The Difference
These days, it's mealtimes that really highlight how different Lucia and Greta are. As longtime readers of this blog know, Lucia's eating has always been a vexing part of our lives--though now, at three, that's mostly all behind us. She likes a lot of different foods, still loves fruit, wildly loves carrots, and drinks a ton of milk. Still, if given the choice between eating and doing pretty much anything else, she'd forgo eating. It's just not interesting for her. She sits at the table but gets distracted; lately, she breaks up the meal but claiming she has to go potty, where she then retreats for a while, singing songs (though she does, eventually, go). More often than not, she'll eat a satisfactory amount; and after dinner, she then gets to choose a beloved dessert. Most nights, just before heading up to bed, and even if she's eaten a decent dinner, she asks for a banana and eats about half. Somehow, getting a "new banana" has become part of the bedtime ritual.
Then there's Greta. She's been an amazing eater from the start, and this has not changed save for periods of teething or sickness. She eats at least as much as Lucia at each meal, and usually more. If it's her favorite meal--macaroni and cheese--she will eat until we stop giving her food, putting it into her mouth steadily, her focus only on her plate. At lunch today, she was eating mac and cheese leftovers, and each time she cleared her plate, she picked it up and handed it to me. We really did have to cut her off. When Greta is done eating, or uninterested in what I've given her, she pokes at the food with one skeptical finger. This rarely happens. She just--eats. I serve her food, and she eats it, and then she's done.
Tonight, I served the girls plain pasta and meatballs, while Andrew and I had pasta with spicy sausage ragu. Lucia ate all her food. Greta took one look at her plate of plain pasta, then looked at what I had, and began yelling. She wouldn't touch her food until Andrew replaced it with the ragu (minus the spicy sausage). She seemed miffed that I'd given her something less interesting than what we had.
So mealtimes are interesting. Lucia is chattering and playing and sitting sideways in her chair and occasionally oozing to the ground to do a ballet spin or a "funny dance" (which, unfortunately, usually makes me laugh, which just encourages her), or asking to go to the bathroom, or engaging in complicated renditions of "one for one" (which we do when I'm eating something she wants, like crackers, before she's finished her meal--she can have a bite for a bite, or a bite for two bites, or--it is head-spinning). Then there's Grets, just eating away. Greta is high-maintenance in a lot of ways, but, for now, not at mealtime.
Then there's Greta. She's been an amazing eater from the start, and this has not changed save for periods of teething or sickness. She eats at least as much as Lucia at each meal, and usually more. If it's her favorite meal--macaroni and cheese--she will eat until we stop giving her food, putting it into her mouth steadily, her focus only on her plate. At lunch today, she was eating mac and cheese leftovers, and each time she cleared her plate, she picked it up and handed it to me. We really did have to cut her off. When Greta is done eating, or uninterested in what I've given her, she pokes at the food with one skeptical finger. This rarely happens. She just--eats. I serve her food, and she eats it, and then she's done.
Tonight, I served the girls plain pasta and meatballs, while Andrew and I had pasta with spicy sausage ragu. Lucia ate all her food. Greta took one look at her plate of plain pasta, then looked at what I had, and began yelling. She wouldn't touch her food until Andrew replaced it with the ragu (minus the spicy sausage). She seemed miffed that I'd given her something less interesting than what we had.
So mealtimes are interesting. Lucia is chattering and playing and sitting sideways in her chair and occasionally oozing to the ground to do a ballet spin or a "funny dance" (which, unfortunately, usually makes me laugh, which just encourages her), or asking to go to the bathroom, or engaging in complicated renditions of "one for one" (which we do when I'm eating something she wants, like crackers, before she's finished her meal--she can have a bite for a bite, or a bite for two bites, or--it is head-spinning). Then there's Grets, just eating away. Greta is high-maintenance in a lot of ways, but, for now, not at mealtime.
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