My Picky Eater

As karma would have it, our daughter is officially a certified picky eater.  Among my many idiotic pre-parenthood statements, I remember Ivan and I proudly announcing that “we would never become short-order cooks, since our kids would eat whatever we made for dinner or else”.  In some ways, I still hold on the illusion that when our kids are older we might all eat the same meal…but for now Rya has the luxury of two personal chefs on-call 24-7.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re not the type to chase her around with a spoon or even use airplane noises to encourage bites (probably because she’s such a mature two-year old that she would look at us like we were crazy and then spit the food on the floor).  But we have certainly have to make significant efforts to get her to eat even a small variety of reasonably acceptable foods.  When she was a baby, Rya generally ate most things we fed her, but never really seemed to ‘enjoy’ food the way her sister does (like ‘mmmming’ at the sight or taste of anything and everything!).  Rya’s appetite as a toddler has evolved into a hit or miss interest in a few select items, that she eats some days and has no interest in other days.  On a good day, Rya might eat a oatmeal for breakfast, plain pasta for lunch, pizza for dinner…and maybe some raisins and cheese in between.  Since around the time she turned two, she has refused to eat just about any type of fruit or vegetable.  I honestly wonder sometimes how she doesn’t get scurvy from her lack of vitamins!  She’s always been on the lower end of the growth charts, but she’s also always been a very active energetic little girl, so her little body seems to find a way to stay healthy somehow.  We try not to give her much junkfood, aside from the chips and ice cream bars my dad brings everytime he visits (trust me, if that sounds like over-indulgence, it’s actually a compromise since he once took her to the convenience store with a $50 bill and literally let her choose whatever she wanted…and another time gave her a sip of his coffee and didn’t understand what was wrong with that!). 

I recently went to a Picky Eating course for parents and was very underwhelmed by the lack of practical suggestions.  I had to stop myself from laughing when the instructor suggested that the only reason kids like dessert is because adults make a big deal of it…and that if we were to make a big deal of broccoli, they would love that just as much – seriously?!?  Our only source of hope and inspiration have been other parents of picky eaters who validate that it is not easy to feed certain children, and that they still end up turning out okay (aside from often never growing out of their pickiness!).  The funniest comment I’ve heard was one dad joking that he would be happy if his daughter would just eat a half a sandwich every other day. 

Since I’ve come to the realization that there are no magic answers for picky eaters, I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and just work on some small creative ideas that might squeeze a few more nutrients and calories into Rya now and then.  So far my successful attempts have included:

·      Buying a juicer and letting Rya help me put fruit into it and drink what she created

·      Using a breadmaker to sneak flax seeds into Rya’s ‘tea and toast’ (I give her milk with a couple drops of coffeemate creamer to dip her toast in and she feels very grown up!)

·      Baking mini carrot muffins with Rya, in which I hid applesauce, wheat germ, and poppy seeds – which she luckily thinks are sprinkles!

·      Hiding pureed sweet potato in Rya’s pancakes (this one I got from Jessica Seinfeld’s ingenious book ‘Deceptively Delicious’)

Fingers crossed, if Rya even continues to eat 20% of my healthy creations I will try to be happy with those small successes!

Rya's back!

Since I’ve received some concerned responses about how Rya is doing at daycare, I thought I’d share a positive update!

As you know, the first couple of weeks were really tough on her (and me!).  Rya's normally such a happy, energetic little girl, so it was really hard for me to see her being sad at school and worried at home each day about the next.  Rya started to give us signs that she was maybe starting to enjoy small parts of her day (singing circle time songs like B-I-N-G-O loudly each evening), but apparently she was good at hiding her voice since the teachers barely knew she could speak.

