From today’s New York Times:
Mom Puts Family on Her Meal Plan
> When my first son was little, I fed him puréed chunks of whatever my husband and I had for dinner. I congratulated myself when he showed a precocious affection for capers. The trick, I explained to friends who were amazed at his willingness to eat chopped broccolini, was to resist the child’s capricious demands for separate meals. Fortitude, I counseled.
> Then, of course, came No. 2.
> My second son has stubbornly adhered to a diet of mostly white foods for nearly six years: pasta, rice, cheese, bread, potatoes, chicken. He also eats red meat, baby carrots and chocolate. Recently, in what is being regarded as a green revolution, he has added edamame and string beans.
This seems to be one of those things that surprises every parent. It’s like lack of sleep: you know you’re going to lose sleep, but until you get there, you don’t really just how much sleep you’re going to lose, and you think about going on Wikipedia to learn about death from sleep-deprivation, except you are too tired to Wikipedia.
Similarly, I think we all know that our children are delivered with their own personalities, but it’s still wacky to see it in action. Kids are not play-dough. They’re not even really stiff refrigerator cookie dough. (Warning: uncharacteristic touchy-feely ahead.) They’re marble. Every marble sculpture is beautiful in its own way, right? But you can’t mod your sculpture without breaking it. Maybe you can throw a coat of paint on it for special occasions.
What was I talking about?
my mom always said she was glad she had two kids, because it made her realize she was nowhere near as smart, OR as stupid, as she had thought.
(you know, because everything that seemed easy-schmeezy and obvious with me did not work at ALL with my younger sister. and things that had seemed impossible with me were cakewalky with her. also, i was colicky, and my mom spent several weeks convinced something was Very Wrong with my sister, because she was so quiet. also, today is my sister’s birthday. :) )
Ahhh sleep. My 7month old has just started to sleep half decently.. waking up generally just once through the night for some grub. It was killing me.. he would wake every 2 hours.
Matthew is right, you just don’t expect this.. everyone tells you, but you think you know better. And yeah.. they are marble. They do what they want, and as soon as you realise that at this young age, you cannot change that much, the happier you are :D
Thankfully we were able to sort out Drake’s sleeping without letting him just cry it out.
That coat of paint only lasts so long too :D
Ahhh, the gilded age of toddlerhood. Yes, we do throw on a coat of gleem for the guests, but after that I just let him do his own thing. Good thing my son likes foods like hummus, edamame, sushi and other tasty things that usually do not require me to become a short order cook.
The picky eater – my second child (who’s older sister would try almost anything), didn’t throw me too much as I had an older brother who was picky. I grew up watching him push his food around his plate and pretend to eat it.
What really bugged me was all the people who seemed convinced that we were bad parents because he was picky and that if They were in charge he would learn to eat more things. They completely ignored the fact that he ate a variety of fruits and vegetables, as long as they were plain, and got his protein from dairy and peanut butter – his diet was probably healthier than a lot of adults I know. And I absolutely refused to make each mealtime a battlefield.
And yes, now that he’s 18 he eats a much wider variety of foods and is willing to sample many new things.