People Are Starving in Our World and I am Making Apple Rabbits to Get Furry to Eat
Furry has mastered language and is talking non-stop these days. That's pretty normal for a three year old, but what is unique about him is his "Bringlish" accent.
See, his mom was born and raised right here in the heartland of America. As such, she speaks with a sort of familiar southern twang. His dad, on the other hand, was born and raised across the pond in England and speaks with a delicious English accent.
Therefore, Furry's dialect is a mix of colloquial English and British slang. The other day he told Bojo that what she was saying was "rubbish" and he was quite adamant about it. He also loves the big green "oh-guh" called Shrek and recently told me he was "gonna git a 'ti-guh'"
It's a lot like living with new-Madonna - after she decided she was British and adopted the accent. Or maybe Brittney: post breakdown. You know, kind of like he's faking the whole British personae.
What he is not faking is his pickiness when it comes to food. This kiddo only likes to eat cookies, candies, yogurts and ...McDonalds. And that is only when he is willing to eat at all, which is rare.
So, aunt Yellow Dog, champion of the organic food, enemy of the preservative, Whole Food Market's bitch, decided to step in and help. I've been planning recipes and toddler cooking lessons and trying my damnedest to get Bojo to join me for a Sunday vegetable puree party.
I have also been working on a healthy foods Easter basket for Furry - filling it with organic alphabet pasta, gluten free muffins and dried fruits rather than candy. I love the challenge of getting a child to enjoy healthy foods.
Little Dog never ate processed foods until he was 4 and Nanna moved in with us, bringing her arsenal of Cheetos, Dreamsicles and fruit loops. I love my mom dearly, but I am not sure I can ever forgive her for getting my child hooked on junk during that year she lived with us. I would prepare of breakfast of corn flakes with honey or yogurt sprinkled with brown sugar and there she would be, lurking with her Eggo Cinnamon waffles or strawberry flavoured Pop Tarts. She was like a dealer behind the fence, only the fence was the doorway which led from our kitchen to her living area.
I would send him to play with Nanna while I cleaned house and then when I checked in on what my mom (the loving grandma) and my son (the attachment parenting raised organic fed child) were doing and I would end up busting their wild little junk food parties. After I washed the orange Doritos stains from his hands; wiped the artificially flavoured banana pudding off his faced and brushed the caramel from between his tiny teeth I would attempt to lecture my mom about healthy foods. She would poo-poo my objections and counter that he had eaten half her microwaved pasta before she gave him "dessert" and so he was, in her opinion, quite well fed.
It was only three days after we all moved into our own houses that Little Dog had his first ever full blown tantrum. It was so ugly that I will never forget that evening. It was all about Oreos.
Little Dog had refused to eat dinner and instead demanded Oreos. I promised him an oatmeal cookie if he would eat a few bites of his meal. Nope. He wanted Oreos and he wanted them bad. The tantrum escalated into screams - including plaintiff wails for his beloved Nanna because daddy and I were apparently mean mean people. He ended up in time-out in his room where he ripped off all his clothes and threw himself across his bed screaming at the top of his lungs. The only intelligible word during this rant was ... you guessed it: Oreo. RB and I stood in the doorway amazed, and a little scared, at the demon our child had become.
The tantrum passed, but his love of junk food remained. He became the pickiest eater in the whole world and it is only now, over a decade later, that he is finally willing to try some new things. We recently went to a hibachi grill and I did a double take when I saw him eating fried rice. Knowing the rare miracle that I was witnessing I was very quiet and pretended not to notice. When the chef's flying spatula delivered shrimp to each person at our table I accused my older nephew of eating Little Dog's 4 fried shrimp (which I had planned to procure for myself.)Little dog quickly affirmed that not only had he eaten the shrimp, but he wanted more.
::Thud:: You have no idea what a shock this all was. The next time we went to the store I bought about a million different kinds of rice and he has been willingly trying them all. He has also opted for organic wheat cereal and even asked for fresh fruit. That night I kept opening the fridge just to look because once again I am finally happy with the contents of my fridge and pantry.
See, his mom was born and raised right here in the heartland of America. As such, she speaks with a sort of familiar southern twang. His dad, on the other hand, was born and raised across the pond in England and speaks with a delicious English accent.