But low and behold, at the end of her third week, Rya finally started to come out of her delicate little shell.  She bonded with a very nice teacher at school, named Ms. Agnes, who I think is quite fond of Rya too.  Up until this point, Rya had been holding tightly to Ms. Agnes’ hand each day in the playground when I came to pick her up, but by last week she finally started to show a bit of independence.  Some days I would pull up and see her sitting on a bench next to Ms. Agnes, then walking near Ms. Agnes, and now I am happy to say that I pull up and can’t find Rya since she’s finally busy playing with the other kids.  Ms. Agnes has been meeting me at the fence each day with better and better news about Rya’s adjustment.  At first, Ms. Agnes was happy to report that she discovered Rya is a hard little worker who would take the initiative to help her tuck in chairs, erase the board, or clean up the desks.  The next day, Ms. Agnes told me that Rya no longer followed her around, but that Ms. Agnes had to start following Rya around to keep track of her.  Once Ms. Agnes asked me who 'Yaya' is, since in her country Yaya means big sister and Rya always seems to be talking about her (e.g. drawing pictures and saying 'one daddy, one mommy, one baby, one Yaya').  I had to laugh when I told her that Yaya is herself...Rya just can't pronounce her R's as yet : )  She says Rya is learning the routine very quickly and makes sure she follows it to a T.  Rya has learned that I pick her up around 4:30 each day when the class is outside, so she insists on wearing her jacket regardless of the temperature.  One 28 degree day I purposely sent her without one and she took it upon herself to steal a 4 year-old classmate’s sweater, which she wore loosely and threatened to tantrum if I removed it (so I shamefully whispered to Ms. Agnes that I was afraid to challenge Rya but assured her it would return the next day!).  Rya adores Ms. Agnes so much that she can often be found pretending to be her at home.  Sometimes I catch her singing ‘follow me outside’ and walking backwards gesturing her hands toward her, the way Ms. Agnes probably leads the kids to the playground.  I suppose Rya likes her teacher so much, that she’s forgotten about the age difference since yesterday Ms. Agnes told me that Rya calls all the other teachers Ms. So and so, but thinks she’s on a first name basis with ‘Agnes’!

My little pumpkin still struggles with feeling a bit nervous now and then, but I’ve been working hard to incorporate therapy sessions into our daily drives too and from school : )  I’ve gotten her to practice positive self-talk like “mommy will always come get me” and “it’s okay to cry little bit” out loud, to the point that she now states them to me on her own.  She even started normalizing with others, like asking her teacher daddy ‘you get shy at school too?’ and asking a tiny classmate ‘you miss your mommy?’. 

Rya’s adjustment has fit in very nicely with my return back to work from summer holidays.  I started back on Monday and it was the very first day that she walked into the classroom with a smile on her face, rather than the usual clinging and crying.  We even have a ‘secret code’ at the window where I wave goodbye to her and we share a thumbs up to assure each other that everything’s going to be okay : )

An early start to the school year

This week, ‘Mamadee’ as Rya affectionately calls him, went back to work after his parental leave and summer holidays.  I think it was a lot harder for him than it was for me since he feels more comfortable being at home with the kids than I do, and since he’s got quite a tough job as a kindergarten teacher to go back to.  But he loves his day job too and I think we’re all happy to have some more structure and routine back in our lives.

Since I return to work in a couple of weeks too, the girls have already started daycare –which gives us all some cushion time for the transition.  We found a lovely lady down the street with a dayhome, who happens to be from the same ‘back home’ as our parents.  She’s such a great match for our little Chubz who seems to be adjusting quite well to her new friend.  She has a few other children part-time who seem fond of Kassiah and the other two days a week, Kassiah essentially gets a private nanny…and I’m pretty sure she loves the VIP treatment!  Rya has started at a Montessori style daycare, which has been a bit more of a rocky start, as to be expected since toddlers tend to be pretty ‘neo-phobic’ or scared of new things, as I recently learned.  It’s really hard for Rya to say bye to us in the morning and sometimes she even wells up with tears of relief when we pick her up in the afternoon.  I’m told that during the day she does some ‘work’ on her own – like painting & coloring, but isn’t comfortable enough to talk to or play with other kids as yet.  When I pick her up from the playground in the afternoon, she’s usually walking around with a sad little face on, holding hands with the teacher and then runs to the fence trying to break out in desperation when she sees me.  The daycare provides breakfast, lunch, and snacks…but our stubborn little monkey refuses to eat anything they offer her, so I’ve been sending her homemade lunches that she nibbles on a bit.  One positive is that she naps there independently along with all the other little ones on their mats, which is quite interesting since she claims to be incapable of falling asleep at home without me lying next to her ; )  It’s pretty heartbreaking to hand her off each day, especially since she doesn’t seem to be comfortable enough to let her true self shine at school just yet.  But her teachers assure me that Rya seems to be gradually becoming more engaged each day and I’m sure once she’s settled she’ll start to love it.  Probably the main reason I’m having a hard time with the transition is that I can completely relate to the nervous little daughter I’ve created.  I usually spend the first few weeks, or sometimes months, of a new job with knots in my stomach, staying pretty quiet until I get my bearings.  But after that my personality returns and I’m sure hers will too, especially since she’s got such a strong charismatic one!

