that note, I shall start looking up delicious recipes for Thankgiving!

Morphing Hats

A full life requires us all to wear a number of different hats. The repair[wo]man, the philosopher, the politician, the hand and mouth cleaner, the corner scrubber, the musician, the cook and of course the parent, spouse and friend are just a few that rotate through my life currently. Balancing these hats creates such variety and color in life.

My parents came to visit a couple of weekends ago, and it was interesting to reflect on the shifting of their hats. Their hats are still similar from my childhood, but age, energy, and a childless house have morphed, added to, and taken away some of the hats. The book club hat was certainly not around in my youth, and the kitchen counter therapist hat has morphed into the long distant therapist. Judging by the weekend, and past experiences, the Grandparent hat is one they adore and wish they could wear more often.

Who can hardly blame them, with this personality-filled girl walking around?

And this resident wearer of T-shirts and shorts amid 40 degree weather jumping up and down?

We all wore the tourist hat for the weekend, visiting museums and gorgeous fall gardens.

(Bonsai trees--not pictured--in the autumn at the Nat'l Arboretum! So cool.)

Amidst the touring and lounging, Grandpa let us all try on his skin-cancer avoiding hat,

Though we wore it in different ways,

I think we appreciated the classy fedora way of avoiding skin cancer.

I'm excited to see the continued morphing of hats in our lives--bring on fedoras!

And to watch a morphing timeline of dance hats, here are 2 videos of the same song, Allie (14 mo) and Jackson just a couple weeks ago, and an old Jackson classic (when he was 14 mo).