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Friday, July 23, 2010

My picky toddler - among other news

I have come to the conclusion that "toddler" must be Greek for "picky eater" - or at least Latin for "I'm going to ignore anything that looks healthy for at least the first 125 times you put it in front of me, then I may miraculously decide I like it".

In my great wisdom, I have also discovered that if you offer your toddler a food you don't want him to eat a whole lot of because it really isn't that healthy (think chicken nuggets, hotdogs, etc) it will quickly become his FAVORITE food. You know, the food you put on his tray dead LAST, so he'll have the motivation to at least pick at something remotely nutritious.

My toddler is offered a WIDE variety of foods. In general, I offer him everything we eat. He has a bit of an odd circumstance because he's dairy and soy intolerant, so I must be careful to assure his calcium/protein/calorie/fat needs are met without using cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, tofu, etc. This limits me a little, but not all that much.

My problem (the problem of EVERY toddler mother in the UNIVERSE, I'd bet) is that one day he'll eat his whole wheat bread drenched in olive oil (gotta get that fat!) and the next he'll turn his nose up to everything but pears. It comes to my attention that this child was WAY better nourished as a 7-month-old who would eat anything I fed him from a spoon. Not so any longer. Spoons have gone the way of bibs. Do you follow?

Take heed moms of smaller babes: get that balanced diet into them while you can, because I am here to tell you that these little people develop a WILL of their own. They also develop taste preferences and (more importantly in our case) texture preferences. They do things like put food in their mouthes, chew it, and then spit it out and hand it to you.

And that is the end of my picky toddler rant.

In other news, Levi and I visited the pediatrician for the umpteenth time this year. After a 3-day fever, Levi developed a spotty rash over his face, chest & back. To make matters worse, my temp is also sky-high. Poor hubby returned home last night (after having arrived at work that day at 3:00am, mind you) to two sickies with grumpy attitudes. our WONDERFUL pediatrician (actually, she's a PA, but I much prefer her to the docs at our practice) assured me he had a normal virus. Apparently some kids break out in spots when their fever breaks. The spots mean the virus is over, and no longer transmutable.

Great news for him. The rest of the household will be in a wait-and-see mode.

So, with a fever, and a recovering toddler, I shall be off to the grocery store this afternoon. Wish me luck.


1 comment:

Kelly Rae said...

ah yes, pears. I purposely saved some of my steak and green beans from dinner out last night thinking he would love my leftovers but he only wanted to eat canned pears.