Tuesday, March 19, 2013

I'm Like a Ninja



Its one of the Mom skills I have developed.

Well, really I’ve had to develop it out of necessity because I have a toddler now. And he’s tricky. And difficult sometimes. And stubborn (who did he get THAT from? Hardy har har).

So I’ve had to learn to be one step ahead of the kid and super sneaky.

I’ve become one of those Moms who hides healthy food in other foods that their kid will eat.

Something about this just screams “one of those Moms” and “Mom jeans and minivans” to me, because I never thought I’d have to do this. But alas, it has come to that.

When Austin started solid food he was a champion eater. Carrots? Loved ‘em. Peas? Couldn’t get enough. Every single food we gave him he gobbled up.

I glowed.

“My kid is a good eater! I’m doing something right!”

Then came textures…. And food after food after food went into his mouth… and came right back out with a scowl and a confused “WTF is this?” look shot my way.

We tried EVERYTHING. I pureed veggies and fruits into different sizes and textures. Spent hours chopping them into perfect sizes for him. No go.

After multiple attempts and Austin time after time spitting out every fruit and veggie and throwing it on the floor or dumping out his plate or bowl, you start to re-evaluate the situation.

The kid needs fruits and veggies. I don’t want to buy him pureed pouches until he is 14. We were wasting money on my attempts to try and introduce fruits and veggies to him.

Not to mention his diet looked like this:

Meatloaf
Crackers
Yogurt
Applesauce
Crackers
Yogurt
Cheese
Meatloaf
Goldfish
Crackers
Crackers

You get the idea. That was ALL he’d eat. Not a well-balanced diet for a growing boy.

<Enter Mom Ninja Mode>

The lightbulb went off. I could make him smoothies since he loves anything he can drink!

Out came my blender….onto Google I went for recipes and voila!

Austin now sucks down smoothies with banana, mango, peaches, pineapple and spinach in them! And we’ve only just begun!

I’m going to try strawberry, avocado, melons, berries.. anything I can smoothie-up with some almond milk.

Haha! Take that kid! Look at all those nutrients you are getting now!



His love of meatloaf has turned me to making him a combo of ground turkey, grated carrots and zucchini. 

And he eats it like there is no tomorrow.







1 comment:

Brittany said...

McKinley is practically 2 and still won't eat a lot of whole foods. We still puree most of her food. We also recently discovered that she loves Chris' smoothies which include spinach and all sorts of fruits. She is a very healthy eater (especially compared to me), but it is still a lot of work preparing all of her food.