Feeding the Frenzied

I loathe feeding my children. Don’t misunderstand me, I think they are precious when they fling Winter Squash from two directions but I just dread the whole process.  Like most things that involve hate, my thoughts begin with worry. Now that their meals have moved beyond the easy pre-jarred, pre-thought, pre-balanced combinations of things that I would never make in my kitchen; like Purple Carrot, Pumpkin and Pomegranate Puree, I’m concerned that I might not be offering them the best nutritional variety. It’s not like I’m looking to feed them ancient roots from Tanzania I just want to make sure I fill in all the blanks.

After I’ve prepared the meal and most likely, needlessly, worried about it being enough, they will then reach out and swat the spoon in my hand that’s full of colorful, antioxidant, glop which results in a wet, gloopy, poopy mess otherwise named by more laid- back, whimsical, mothers (not me) as abstract art. To add to my displeasure, they begin to rub these sloopy, sloppy hands in their eyes, in their hair, on each other’s high chair, in, around, and under their sippy cups and more recently, with gravity experiments, they have added the floor as yet another medium. Thank god for my dog. There is at least one dimension of this kitchen I don’t have to clean.

And seriously, can we talk about how to clean these high chairs?? I mean, come on, after a serious scrub, my five point safety harness remains encrusted with sweet potato, banana and saliva. (Hey there’s an idea for a puree pouch). Can’t safety have a certain standard for hygiene?? However, on the bright side, if I can’t be sure I cleaned the straps thoroughly and they start teething on leftover parsnips from last night, does that not solve my nutritional dilemma by adding more unintended variety??

So now that I’ve laid out my angst in this way I am lead to ask myself; why am I wigging out about this?? And when am I gonna let this go??  It’s not going to end anytime soon. My twin boys are 11 months now. Maybe the answer is to just take life one meal at a time. I’ve heard that before somewhere. Maybe I need to remember that with the right equipment, most things will clean up. And at the end of the day, like all things in life, this too shall pass. Maybe I’ll look back at this one day when my boys are eating elsewhere and wish that they would, once again, drop wet multigrain cereal down my shirt.

Tags: Chicago, feeding, Food, Mom, Page Deulin, parenting

Category: Chicago, New Posts