We're in a state of mourning at our house. Lisa and Brenden have gone back to California. Alas. Today was our first day in a week that we had to fill all by ourselves.
Or not exactly by ourselves since my sister Amanda came over today. She brought a bag of spinach. We made salad. She watched Gavin while I went to pick Henri up from the groomer. It was a pretty wild day.
Henri is, of course, my miniature poodle. I say "my" because that's what Stacy (a.k.a. my wife) would say if you asked. And Gavin is too young to assume co-guardianship. Regardless of what the cat, who is fond of "marking" Gavin as his own, thinks. Wait a minute, I just realized that "marking" when it comes to cats means peeing. Jasper doesn't pee on Gavin. Jasper is really a great cat in a lot of ways (he did not maim my son when a baby-sized handful of fur was torn out of his side today), but that would be a dealbreaker.
I have a bad habit of calling Gavin "Henri" and Henri "Gavin." I've also noticed that I tend to give Gavin the same commands I've been giving Henri for years. The other day he was reaching for the computer cord and I said, "Leave it!" This is the same thing I say to Henri if I want him to, well, leave something alone. I've also referred to Gavin's crib, more than once, as his "crate." I also say "good boy" to both Gavin and the dog, which has at times caused some confusion on the dog's part where he'll come over to me all happy thinking I've just invited him to play, usually at the same time Gavin is, say, reaching for the computer cord and I tell him to "leave it" causing Henri to skulk off. Please don't put this information on the form when you nominate me for Mama of the Year.
In addition to Spinach Amanda brought over a gift from my dad. It was, of course, a stuffed animal. As I have mentioned, my father loves to buy stuffed animals. Now that he has a grandson, he has a place to channel this energy. It's cute, but there are only so many stuffed animals a guy needs. This latest addition is a little groundhog. Not sure if there's any significance in the choice of species. Maybe he bought it back in February.
Since I've had Gavin I've noticed myself saying things that I would never have said out loud in my "old" life. For example, the other day I said to Gavin, "Are you taking a dump? It sure looks like it." It's just not the kind of thing you can say to an adult outside of a terribly sad situation for everyone involved.
I just finished reading a book called Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater by Matthew Amster-Burton. What intrigued me about this book is that the author is a stay-at-home dad and I can relate to that. I also would love Gavin to be an adventurous eater, something his Mama D is decidedly not. Stacy is, though, which has caused much frustration on her part and sometimes mine in the course of our relationship. Not that she's ever brandished an onion at me and yelled, "Eat this or we're getting divorced!" For one thing, Stacy's not a yeller. And while I don't want to say I hate onions more than I love her, I'm sure she realizes how silly it would be to have to get divorced over an onion, which is the only option in this thankfully hypothetical scenario.
Unfortunately, Hungry Monkey doesn't exactly lay out a game-plan for getting your kid to be an adventurous eater. Basically what I took away from the book is that if you want an unpicky kid you need to put lots of different kinds of food down in front of them. Some they'll like, some they won't. Another thing he stresses is to not freak out that since your three-year-old hates vegetables he's destined to get rickets and/or die of malnutrition. All you can really do -- aside from force-feeding them, which seems like a really bad idea for numerous reasons -- is keep offering them a healthy diet and letting them explore tastes on their own. Another thing I was left thinking after reading this book was, "Man, he sure does feed his daughter a lot of meat." Granted, I don't eat meat, so reading about a small child wolfing down duck and lobster and ham and beef and chicken and mackerel and bacon and on and on seemed like a lot of meat to me. Also we plan to raise Gavin vegetarian, so getting him to eat fish eyeballs isn't a concern of ours.
Still, I was inspired by the book to not fear introducing new things to Gavin's diet. Today, in fact, I gave him some black beans to try (cooked, of course. I'm trying to feed him not kill him). He seemed to be kind of neutral on them, which I see as a good sign. The problem, however, was that he couldn't pick them up and transfer them to his mouth. It's a fine motor skill he still working on. Granted, if I put, say, pebbles or pain pills or pieces of lead on his high chair tray he'd probably have them all picked up and swallowed in record time.
Hey, thanks for the link! I finally made it here. Rumika is having chickpeas today. We'll see what she thinks. So far she LOVES crepes, likes spinach, carrots, beets, apples, eggs, quinoa, is neutral about avocado, banana, potato, sweet potato, bread, and chard. I add mild spices into what she eats, too, because we eat a lot of spices and I want her to like them if possible -- so she's had tiny amounts of cumin, coriander, turmeric, mustard seeds, and cinnamon, as well as trace flavours (no actual bits because I put them in whole and then remove them) of garlic and shallots.
ReplyDeleteHere's to unfussy-eater toddlers! I sure hope this works, because I wasn't a fussy eater (my husband was, though) and have no idea how I'd deal with one.
- Preeta