Purple's a Fruit

I like fruit. It’s a good snack to give the kids, full of healthy stuff.

I wish Abbie agreed with me. Her idea of a good snack is some sort of animal in cracker form, be they Goldfish or generic animal crackers. They’re full of tasty stuff like sugar or something claiming to be “cheese.” They’re not horribly unhealthy unless of consumed in massive quantities, which of course she does.

Back in this blog’s early days, Abbie would eat anything, especially fruit. We could take her to a buffet, load a plate for her full of any kind of fruit, and let her graze through the entire meal on fruit while other, less responsible parents let their children eat things like chicken nuggets. Now all we can get her to eat at buffets are the chicken nuggets, and sometimes we’re lucky if she eats more than the breading.

Abbie still likes some fruits. Blueberries seem to be her favorites. Canned peaches and apricots usually go over well. Anything I’m eating, such as my lunch apple, is also popular. Most other fruits are hit and miss.

We went out for breakfast with my visiting parents yesterday. The “we” here refers only to the adults and not the kids. We left home about midway between the morning wake time and morning nap time, and the kids would’ve never made it until 10am without eating breakfast. I barely made it that long without eating. So I fed the kids breakfast at their normal time, and let them snack through our meal.

My mother ordered a bowl of fruit for the children. I didn’t know if they’d eat it, but I figured that between that, the eggs, the meats, and the various syrup-coated confections, we could keep them chewing throughout the meal.

The fruit bowl had pineapple, cantaloupe, and grapes. Abbie hasn’t touched pineapple or cantaloupe since her early buffet days. Grapes were one of her favorites, though, up until, oh, about two weeks ago. She’s dumped them on the floor at every snack time since.

I offered her the cantaloupe and pineapple on a fork, and she predictably knocked them to the side after confirming they were not fried chicken. Then I dropped a handful of grapes on a plate in front of her, and waited for her reaction. She didn’t dump them on the floor, but only because we were sitting next to her to stop her.

At this point, Abbie was searching the booth for an exit while the boys happily munched on everything she cast aside. I wanted to eat my omelet, so I gave her a plate full of syrup-drenched waffle, and let her entertain herself.

Abbie wouldn’t touch it. Even after I cajoled her into putting one little piece of syrupy goodness in her mouth, she spit it back out and stared at it like I’d tried force feeding her tripe or cantaloupe.

I shrugged, concentrated on my omelet, and let her keep searching for an exit. After a minute, she saw we were packed in too tight for her to make an escape. She looked for something to play with, but we’d already slid the drinks and syrup beyond her grasp.

With nothing better to do, Abbie did the unthinkable: She ate one of the grapes I left near her. Sometimes I forget the importance of letting the child eat when she wants to eat. That, and a kid will eat anything when she gets hungry enough. I gave her a few more grapes up to a total of ten, and let her count backwards as she ate them one by one. That’s the other rule of toddler meals: Make it fun. It has to be fun if fruit is going to compete with nugget breading.