We escalate tizzies a lot. My neurons shoot off in ways that get me dizzy. I seriously feel motion sickness at times trying to tend to all the sweet little boys in my life. Imagine you are a pinball and the pinball wizard is playing a marathon; that's me, the ball. I've mentioned this before, but dinnertime is typically the height of craze. It would help if Sira ate dinner.
You know, this kid hates everything and after breakfast, during which he eats like a horse, he has little interest in food the remainder of day. This is the one area where Bereket doesn't follow Sira. Sira rejects new foods. He rejects vegetables. He even smells food first. I mean, it's pretty funny, smelling your food out of sheer suspicion before trying, I mean rejecting, it. It's a kid thing, I guess.
His short list of likes include (I mean beyond sugary delights): milk, peanut butter and jelly, toast, eggs with ketchup (or just ketchup but organic only . . . the o-word makes me feel a little better about it), cereal, oatmeal, pancakes, yogurt, apple sauce, pears, and that's about it. Huh, just noticed, mostly breakfast food. Baby food. Not a foody. Somedays pizza, pasta (only whole wheat rigatoni), and tostados/tacos/burritos (simply beans and tortillas, never cheese or sauce) . . . but not consistently (no pasta right now). What kid doesn't like cheese, or mac n cheese? Mine!
Anyway, back to our neurons. I am about to reveal a heaven-sent secret that calms our firing storm. A trick I stole from a 5 year old girl on the Internet: deep cleansing breaths. Yeah, not rocket science. Not pop psychology or heavily intellectual. At the height of chaos or upset, we huddle as I announce, time for deep cleansing breaths! And this is how it goes . . . in your best slow calm preschool teacher voice . . .
Everybody! Close your eyes! Think of something nice . . . the park, birthday parties, kisses, the dogs, trikes, the river, the sun on your face . . . now close your eyes, breath in and count to 3, and phhhhhhew, blow it out slowly. OK, one more time . . .
And poof, magic, the sea is calm. For 5 minutes anyway. Ewwww, try it!
7 comments:
I too have a 3 year old who doesn't eat macaroni and cheese. Sometimes he'll eat noodles, but not always. He'll eat lo mein though. He's picky in a totally atypical pattern for a kid. (What kid eats salmon with chili and lime but not mac and cheese?) Nice to know he's part of a select group!
Pickiness during toddlerhood is an evolutionary advantage. Once they are walking (i.e. moving away from their mothers) they get picky and avoid meat (most likely thing to be contaminated with bacteria) and vegatables (most likely to contain toxins)...which leaves grains, fruit, and dairy, mainstays of toddler diets everywhere! Their tastebuds mature around age 6, which not-so-coincidentally is also when their immune systems are up and running. I am relating this to you because it is my justification for not stressing about what my daughter does and doesn't eat. From an evolutionary perspective it is advantageous for toddlers to self-limit their diets, so they don't eat random stuff they find. Just keep offering healthy choices and eventually they will eat them. Eventually. If my theory holds. Until then I'm keeping my fingers crossed. ;)
For awhile all the triplets' Uncle Brian would eat was peanut butter sandwiches. His grandma was highly offended when she put on a Thanksgiving spread and he said "Granny, don't you have any peanut butter?" - he was 3, same age as Sira!
my five year old daughter won't eat mac-n-cheese either. and most pizza. she wouldn't ever dream of even TRYING ketchup...if hillary's theory holds maybe things will make a turn for the better in the next few months? fingers crossed.
and deep breathing--good for tots, good for their mamas!!
Perhaps this will make you feel better. I have 3 boys too -- ages 3, 4, and 5. The 5 year-old is the WORST. His diet is: most breakfast food, sans eggs, PB&J, quesadillas, grilled cheese (sometimes), chicken nuggets (under duress), pureed baby sweet potatoes and/or carrots, bananas, grapes, apples, and sometimes peaches. That's it. If you put a bowl of mac & cheese in front of him, he'll throw up in it! There's a reason I don't cook.
My daughter doesn't like cheese either. I wonder what the evolutionary advantage to ketchup is?
I know you're joking but I can't help answering: it's salty and sweet. Salt, sugars, and fats are the things most difficult to procure in a natural environment (and necessary for health). Really those potato chip manufacturers have an unfair advantage when they are marketing to us because we are programmed to overeat those things when they are available to us. I suspect that's why toddlers like PB&J so much, as it's the perfect combo of salt/sweet/fat.
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