Sweet Tooth
Before I had kids I'd always heard older mothers make jokes about moms with their first child compared to later on down the road. I'd even come across the attitude in books. It was funny, but because I was going to be such a great, informed mother right from the beginning, it would never apply to me. I would be neither crazy strict nor ridiculously unconcerned when it came to my kids, consistent from the first to the last.
*snort*
Yeah, OK, so it turned out that the cliche about the perfectionist, paranoid mother with the firstborn who waves her hand and says "So what?" about the last born has some basis in reality. One of the most obvious areas with this in my life involved food.
When I was pregnant with M I was a food nazi in the making. Seriously. I had this whole plan so that my precious daughter never ended up with all the terrible health problems that come from eating poorly. I was going to breastfeed for the first year. Then I was only going to introduce solids at a perfect slow rate, one organic version two weeks at a time (to check for allergies), starting with vegetables (so she'd like them best, you see).
Everything started to unravel right away. First of all, I couldn't breastfeed. My breasts refused to produce any milk. It was a nightmare of epic proportions, not least because we were living on the edge of completely broke and formula was most definitely not in the budget. (And just as a preemptive strike, since I'm still a mite sensitive about this, nearly twelve years later, if you tell me that if I'd just tried this technique or this herb or this alternative treatment my milk would have started flowing, I promise to roll my eyes and make fun of you behind your back. Seriously. I TRIED EVERYTHING I COULD. Breastfeeding is wonderful, I'll freely agree, but nothing seems to bring out the self-righteous know-it-alls like someone who dares to say that it doesn't work for everyone.)
Second, I learned from hard and bitter experience that introducing green vegetables to your kids first doesn't make them like them better. It just makes them less likely to open their mouths for a spoon. (I kept the tradition of trying peas first with all my kids just so I could get pictures of the horrified expressions on their faces. I like peas myself, so I was baffled by this-- until with K I tried a spoonful of the stuff myself. ICK!!! I don't know what they do to those peas, but I would make screwed up nasty faces too.)
Third, though I didn't realize it until later, I was hurting the feelings of some very well-meaning people by flying into a crazy protective rage if anyone happened to slip her some food that wasn't on the schedule. Even if it was completely appropriate for a toddler. Perhaps this would have been all for the best if M had turned out to have allergies, which she didn't. But through a weird combination of circumstances I ended up with the conviction that she was allergic to wheat. (In retrospect, she'd clearly had an allergic reaction to something, but I don't think it was the wheat. The timing was wrong. Never mind, it led to me learning how to make bread from scratch from kamut flour. A useful skill, if an expensive one.)
I was especially frightful when it came to junk food or sugary treats. Holy moly, want to see Heidi angry? Give her toddler a lollipop and watch the steam pour forth from her ears.
Nowadays, on child five, things have swung to the opposite pole. It's not because my philosophy about food has changed so drastically. It's just that trying to be a food purist when you have a limited amount of money (yeah, don't try to tell me eating healthier is cheaper-- it's not-- the junk is well and truly cheaper) and you have seven people to provide for is way more difficult. Especially since I have even less time on my hands to be preparing stuff. Then, there's the older sibling factor. The kids get introduced to this stuff as they get older and well, it ends up in the hands of the younger. And this mama bear is more like a toothless, worn out granny bear nowadays. I don't have the energy for the battles.
I still try to make healthy eating a priority. But since the sweets snuck in earlier and earlier with each child, I have a couple of sugar fanatics. It worries me a bit with S.
But sometimes it's just too cute also. Yesterday I was making cookies to take to a baptism and I banned S from the kitchen while I was doing it (since she was screaming for cookie dough at my feet). Next thing I knew, she'd gone around the living room, climbed up the furniture until she could step across onto the high counter bar that divides the living room from the kitchen. She was standing on the counter next to a tray of raw cookie dough commenting, "Ma-ma. Yummy."
Oh dear. No fear when it comes to getting her sugar fix.
*snort*
Yeah, OK, so it turned out that the cliche about the perfectionist, paranoid mother with the firstborn who waves her hand and says "So what?" about the last born has some basis in reality. One of the most obvious areas with this in my life involved food.
When I was pregnant with M I was a food nazi in the making. Seriously. I had this whole plan so that my precious daughter never ended up with all the terrible health problems that come from eating poorly. I was going to breastfeed for the first year. Then I was only going to introduce solids at a perfect slow rate, one organic version two weeks at a time (to check for allergies), starting with vegetables (so she'd like them best, you see).
Everything started to unravel right away. First of all, I couldn't breastfeed. My breasts refused to produce any milk. It was a nightmare of epic proportions, not least because we were living on the edge of completely broke and formula was most definitely not in the budget. (And just as a preemptive strike, since I'm still a mite sensitive about this, nearly twelve years later, if you tell me that if I'd just tried this technique or this herb or this alternative treatment my milk would have started flowing, I promise to roll my eyes and make fun of you behind your back. Seriously. I TRIED EVERYTHING I COULD. Breastfeeding is wonderful, I'll freely agree, but nothing seems to bring out the self-righteous know-it-alls like someone who dares to say that it doesn't work for everyone.)
Second, I learned from hard and bitter experience that introducing green vegetables to your kids first doesn't make them like them better. It just makes them less likely to open their mouths for a spoon. (I kept the tradition of trying peas first with all my kids just so I could get pictures of the horrified expressions on their faces. I like peas myself, so I was baffled by this-- until with K I tried a spoonful of the stuff myself. ICK!!! I don't know what they do to those peas, but I would make screwed up nasty faces too.)
Third, though I didn't realize it until later, I was hurting the feelings of some very well-meaning people by flying into a crazy protective rage if anyone happened to slip her some food that wasn't on the schedule. Even if it was completely appropriate for a toddler. Perhaps this would have been all for the best if M had turned out to have allergies, which she didn't. But through a weird combination of circumstances I ended up with the conviction that she was allergic to wheat. (In retrospect, she'd clearly had an allergic reaction to something, but I don't think it was the wheat. The timing was wrong. Never mind, it led to me learning how to make bread from scratch from kamut flour. A useful skill, if an expensive one.)
I was especially frightful when it came to junk food or sugary treats. Holy moly, want to see Heidi angry? Give her toddler a lollipop and watch the steam pour forth from her ears.
Nowadays, on child five, things have swung to the opposite pole. It's not because my philosophy about food has changed so drastically. It's just that trying to be a food purist when you have a limited amount of money (yeah, don't try to tell me eating healthier is cheaper-- it's not-- the junk is well and truly cheaper) and you have seven people to provide for is way more difficult. Especially since I have even less time on my hands to be preparing stuff. Then, there's the older sibling factor. The kids get introduced to this stuff as they get older and well, it ends up in the hands of the younger. And this mama bear is more like a toothless, worn out granny bear nowadays. I don't have the energy for the battles.
 |
| S lovin' her some of J's b-day cake. Never mind that M didn't touch that fake canned frosting until she was about five. |
But sometimes it's just too cute also. Yesterday I was making cookies to take to a baptism and I banned S from the kitchen while I was doing it (since she was screaming for cookie dough at my feet). Next thing I knew, she'd gone around the living room, climbed up the furniture until she could step across onto the high counter bar that divides the living room from the kitchen. She was standing on the counter next to a tray of raw cookie dough commenting, "Ma-ma. Yummy."
Oh dear. No fear when it comes to getting her sugar fix.
Comments