That’s Yucky, Mom!

I used to think that I was a reasonably good cook. Not quite Martha Stewart (okay so actually nowhere close to Martha Stewart), but good enough to elicit praise from my husband and guests.

Enter two little bundles of joy into our lives. (Not twins, they came separately, two years apart.) And then – you may have heard this adage -“life as we knew it was over.” You may have heard this one as well – “Here I am: feed me!”

Oh – I had wonderful visions of how healthy my children’s diets would be! I bought books and magazines filled with knowledge on how to raise healthy happy children. I would nurse my babies for a whole year, feed them homemade baby food, and then move on to healthy table food and snacks. My daughters may have inherited my genes, but I was determined that they would not have to inherit my jean size. Nature vs. nurture and all that.

I should have foreseen the conflict to come when the first bundle of joy, at the age of about a half hour, decided that she was not going to be nursing, thank you very much! I was determined, and almost as stubborn as she was. I spent literally hours trying to get this child to latch on. Finally after 10 days, our paediatrician told me that nursing is the best choice, but that this child was dehydrated and needed to be fed. That was the first of many battles over food in our home.

When Munchkinette Number The First One was nine months old, she went on another hunger strike to protest my attempt to feed her chicken. For the next month, she ate nothing but Cheerios. I guess she must have thought it was a pretty safe bet that Mommy couldn’t hide chicken in those crunchy O’s. This time, the paediatrician pinched our baby’s chubby little leg, and assured me that this was not a malnourished baby, and that she would eat vegetables again when she was ready. The month of Cheerios was followed by about six months of eating only foods mixed with yogourt. I envisioned another 18 or so years of mealtime grumbling and conflict.

Munchkinette Number The Other One started off much more cooperatively. She would gladly nurse 24/7. I weaned her after her first birthday (actually I was admitted to the hospital with a nasty case of gall stones on her first birthday, so Grandma had to deal with the weaning process- but that’s another story for another day.) For the first couple of years, this child ate what I fed her. Her first table food was tuna noodle casserole, which she ate happily. I envisioned another 18 or so years of pleasant mealtimes with this one.