Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Back to toddlerhood

I now am a mom of a 12 year old preteen daughter the dragon years and a 2 year old boy the terrible twos. Yes I have two of the "best" ages in my house at one time, I planned really well! I don't have much issue with picky eating with my toddler, and I didn't with my daughter and still don't. I hear other parents talking about how picky the toddler is mine is not and think did both of mine miss a stage? I just got this article today about Common Toddler Feeding Pitfalls, and read through it.

I guess I did something right! My son eats hummus, gumbo, salsa, pomegranates and any other weird food I give him. This also satisfies my preteen wants for new exciting food. She won't touch coffee her one show she likes icarly drinks coffee so she wanted an iced mocha, so I let her try a bottled Starbucks iced coffee, didn't go over. Her favorite is hummus roasted pepper with carrots and pretzels. SoI guess because I offer new things all the time my toddler never gets the hot dog and mac and cheese that often. This past week for lunch he had a mix of sliced salami, cheese cubes, pretzels, and mini tortilla chips with pineapple peach salsa or hummus. He likes yogurt and one of his favorite puddings is Kozyshack lemon ginger pudding. Since his center is "peanut free" (another subject I will talk about sometime) I use sun flower butter sunbutter with wegmans triple red fruit or citrus jelly selections on a mini bagel or tortilla rollup. He loves bananas, star fruit, kiwi, whole apples and orange slices. Now don't think I spend a fortune I actually love the reduced produce and meat section, bent and dents and ALDI is one of my favorite places to shop. Since I use reduced produce quickly I don't have a problem and if it starts going bad I have a goat that eats anything left. Now reading that article and looking back on the lunches packed, they must have thought I was a nut at his daycare when they first opened his lunch now they comment he always eats all of his lunch I guess now I know why they are so surprised about a toddler eating hummus.

So I guess my advice, which I give to a group of fit for life parents in meetings my daughter attends, is try new fruits. Take a walk though you're local market and pick up a mini pineapple, dragon fruit, star fruit, avocado and whatever is in season! I recommend heritage tomatoes this summer I love the colors and the flavor is the best. Grow a little garden even a little container garden, kids love planting and eating what they grow.

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