Dear Mom you need three more bites.

Dear Mom you need three more bites.

Before Claire was two years old she made did something that I was sure represented a leap in the evolutionary time line. She took three more bites. I had spent a lot of time trying to get her to eat a balanced meal. This was stifled by a propensity she had early on to only eat one thing at a time. I do not mean eat her potatoes then eat her meat, I mean if there are 10 things on her plate she will only eat the potatoes. When the potatoes are gone she will ask for more potatoes. I am sure in her head it made perfect sense. Why would anyone eat anything besides potatoes if you had potatoes? Sometimes this was turned into a fad that lasted for a day or two, occasionally a week.

I did not worry so much when she decided the only food that would satisfy her appetite was broccoli. Nor did I mind when it was strawberries or bananas. The day she decided she wanted Cheetos I was a little worried. Starting with a snack at lunch time, which was not the first time she ever had a Cheeto but evidently represented the day she decided it’s nutritional value and flavor exceeded any such ratings of any food in the house, she refused to eat anything but Cheetos for the rest of the day.

I had been down this road before so was prepared for a short binge of snack food. I was not prepared the next morning when she asked again for Cheetos and refused to eat anything else. After refusing to eat anything put in front of her by lunchtime I was getting a little nervous. First of all, we were running out of Cheetos. Second this was not a binge of vitamin packed vegetables this was, well, Cheetos. I had remembered a conversation I had with her pediatrician.

“Don’t just balance what she eats in a single meal, think of it as an average of what she eats all day.” When I called her the next day after the second straight 24 hour period of eating nothing but bananas she modified her statement by saying, “Don’t just balance what she eats in a single day but balance it over the whole week.” As we approached day 5 of the banana binge I called to ask if she was going to expand that to a month. She made some suggestions on getting her to eat something else. Most of the things I had tried, the few I had not I tried and failed. Luckily on day 7 she switched to broccoli.

After trying to get her to eat something besides Cheetos all afternoon I broke down went to the store and got some more Cheetos. I kept telling myself it is important she eat something. To my surprise her preference was not just for Cheetos but for Cheetos that were crisp fried to a crackly crunch not baked to a delicate crunch. Another trip back to the store for the correct Cheetos. I got two family sized bags. My theory is as soon as she saw how much I had she would immediately switch foods so the Cheetos would go bad. It happened ever time I bought a pineapple so I expected it would work with Cheetos.

It did not work. The next day, half way through another bag of Cheetos I sat there exasperated. I had a bowl of corn, a bowl of peas, a bowl of strawberries and half a banana.

“Okay,” I said, “if you take three bites of peas you can have more Cheetos.” She looked at me and at first I thought it was one of those looks that meant, “I have no idea what you just said.” But to my surprise she grabbed a spoon jammed three giant spoonfuls of peas in her mouth and then looked at me with a, “Hey, where are the Cheetos?” kind of look on her face. She could not yet say “take three more bites of food,” but she could do it. AMAZING. So I placed five more Cheetos in a bowl. She munched them casually then looked at me with her hand in the empty bowl. “Take three bites of strawberries and you can have some more Cheetos.” Quickly she jammed three giant strawberries in her mouth. I had arrived.

It was the last time I had a multi day eating binge. This secret, evidently the most well kept secret of parenthood, was my ticket to a balanced diet.

Love Mike