"A soy-based snack will calm me down."
Abbie has somehow turned into a snacker. Like an athlete faced with a positive drug test, I don’t know how this happened. When I put her on The Schedule as a baby, her only food came at mealtime, and mealtimes were fixed. I never dared to feed her early because that could lead to her expecting the next meal early, which would throw off her nap schedule, which would seriously cut into my Internet time.
Later I read that toddlers don’t work like adults who can spend an entire day at the mall nourished by nothing more than a Cinnabon. Toddlers have tiny stomachs, and do best with small meals, and smaller snacks spaced between those meals. I always want what’s best for my children, an attitude that explains why you can’t walk across the living room without setting off at least three toys that sing the ABC song, so I added a snack to her schedule. She didn’t ask for one, but she ate it up when offered as readily as a cable news network faced with fresh news on a 10-year-old murder story. Soon after, she started expecting a snack, and I started collecting a stable of snack offerings.
Her first snacks were cereals like Tasteeos, Rice Squares, and Crispy Hexagons. These cereals are nutritious, cheap, and never spoil, making them ideal to feed Abbie, and the dog when she dumps them on the floor. Unfortunately, cereals tend to either be healthy or sweet, and these cereals had far too many nutrient molecules crowding out the sugar molecules. Once Abbie discovered that Tasteeos aren’t the apogee of culinary delights, she tended to throw more than she ate. Once the floor-to-mouth ratio hit about 3-to-1, I looked for other snack options.
Next we moved to fruit. Canned fruits work well because they’re pre-sliced, saving me valuable seconds and sanity when Abbie starts screaming for a snack. Even when I grab a larger hunk of fruit, like peaches or papayas or pluots, the canning process softens them to the point where I can slice them into Abbie-sized pieces with a fork. This saves dishes since I have a fork ready for Abbie to navigate the fruit without soaking her fingers in canned fruit syrup, at least until she throws the fork on the floor and shovels the rest of the fruit into her mouth with her fingers.
We use a lot of fresh fruit too. Blueberries, strawberries, grapes, and the occasional nectarine that Abbie jabs a thumb into while in the store all work well. Sometimes Abbie randomly decides she doesn’t want her fruit, but that’s remedied by mixing it with whipped topping. I remember eating whipped topping from the container by the spoonful as a child, so it’s good to know tastes are genetic.
Goldfish entered her regular snack rotation at some point. It was probably when I had a screaming baby brother to deal with, and discovered it was easier to grab a handful of crackers than open the refrigerator and find the fruit. While that 4% of the daily recommended amount of calcium per serving is impressive, I try to stay away from Goldfish since they’re nutritionally devoid, unless your child has a fat, carbohydrate, or sodium deficiency.
Sometimes Abbie starts screaming though, and the only way I can calm her is with a few handfuls of Goldfish. I tried diluting them with a handful of cereal, but she inevitably picked out the good stuff, eating the Goldfish and leaving the cereal for the dog who’s always hovering nearby for some reason.
Eventually I discovered that she’d eat cereal during her screaming fits as long as she could pull it directly from the box. Far too often today, I will give Abbie the whole box and let her go to town while I tend to something more important, like the baby who fell and hit his head while I was trying to comfort his brother after he fell and hit his head. I don’t like doing that since she’s solving her boredom by gorging on cereal, but at least it buys me some time. Then Abbie dumps the box out on the floor and I have to hope the boys are self-sufficient long enough for me to vacuum cereal dust out of the carpet. Not even the dog can eat an entire box of cereal by herself.
Later I read that toddlers don’t work like adults who can spend an entire day at the mall nourished by nothing more than a Cinnabon. Toddlers have tiny stomachs, and do best with small meals, and smaller snacks spaced between those meals. I always want what’s best for my children, an attitude that explains why you can’t walk across the living room without setting off at least three toys that sing the ABC song, so I added a snack to her schedule. She didn’t ask for one, but she ate it up when offered as readily as a cable news network faced with fresh news on a 10-year-old murder story. Soon after, she started expecting a snack, and I started collecting a stable of snack offerings.
Her first snacks were cereals like Tasteeos, Rice Squares, and Crispy Hexagons. These cereals are nutritious, cheap, and never spoil, making them ideal to feed Abbie, and the dog when she dumps them on the floor. Unfortunately, cereals tend to either be healthy or sweet, and these cereals had far too many nutrient molecules crowding out the sugar molecules. Once Abbie discovered that Tasteeos aren’t the apogee of culinary delights, she tended to throw more than she ate. Once the floor-to-mouth ratio hit about 3-to-1, I looked for other snack options.
Next we moved to fruit. Canned fruits work well because they’re pre-sliced, saving me valuable seconds and sanity when Abbie starts screaming for a snack. Even when I grab a larger hunk of fruit, like peaches or papayas or pluots, the canning process softens them to the point where I can slice them into Abbie-sized pieces with a fork. This saves dishes since I have a fork ready for Abbie to navigate the fruit without soaking her fingers in canned fruit syrup, at least until she throws the fork on the floor and shovels the rest of the fruit into her mouth with her fingers.
We use a lot of fresh fruit too. Blueberries, strawberries, grapes, and the occasional nectarine that Abbie jabs a thumb into while in the store all work well. Sometimes Abbie randomly decides she doesn’t want her fruit, but that’s remedied by mixing it with whipped topping. I remember eating whipped topping from the container by the spoonful as a child, so it’s good to know tastes are genetic.
Goldfish entered her regular snack rotation at some point. It was probably when I had a screaming baby brother to deal with, and discovered it was easier to grab a handful of crackers than open the refrigerator and find the fruit. While that 4% of the daily recommended amount of calcium per serving is impressive, I try to stay away from Goldfish since they’re nutritionally devoid, unless your child has a fat, carbohydrate, or sodium deficiency.
Sometimes Abbie starts screaming though, and the only way I can calm her is with a few handfuls of Goldfish. I tried diluting them with a handful of cereal, but she inevitably picked out the good stuff, eating the Goldfish and leaving the cereal for the dog who’s always hovering nearby for some reason.
Eventually I discovered that she’d eat cereal during her screaming fits as long as she could pull it directly from the box. Far too often today, I will give Abbie the whole box and let her go to town while I tend to something more important, like the baby who fell and hit his head while I was trying to comfort his brother after he fell and hit his head. I don’t like doing that since she’s solving her boredom by gorging on cereal, but at least it buys me some time. Then Abbie dumps the box out on the floor and I have to hope the boys are self-sufficient long enough for me to vacuum cereal dust out of the carpet. Not even the dog can eat an entire box of cereal by herself.
posted by Matt at
11:23 PM
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