On a Diet

"They didn't eat very much for breakfast," says Stefan referring to the boys Sunday morning appetite.

"Don't worry, they'll be back soon enough for second breakfast," I say. Or at least Vinny will.

"Yeah, they're just like little hobbits," he says. Little hobbits without all the hair. Thank goodness with the cat and the dog there is already too much shedding in the house.

"Does Gio eat very much during the week when I'm at work?" Stefan asks.

"No, he hardly eats anything at all, thank goodness," I say in relief.

"But he's a little guy, he needs food to grow," says Stefan concerned.

"Nope, he only gets a little food to balance out the ravaging appetite of his brother," I say. The most common phrase out of Vinny's mouth is, "I'm hungry," which is frequently followed by, "I'm bored." Early emotional eating?

Even his friend says, "you're never not hungry."

When I first went through Mommy and Me classes with Vinny I couldn't understand why everyone had a food question every class, every week.

I was always bored and tired of hearing the same old, "What should I feed Joey? He only wants chocolate milk and cookies for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Oh yes, I was beside myself in my food serving superiority with all my organic veggie steaming and grinding my own baby food. I just couldn't figure out what was wrong with those people.

Then Gio showed up and it all became quite clear. Was I being punished for judging those other parents for two years, once a week? Perhaps. But, I soon learned to focus on what he's eating throughout an entire week, rather than say one day. "As long as they eat through the rainbow (color spectrum) of foods for an entire week, they are getting good nutrition," the teacher said.

His eating habits have caused me to lower my own food standards. Now I go to McDonald's and I even like Jack in the Box french fries. They are really good. Y'all should try 'em. Oops. Sorry. But see what I mean?

Two days ago we ate lunch out and Gio convinced me to go to McDonald's for his food. The only item he bothered to eat was the drink. Ten minutes later, he barfed the entire orange juice up while we were at a friend's house. Did I mention this friend doesn't have kids? Luckily we were outside. I'm sad to say I didn't even have the urge to shoot the purge.

"Don't little kids throw up all the time?" she asks.

"No," I say thinking people without kids are really out of touch. However, she quickly reminds me some kids are perpetual pukers(PP) saying, "I threw up all the time when I was a kid." Thankfully my kids are not pukers. Parents of PPs should be awarded extra sleep and alone time or at the very least a house cleaning technician to make up for the extra vomit cleaning. I wonder if parents of PPs were PPs as children?

If there is one thing I have learned from parenting it is to let most things slide, once I have verified through a board certified health professional, there is no harm being done. Most times there isn't. For all the people who say Gio is, "small for his age." There are the same number of people who say, "wow, he's so big for his age." Another thing parenting has taught me is to take what other people say with a grain of salt. Most of the time anyways.

"Can I have cookies for breakfast?" asks Gio.

"What? No. Have you been talking to those other babies, again?"

The scary part is even though I don't let him eat dessert or junk food for breakfast he asks, "can I hold the box?"

Why won't he eat real food?