Look Who's Not Coming to Eat Dinner
The great thing about spoon-feeding twins is that if one child doesn’t want his food, there’s always another one to feed it to. When my spoon meets baby lips that are sealed tighter than my limits on Abbie’s countertop cavorting adventures, I move the spoon to his brother and usually find an open mouth.
Their roles have recently flipped. When we started the spoon-feeding adventures, Ian was reluctant to try new things, while Tory was appreciative of anything we put in his mouth. Now Ian has decided that nothing on a spoon could be bad, while Tory has realized that there are better things to shove in his mouth than broccoli, such as newspapers, sticks, and whatever that ground up substance is under the tire swing.
Usually I just have to give Ian a few bites of Tory’s food, and he’ll open his mouth again for at least a few more bites. Perhaps he realizes that even eating peas is better than nothing, or maybe he’s already hit the mentality of “no fair, I get whatever he/she/the dog gets.” Regardless of the reason, I shovel it in while he’s still willing to accept it, moving faster than Mark Prior to the DL.
Sometimes I need to take more drastic measures to coax his mouth open. When Abbie was their age, whenever I needed to coax her into accepting something supposedly edible, I’d smile at her, open my mouth wide, and say “ahh.” It could take her a few seconds, but she’d soon smile and open wide too, possibly not realizing that her reward for playing the game was a mouthful of spinach.
I tried the same tactic with Tory yesterday, looking him straight in the eye and announcing “ahh.” His lips stayed sealed, though, and instead of hearing the magic word in front of me, I heard it through a satellite speaker. Ian was playing along with our game. I turned my head to see Ian with a big grin, an open mouth, and a vocalization passing through his lips. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but I gave him Tory’s spoonful and cheered Ian’s participation, hoping that someone else was paying attention and would join in the mimicry game.
Sure enough, someone was paying attention. Abbie cheered with me, clapping and raising her hands in celebration of Ian’s spot-on daddy impression. Tory was still giving me a stiff lower lip, though. I shrugged and deposited the spoon in Ian’s open maw. I readied another spoonful, announced its presence for Tory, and watched him continue sucking his upper lip in tight. After another deposit into Ian’s mouth, Tory decided to accept the next spoonful. He opened wide and rediscovered the glorious symphony of taste and texture that is pureed spinach and slow-simmered chicken thinned out with a touch of chilled formula.
By the next spoonful, Tory remembered why he didn’t want to eat. He saved room for the dessert that is a bottle of formula and kept his mouth shut for a few more spoonfuls. That was okay since Ian still wanted more, especially with Abbie cheering him on.
Their roles have recently flipped. When we started the spoon-feeding adventures, Ian was reluctant to try new things, while Tory was appreciative of anything we put in his mouth. Now Ian has decided that nothing on a spoon could be bad, while Tory has realized that there are better things to shove in his mouth than broccoli, such as newspapers, sticks, and whatever that ground up substance is under the tire swing.
Usually I just have to give Ian a few bites of Tory’s food, and he’ll open his mouth again for at least a few more bites. Perhaps he realizes that even eating peas is better than nothing, or maybe he’s already hit the mentality of “no fair, I get whatever he/she/the dog gets.” Regardless of the reason, I shovel it in while he’s still willing to accept it, moving faster than Mark Prior to the DL.
Sometimes I need to take more drastic measures to coax his mouth open. When Abbie was their age, whenever I needed to coax her into accepting something supposedly edible, I’d smile at her, open my mouth wide, and say “ahh.” It could take her a few seconds, but she’d soon smile and open wide too, possibly not realizing that her reward for playing the game was a mouthful of spinach.
I tried the same tactic with Tory yesterday, looking him straight in the eye and announcing “ahh.” His lips stayed sealed, though, and instead of hearing the magic word in front of me, I heard it through a satellite speaker. Ian was playing along with our game. I turned my head to see Ian with a big grin, an open mouth, and a vocalization passing through his lips. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but I gave him Tory’s spoonful and cheered Ian’s participation, hoping that someone else was paying attention and would join in the mimicry game.
Sure enough, someone was paying attention. Abbie cheered with me, clapping and raising her hands in celebration of Ian’s spot-on daddy impression. Tory was still giving me a stiff lower lip, though. I shrugged and deposited the spoon in Ian’s open maw. I readied another spoonful, announced its presence for Tory, and watched him continue sucking his upper lip in tight. After another deposit into Ian’s mouth, Tory decided to accept the next spoonful. He opened wide and rediscovered the glorious symphony of taste and texture that is pureed spinach and slow-simmered chicken thinned out with a touch of chilled formula.
By the next spoonful, Tory remembered why he didn’t want to eat. He saved room for the dessert that is a bottle of formula and kept his mouth shut for a few more spoonfuls. That was okay since Ian still wanted more, especially with Abbie cheering him on.
posted by Matt at
10:16 PM
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