And by the animals, I mean my kids. And by feed, I mean get them to eat anything more than what I can get them to eat. Which is pretty much just Cheez-Its.
For example, we had an event worth celebrating the other night. Andrew ate a hot dog. In a bun. The whole thing. This should not even be a milestone. They're not even healthy. I can hear you thinking, "So, you're celebrating your kid's willingness to ingest nasty processed meat in a tube?" Yes. Yes, we are. Because life from May to October, also known as High Cookout Season, just got infinitely easier.
The parade date and time in honor of this momentous hot dog consumption will be announced shortly.
This is the exact grapefruit I dared force upon our children the other night. Three tiny wedges each. They choked it down, tears streaming down their angelic cheeks from the sheer injustice of it all. Sweet, sweet victory was mine.
To be quite honest, not one of our boys is a great eater. If I had to award the Least Frustrating to Feed trophy, it would go to Mason, our four-year-old food pioneer. But even he is unpredictable.
He will eat salad. He craves carrots. I can give him most "normal" things: spaghetti and meatballs, hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken...He does not have a sweet tooth per se. And as a serious devotee to the cupcake and all things chocolate, this honestly confuses me. He refused the cookie I offered him the other day. He requested a piece of bread. Plain bread. Which he happily stuffed into his mouth while (quite literally) humming a happy tune.
Lest you think he's an easy kid to feed, I give to you The Great Zucchini Incident of '13. The major deal breaker for him is, as the title would indicate, zucchini. He makes a food judgement call based on sight, not on taste. On the fateful day of the G.Z.I., he decided that zucchini looked disgusting. Being an evil mother intent on ruining their lives, I forced him to try it anyway. He swallowed that zucchini, gagged in supreme fashion, and then proceeded to deposit it all over my kitchen floor. Now, maybe I hadn't slept well the night before. Maybe I had just washed the floor. I don't exactly know the reason behind what happened next. But in the quickest of flashes, my disgust at the puke fused with my anger at the idiocy of it all, resulting in an angry mommy super storm. The boys reference this day as the benchmark of how bad another situation might be. So far, the only event to rate worse was the incident known as The Day Daddy Discovered the Cracked TV. I think Mason would willingly eat an entire patch of zucchini to erase that fiasco.
Next in line for the trophy would be little Oliver, who recently hit that typical food rejection stage of an 18 month old. But that's not even the part that gets me. Sir Oliver, it would seem, is a food thrower. He is not yet talking all that much, so this is how he expresses his opinion. If his food is desirable, he eats it. If his food is undesirable, he throws it. It is not awesome. If this phase does not pass, he has to go.
And then we get to the big winner. The kid who would make any nutritionist shudder and who stymies the pediatrician by being quite healthy and robust in spite of his refusal to consume most everything. But grow he does, so worry we do not.
Andrew eats from his self-designed four food groups: peanut butter, cereal, bananas and pasta. (A mandatory pasta guideline to follow: orzo or pastina require butter and American cheese; any additional pasta types require a liberal slathering of ketchup. There are no exceptions.) Beyond this, he would prefer to live firmly within his four other food groups: dessert, Cheez-Its, pizza and Fritos. I am at a loss in terms of what to send in for his school lunches.
Seeking help in this department, I took to the Internet. Where I found the "other moms." These mystical women were referencing homemade rollups using avocado instead of mayo so as to avoid undesirable fat, which was sent to school inside their preferred brand of
bento box. As if there were any doubt, I can now officially say that I am not one of these "other moms," as I legitimately had to google what the hell a bento box is. Because as it turns out, peanut butter crackers fit just fine into a sandwich baggie. I am now in the process of composing an ad for craigslist, which will be cross-listed in every Facebook forum available. It will read:
ISO one mystical mom creature. Abilities must include making first grade boy eat balanced lunch from magic bento box. Must also be able to identify aforementioned bento box sans Google.
Until then, I shall continue to send in three (3) peanut butter crackers, one (1) Dannon yogurt smoothie, strawberry or kiwi only, one (1) juice box, apple juice only, and one (1) package of fruit snacks. Which may or may not contain actual fruit. (Let's be honest. There is a .07% chance that they do.) All of this will be stuffed into a frayed-yet-well-loved Boston Red Sox lunch box of the non-bento variety.
I know they will outgrow this nonsense. One of these days they will get married, and it will be time to pass these intriguing creatures on to someone else. And since forewarned is forearmed, as they say, allow me this minute to prepare their future brides for the dinner portion of their nuptial day.
Mason will need a groom's cake. It will need to be constructed entirely out of plain bread. Crustless, as it is his day after all.
Oliver will need to pay extra for an award-winning pastry chef. It is the only way to ensure that four tiers of deliciousness do not find their way airborne to the middle of the dance floor. Where his frat brothers will likely eat it anyway.
And Andrew? This is the one day he will have free license to eat as much damn cake as he pleases.
And if he doesn't want to eat it out of a bento box, then so be it.
Bon appétit, boys.
