Mar
13
I am greatly entertained by Dylan lately as he barrels his way through the unstable and ridiculous waters of being three. He is so con brio about everything, exploding with top-volume declarations about whatever activity is at hand, no matter how banal.
We were making our way through an overstuffed hardware store yesterday and he stopped in the aisle, turned to face me, and announced that “Mom! Mom! Dis is blowing my mind. Is it blowing your mind too Mom? Mom? IS DIS BLOWING YOUR MIND?”
(Cue twenty nearby shoppers, turning with interest to see if a selection of painter’s tape was, in fact, blowing my mind.)
While babies are often slobberingly intense in their google-eyed observances, life for toddlers is like an endless Phish concert full of happy nonsense songs, billowing clouds of sparkly smoke, and the occasional really bad trip. Dylan will spend his entire day burbling and chirping like a contented coffeemaker and talking about raccoons and helicopters and raccoons flying helicopters or whatever scenario is playing out in the bizarro landscape of his mind, then suddenly—kaboom, the clouds gather, the sky darkens, and ALL IS WOE.
As was the case last night when JB asked Dylan to pick up the 38491 wooden blocks he’d dumped on the carpet. In an emotional whiplash hairpin turn normally reserved for schizophrenics in need of heavy medication, Dylan launched into what appeared to be the tragic final death scene in a particularly harrowing opera.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” he intoned piteously and continuously as he bent over his unbearable task, a mournful wolf with an interminable supply of oxygen.
Five minutes later he was doing his signature Running Man dance while shouting “IT’S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME NOW DERE YOU GO DERE YOU GO PEANUT BUTTER JELLY WID A BASEBALL BAT!”
(Why. Why did I ever let him see this.)
There are times when I think three is going to kill us all. Or maybe, more honestly, it’s that I’m occasionally not positive he’s going to survive being three. (For instance, the day he used a dry erase marker to draw on the wall right in front of me, then turned and smiled beatifically while saying, “Goddammit, right Mom?”)
Most of the time, though, I think, oh, this is my very favorite age of all.
(Except for five, maybe. Three and five is a pretty good place to be.)
Mar
8
I recently published (over at CafeMom’s The Stir) what I intended to be a lighthearted, silly article on being unable to resist my kids’ leftover food items, but it turns out there are quite a few people utterly horrified by the idea of children eating things like macaroni and cheese or Goldfish crackers.
Perhaps my favorite comment from the lot was from the disapproving finger-wag who said “WAFFLES ARE NOT A SNACK,” which I find especially entertaining because O RLY?
The topic of food has surely become a charged topic in recent years, hasn’t it? My post was hyperbolic and not meant to be an actual detailed menu of what my children eat every day, but it seems clear there there are certain things you simply shouldn’t confess to unless you want to be accused of “contributing to the obesity epidemic.”
(Lord. I don’t even know where to get started with that, but perhaps we could begin with my boys’ protruding ribs and visible spinal columns?)
Both of my kids were relatively omnivorous eaters until they hit the toddler stage, and then . . . not so much. They currently live on fish sticks, chicken nuggets, peanut butter sandwiches, yogurt, waffles (!), cereal, cheese crackers, and noodles. Riley will eat fruit, Dylan won’t. I give them vitamins and hope for the best.
We used to actively fight against this picky behavior. We have had some epic, tear-soaked, absolutely horrible battles about food, and I won’t do it any more. I will not ruin everyone’s evening by getting into a pissing match with a stubborn kid over something he refuses to try, nor am I willing to forgo their meal altogether in the name of my own nutrition goals. I fix what I am pretty sure they’ll eat, I try to continually offer other stuff, and if someone eats two entire bites of dinner then announces that they’re done, I don’t feel bad about giving them a bowl of Cheerios later in the evening.
I sure wish they were more adventurous eaters but if this is the worst problem we’ve got to deal with, goddamn, I’ll take it. I have every faith they’ll eventually grow into ravenous teenagers who empty the fridge on a regular basis. In the meantime, I want to feed them. I want them to eat. I want them to grow and thrive and fill in their forever-baggy waistlines.
So, yeah, in our house waffles are a snack. I would feed them waffles all day long if that’s what it took to fill their bellies. Why would anyone assume this is because I’m lazy, or haven’t tried other things?
It reminds me of how secretly, crappily judge-y I was about kids sleeping through the night when Riley was a baby. Since he had no sleep problems, I thought it was actually because of something we did. Why, all these people bitching about their non-sleeping kids should just, like, stop doing it wrong. Then we had Dylan, and whoah, you know what makes a delicious, nutritious meal? HUMBLE PIE.
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