Easy Like Sunday Morning
Early in the afternoon yesterday, we were all relaxing in the living room. I held Ian, Ellie held Tory, and Abbie was playing nicely between us. It was a briefly idyllic scene, the kind parents dream of experiencing on Sunday afternoons; the weekend’s chores were done, and our family had nothing to do but relax and gear up for another workweek on Monday. Except that I work seven days a week, Ellie was gearing up for a 12-hour shift starting in less than an hour, and we still had a pile of laundry to take care of starting with the approximately 3,510,546,068 articles of outgrown clothing sitting in our living room waiting for somebody to sort and store them in the basement. Other than that, life was perfect.
Abbie was finishing lunch. Her regular lunch is milk, yogurt, and a big pile of steamed vegetables. Lately I’ve been adding Tasteeos to the end of her lunch because she’s been acting hungry. Or possibly I’m just assuming she must be hungry after she offers most of her lunch to the dog, including handfuls of yogurt and milk straight from the sippy cup. Either way, I give her the entire box of Tasteeos and let her graze. I’d rather give her a small dish filled with Tasteeos due to the potential for box dumping, but she only eats Tasteeos that she pulls fresh from the box. Any Tasteeos given to her in a cup just wind up in the dog’s mouth, either directly from Abbie’s outstretched hand, or off the floor after she flips her dish upside-down.
After eating a few Tasteeos, she started offering cereal to us. Offering her food to others is one of her favorite activities; she’ll grasp the food in her fingers and hold it out for us to take in our mouths. When she does this to me, I’ll lean in close and pretend to eat it while making a “num num num” sound. My goal is to encourage her to eat her food by thinking it must be really tasty if daddy is so enthusiastically. Sometimes she rewards me by inserting the formerly offered food in her mouth and making an “mmm” sound. Sometimes the dog gets the formerly offered food.
After she offered Tasteeos to Ellie and me, she offered some to Tory, which Ellie let him try. I was reluctant to let them eat real cereal since they’ve only been eating solids for a couple weeks now and I’m still putting applesauce through the blender before giving it to them. Then I remembered that Abbie was about their age when she started eating Tasteeos, so I figured what’s the worst that could happen?
Not much happened with Tory’s Tasteeo. He gummed it for a minute before it worked its way out of his mouth. Abbie then inserted a Tasteeo in Ian’s mouth. I watched him closely for a few seconds before sitting him on my knee facing Ellie. I couldn’t see his face, but Ellie could, and a minute later she saw he was about to gag. She told me to remove it, and I dutifully turned him a bit to the side to get a good look at his mouth.
Suddenly half of his lunch came spewing out of his mouth and mostly onto my pants. He had eaten peaches an hour ago, and the spillage had their distinctive orange hue. I made sure to point out the Tasteeo that also emerged from his mouth as I wasn’t sure Ellie could see it through the tears in her eyes from laughing so hard.
Abbie, always willing to help, put down her cereal box, grabbed a burp cloth, and started dabbing at the orange tankage. I thanked her for her efforts, but it was too late to save my pants. Fortunately I still had laundry to do.
Abbie was finishing lunch. Her regular lunch is milk, yogurt, and a big pile of steamed vegetables. Lately I’ve been adding Tasteeos to the end of her lunch because she’s been acting hungry. Or possibly I’m just assuming she must be hungry after she offers most of her lunch to the dog, including handfuls of yogurt and milk straight from the sippy cup. Either way, I give her the entire box of Tasteeos and let her graze. I’d rather give her a small dish filled with Tasteeos due to the potential for box dumping, but she only eats Tasteeos that she pulls fresh from the box. Any Tasteeos given to her in a cup just wind up in the dog’s mouth, either directly from Abbie’s outstretched hand, or off the floor after she flips her dish upside-down.
After eating a few Tasteeos, she started offering cereal to us. Offering her food to others is one of her favorite activities; she’ll grasp the food in her fingers and hold it out for us to take in our mouths. When she does this to me, I’ll lean in close and pretend to eat it while making a “num num num” sound. My goal is to encourage her to eat her food by thinking it must be really tasty if daddy is so enthusiastically. Sometimes she rewards me by inserting the formerly offered food in her mouth and making an “mmm” sound. Sometimes the dog gets the formerly offered food.
After she offered Tasteeos to Ellie and me, she offered some to Tory, which Ellie let him try. I was reluctant to let them eat real cereal since they’ve only been eating solids for a couple weeks now and I’m still putting applesauce through the blender before giving it to them. Then I remembered that Abbie was about their age when she started eating Tasteeos, so I figured what’s the worst that could happen?
Not much happened with Tory’s Tasteeo. He gummed it for a minute before it worked its way out of his mouth. Abbie then inserted a Tasteeo in Ian’s mouth. I watched him closely for a few seconds before sitting him on my knee facing Ellie. I couldn’t see his face, but Ellie could, and a minute later she saw he was about to gag. She told me to remove it, and I dutifully turned him a bit to the side to get a good look at his mouth.
Suddenly half of his lunch came spewing out of his mouth and mostly onto my pants. He had eaten peaches an hour ago, and the spillage had their distinctive orange hue. I made sure to point out the Tasteeo that also emerged from his mouth as I wasn’t sure Ellie could see it through the tears in her eyes from laughing so hard.
Abbie, always willing to help, put down her cereal box, grabbed a burp cloth, and started dabbing at the orange tankage. I thanked her for her efforts, but it was too late to save my pants. Fortunately I still had laundry to do.
posted by Matt at
11:44 PM
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