Iron Chef, Silicon Valley
Poor sick baby. For the past couple of weeks, Lucia’s had a cold and cough, and yesterday it took a turn for the worse. So this morning found us at an urgent care center, where we saw a pediatrician and got some antibiotics. I hope this will help. There’s nothing sadder than a runny-nosed, coughing baby who’s also teething.
Perhaps because she’s not been feeling well, Lucia has decided that eating is just not for her these days. Three times a day, I embark on an Iron Chef-style contest to use whatever’s in the fridge and freezer (not much, in these temporary quarters) to make something she’ll actually a) put in her mouth, b) chew, and c) swallow. (Sometimes we get through one or two of the steps, only to then have her give the Mango Face and spit everything out.) There have been meals where I’ve prepared three or four things—an egg, toast with cheese, various cut-up fruits, pasta—only to have her deign each item unacceptable and toss it to the floor. And I can't just say too bad you don't like it, because we're trying to pack the pounds on this skinny minnie. She has to eat, toddler stubbornness or no toddler stubbornness.
So I’ve had to get creative. She rarely eats in her high chair now. Instead, she prefers to stand by my chair like a puppy, opening her mouth for a forkful of food and then sitting down and crawling a few paces to chew and eat before approaching the chair again. Sometimes I let her go play and just follow her around with the fork or a bits of food in my hand, slipping it into her mouth when she’s distracted. Sometimes she winds up back in the kitchen and eats what she threw off the table. (Thank goodness weekly housekeeping is part of the corporate apartment deal here.) The past couple of days, I’ve taken her to the playground and fed her lunch while she sits in the swing. The toughest sell of meals is dinner, which she usually just refuses. But we’ve found a trick that’s worked like a charm two nights in a row: Andrew carries her in the Bjorn and we walk down the bustling Castro Street while I feed her from a Tupperware container. Out in the world, interested in the sights and sounds, she eats everything I give her. Needless to say, mealtimes have surpassed clothes- and diaper-changing times as the most exhausting times of my day.
Are these healthy habits? Surely no. I'm a big believer in regular mealtimes, sitting together at the table, and so forth--or at least I was, until I realized the unfeasibility of this with a young'un who just has no interest in leaving her crawling and playing for sitting and eating. But forcing her to sit--forcing her to eat where she is when she clearly is resisting it--just seems a little pathological for a one-year-old. As long as she still thinks eating is low-key and fun and healthy, not stressful and trying and anxiety-producing, then I think we'll probably wind up on the right side of things in the end.
The bright side of all this is that she is gaining weight. We weighed her at the Clarks’ house last weekend and today at the doctor’s, and she’s over 17 pounds! Today she was 17 pounds 14 ounces, but that was with her clothes on and after a successful breakfast of French toast topped with a banana/olive oil/syrup mixture. Nonetheless, I’m confident we’ll pass our weigh-in.
And now to bed. I just took a soak in this apartment complex’s hot tub—relaxing in the cold night, with leaves floating on the surface—and I’ll seize sleep while I can.
Perhaps because she’s not been feeling well, Lucia has decided that eating is just not for her these days. Three times a day, I embark on an Iron Chef-style contest to use whatever’s in the fridge and freezer (not much, in these temporary quarters) to make something she’ll actually a) put in her mouth, b) chew, and c) swallow. (Sometimes we get through one or two of the steps, only to then have her give the Mango Face and spit everything out.) There have been meals where I’ve prepared three or four things—an egg, toast with cheese, various cut-up fruits, pasta—only to have her deign each item unacceptable and toss it to the floor. And I can't just say too bad you don't like it, because we're trying to pack the pounds on this skinny minnie. She has to eat, toddler stubbornness or no toddler stubbornness.
So I’ve had to get creative. She rarely eats in her high chair now. Instead, she prefers to stand by my chair like a puppy, opening her mouth for a forkful of food and then sitting down and crawling a few paces to chew and eat before approaching the chair again. Sometimes I let her go play and just follow her around with the fork or a bits of food in my hand, slipping it into her mouth when she’s distracted. Sometimes she winds up back in the kitchen and eats what she threw off the table. (Thank goodness weekly housekeeping is part of the corporate apartment deal here.) The past couple of days, I’ve taken her to the playground and fed her lunch while she sits in the swing. The toughest sell of meals is dinner, which she usually just refuses. But we’ve found a trick that’s worked like a charm two nights in a row: Andrew carries her in the Bjorn and we walk down the bustling Castro Street while I feed her from a Tupperware container. Out in the world, interested in the sights and sounds, she eats everything I give her. Needless to say, mealtimes have surpassed clothes- and diaper-changing times as the most exhausting times of my day.
Are these healthy habits? Surely no. I'm a big believer in regular mealtimes, sitting together at the table, and so forth--or at least I was, until I realized the unfeasibility of this with a young'un who just has no interest in leaving her crawling and playing for sitting and eating. But forcing her to sit--forcing her to eat where she is when she clearly is resisting it--just seems a little pathological for a one-year-old. As long as she still thinks eating is low-key and fun and healthy, not stressful and trying and anxiety-producing, then I think we'll probably wind up on the right side of things in the end.
The bright side of all this is that she is gaining weight. We weighed her at the Clarks’ house last weekend and today at the doctor’s, and she’s over 17 pounds! Today she was 17 pounds 14 ounces, but that was with her clothes on and after a successful breakfast of French toast topped with a banana/olive oil/syrup mixture. Nonetheless, I’m confident we’ll pass our weigh-in.
And now to bed. I just took a soak in this apartment complex’s hot tub—relaxing in the cold night, with leaves floating on the surface—and I’ll seize sleep while I can.
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