Tory Likes It!
For months a couple months, the kids ate the same thing for every breakfast: Abbie had a bowl of cereal, and the boys shared half a banana. The boys also had access to all the Tasteeos they could eat before I grew tired of refilling their trays, and all three children got a glass filled with an age-appropriate type of milk.
I know they should eat a variety of foods to ensure a balanced diet and a diverse palette, but their routine doesn’t bother me. I’ve eaten the same breakfast almost every morning for years* and I’m nutritionally healthy with a palette that accepts anything that doesn’t include coconut. Besides, if the children never learn to like, and demand, pancakes for breakfast, is that really a bad thing?
What bothers me about their meal is that it’s not an adult breakfast, or even a big kid breakfast; their handfuls of cereal make it a little kid breakfast. Abbie’s meal is close to a big kid breakfast, but she refuses to eat milk-moistened cereal. She has to eat her cereal dry with a glass of milk at the side in case she’d like to wash it down. Maybe she likes her cereal crunch, or maybe she’s learned that wet cereal doesn’t bounce when she dumps it from her bowl. I’m hoping she starts enjoying cereal with milk before she drifts into the evil of breakfast bars and toaster pastries.
The boys have longer to go to reach the big kid breakfast. A quarter banana isn’t an entrée, it’s a side dish, and one better suited to lunch. I wanted to switch them to normal breakfast fare, the kind that comes in a box and needs liquid added. Plus, it’s too bothersome to keep bananas around, always monitoring them to ensure they’re ripe enough to eat, but fresh enough to not ooze.
So I’ve switched them to oatmeal. It’s a great breakfast food that meets my criteria of being easy to make, easy to keep, and, most importantly, normal. Plus it’s warm, and years of television commercials have taught me that I should feel guilty about sending my children into the world without a warm breakfast, especially when oatmeal only takes a minute you heartless $%#&. I’ve had to deal with a few setbacks in making the switch, though.
First, as mentioned above, oatmeal needs to cook. While Tory will eat virtually anything with edible tendencies, undercooked oatmeal is not on his list. This meant I had to figure out how long I had to cook it, how long I could microwave it before it boiled over, and how long I had to stick it in the freezer before it cooled to the point of edibility. I’ve discovered it works best to microwave it a little before stepping in the shower, microwave it a lot after emerging from the shower, and freeze it immediately after it beeps.
Once the oatmeal was perfectly cooked and then cooled, I discovered another larger problem: They didn’t like it. The boys who eat dog food and scream in fury when I take it away don’t like oatmeal. I tried adding several things to make it palatable: Milk to add familiarity, brown sugar for sweetness, raisins for choking-hazard excitement, and various spices just for the heck of it. Finally, in a moment of desperation and willingness to clean out the refrigerator, I picked up a jar of jam that had been in our possession for months, poured a little into the oatmeal, and suddenly they liked it. It must have been the combination of fruit, sugar, and spices that daddy’s wild guesses couldn’t nail.
I’ve been doing this for a few days, and everything is going well. Except for when I forget to put the oatmeal in the microwave before climbing into the shower; then they have to wait for a few minutes for it to cook. It’s just a matter of time before they start enjoying raisin bran every morning.
* Raisin bran. And maybe a krispie treat if we have any, which we usually do.
I know they should eat a variety of foods to ensure a balanced diet and a diverse palette, but their routine doesn’t bother me. I’ve eaten the same breakfast almost every morning for years* and I’m nutritionally healthy with a palette that accepts anything that doesn’t include coconut. Besides, if the children never learn to like, and demand, pancakes for breakfast, is that really a bad thing?
What bothers me about their meal is that it’s not an adult breakfast, or even a big kid breakfast; their handfuls of cereal make it a little kid breakfast. Abbie’s meal is close to a big kid breakfast, but she refuses to eat milk-moistened cereal. She has to eat her cereal dry with a glass of milk at the side in case she’d like to wash it down. Maybe she likes her cereal crunch, or maybe she’s learned that wet cereal doesn’t bounce when she dumps it from her bowl. I’m hoping she starts enjoying cereal with milk before she drifts into the evil of breakfast bars and toaster pastries.
The boys have longer to go to reach the big kid breakfast. A quarter banana isn’t an entrée, it’s a side dish, and one better suited to lunch. I wanted to switch them to normal breakfast fare, the kind that comes in a box and needs liquid added. Plus, it’s too bothersome to keep bananas around, always monitoring them to ensure they’re ripe enough to eat, but fresh enough to not ooze.
So I’ve switched them to oatmeal. It’s a great breakfast food that meets my criteria of being easy to make, easy to keep, and, most importantly, normal. Plus it’s warm, and years of television commercials have taught me that I should feel guilty about sending my children into the world without a warm breakfast, especially when oatmeal only takes a minute you heartless $%#&. I’ve had to deal with a few setbacks in making the switch, though.
First, as mentioned above, oatmeal needs to cook. While Tory will eat virtually anything with edible tendencies, undercooked oatmeal is not on his list. This meant I had to figure out how long I had to cook it, how long I could microwave it before it boiled over, and how long I had to stick it in the freezer before it cooled to the point of edibility. I’ve discovered it works best to microwave it a little before stepping in the shower, microwave it a lot after emerging from the shower, and freeze it immediately after it beeps.
Once the oatmeal was perfectly cooked and then cooled, I discovered another larger problem: They didn’t like it. The boys who eat dog food and scream in fury when I take it away don’t like oatmeal. I tried adding several things to make it palatable: Milk to add familiarity, brown sugar for sweetness, raisins for choking-hazard excitement, and various spices just for the heck of it. Finally, in a moment of desperation and willingness to clean out the refrigerator, I picked up a jar of jam that had been in our possession for months, poured a little into the oatmeal, and suddenly they liked it. It must have been the combination of fruit, sugar, and spices that daddy’s wild guesses couldn’t nail.
I’ve been doing this for a few days, and everything is going well. Except for when I forget to put the oatmeal in the microwave before climbing into the shower; then they have to wait for a few minutes for it to cook. It’s just a matter of time before they start enjoying raisin bran every morning.
* Raisin bran. And maybe a krispie treat if we have any, which we usually do.
posted by Matt at
11:14 PM
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