Therefore, Furry's dialect is a mix of colloquial English and British slang. The other day he told Bojo that what she was saying was "rubbish" and he was quite adamant about it. He also loves the big green "oh-guh" called Shrek and recently told me he was "gonna git a 'ti-guh'"
It's a lot like living with new-Madonna - after she decided she was British and adopted the accent. Or maybe Brittney: post breakdown. You know, kind of like he's faking the whole British personae.
What he is not faking is his pickiness when it comes to food. This kiddo only likes to eat cookies, candies, yogurts and ...McDonalds. And that is only when he is willing to eat at all, which is rare.
So, aunt Yellow Dog, champion of the organic food, enemy of the preservative, Whole Food Market's bitch, decided to step in and help. I've been planning recipes and toddler cooking lessons and trying my damnedest to get Bojo to join me for a Sunday vegetable puree party.
I have also been working on a healthy foods Easter basket for Furry - filling it with organic alphabet pasta, gluten free muffins and dried fruits rather than candy. I love the challenge of getting a child to enjoy healthy foods.
Little Dog never ate processed foods until he was 4 and Nanna moved in with us, bringing her arsenal of Cheetos, Dreamsicles and fruit loops. I love my mom dearly, but I am not sure I can ever forgive her for getting my child hooked on junk during that year she lived with us. I would prepare of breakfast of corn flakes with honey or yogurt sprinkled with brown sugar and there she would be, lurking with her Eggo Cinnamon waffles or strawberry flavoured Pop Tarts. She was like a dealer behind the fence, only the fence was the doorway which led from our kitchen to her living area.
I would send him to play with Nanna while I cleaned house and then when I checked in on what my mom (the loving grandma) and my son (the attachment parenting raised organic fed child) were doing and I would end up busting their wild little junk food parties. After I washed the orange Doritos stains from his hands; wiped the artificially flavoured banana pudding off his faced and brushed the caramel from between his tiny teeth I would attempt to lecture my mom about healthy foods. She would poo-poo my objections and counter that he had eaten half her microwaved pasta before she gave him "dessert" and so he was, in her opinion, quite well fed.
It was only three days after we all moved into our own houses that Little Dog had his first ever full blown tantrum. It was so ugly that I will never forget that evening. It was all about Oreos.
Little Dog had refused to eat dinner and instead demanded Oreos. I promised him an oatmeal cookie if he would eat a few bites of his meal. Nope. He wanted Oreos and he wanted them bad. The tantrum escalated into screams - including plaintiff wails for his beloved Nanna because daddy and I were apparently mean mean people. He ended up in time-out in his room where he ripped off all his clothes and threw himself across his bed screaming at the top of his lungs. The only intelligible word during this rant was ... you guessed it: Oreo. RB and I stood in the doorway amazed, and a little scared, at the demon our child had become.
The tantrum passed, but his love of junk food remained. He became the pickiest eater in the whole world and it is only now, over a decade later, that he is finally willing to try some new things. We recently went to a hibachi grill and I did a double take when I saw him eating fried rice. Knowing the rare miracle that I was witnessing I was very quiet and pretended not to notice. When the chef's flying spatula delivered shrimp to each person at our table I accused my older nephew of eating Little Dog's 4 fried shrimp (which I had planned to procure for myself.)Little dog quickly affirmed that not only had he eaten the shrimp, but he wanted more.
::Thud:: You have no idea what a shock this all was. The next time we went to the store I bought about a million different kinds of rice and he has been willingly trying them all. He has also opted for organic wheat cereal and even asked for fresh fruit. That night I kept opening the fridge just to look because once again I am finally happy with the contents of my fridge and pantry.
But back to the problem of Furry.
The basket sits half filled on my dining room table. I have several pages of fun toddler friendly recipes typed up and WS is willing to start trying them out on Furry next week while Bojo is out of town.
And then, I find this. I feel like a complete loser now because I KNOW I will never be the kind of mom (or aunt) who makes such awesomely cool lunches as this. In fact, I want this woman to adopt me and make me cute little lunch boxes every day.
Seriously. *Sigh*
Okay, I must admit I have ordered some of the accoutrement's shown - like the cute little condiment containers and the multi coloured multi-shaped bowls. And yes, I did even order the tiny picks with animal heads. I even studied how to cut the apples into the bunny shapes.
I am such a sucker.
I am going to attempt to make some of these toy like lunches. I just hope Furry doesn't deem my efforts to be rubbish!
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