And incase you put two and two together wondered what the heck I’m doing at home alone for two weeks without a husband or kids – it’s an interesting combination between a whole lotta nothing, and a whole lotta everything!  I imagined my two weeks off as me lounging on the deck with an iced tea and a nice book…so far that hasn’t quite happened as yet.  I’ve spent most of my first week catching up on some errands and housework, but even those tasks have had a calming feel to them since I can do them at my pace and without having to chase after rugrats in between.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly squeezed in a couple of long naps, and possibly some trash t.v…but my goal is to schedule in some serious self-care next week like maybe a spa day and some kayaking at the lake.

1 Year Old Kassiah

Well, it’s official – our little baby isn’t so little anymore…Kassiah turned 1 year old last week!  It almost caught us off guard since she is much more of a ‘baby’ than Rya was at 1 year.  By now Rya had a handful of small words and even started walking on her 1st birthday.  Kassiah on the other hand…she likes to take her time.  She’s got quite a bit of weight to carry around and it seems like that’s easier to do horizontally than vertically, so she avoids taking steps at all costs.  We had started to think she was saying ‘dada’ and ‘Rya’ a couple of months ago, but now wonder if it was just babbling since she can’t seem to produce them anymore.  Instead she has one multi-purpose word that she uses all day long: ‘hi’!  When a person walks into the room, ‘hi’, when she wants something ‘hi’, in response to questions ‘hi’…not much of a vocabulary, but she seems quite proud of herself.  She says it in such a cute high voice, and sometimes in close repetition, that it’s hard not to laugh at her strong effort.  To compensate, Kassiah also seems to be inventing her own sign language (as the second born, she did not have the privilege of attending signing classes like her sister!)…for ‘all done’ she brings her sausage arms up to her head and uses her hands to cover her ears. 

1 year later also means the end of our shared parental leave.  I was home for the first 6 months and Ivan has been home for these last 6 months.  Like any normal stay-at-home parent, I think he had a bit of a love-hate relationship with it.  He brought lots of his kindergarten teaching skills into our home with ‘centers’ and homemade games for the girls to play with.  Some days the three of them stayed in their p.j.’s all day, other days he ventured with them to playgroups (a.k.a. mommy groups).  Rya tested his limits with her picky eating and baby with her clinginess, but in the end, the 3 of them have developed a pretty amazing bond.  Some days I would come home to find them all piled on top of each other napping!  Rya, especially, has become much more of a daddy’s girl, often preferring Ivan over mommy when she’s sleepy or has a boo-boo.  The experience has also been important for our relationship, and I would highly recommend it to other brave couples.  We each got a turn to walk in the other person’s shoes and have had some interesting gender norm challenging arguments. 

Thanks to my impeccable pregnancy timing, we now get to enjoy a family summer vacation together before Ivan and I head back to work and the girls start daycare.  Fingers crossed that the transition goes smoothly – I’m sure you’ll hear about it either way!

Through Her Eyes

Since Rya’s usually busy harassing her sister or having a tantrum, I feel like she sometimes gets a bad rap for being ‘the bad one’.  But then I remember that she’s two!...and that she was just as sweet as Kassiah when she was her age.  We still try to balance our attention between the two and make sure Rya always feels included, but I’m sure there are times when she gets irritated at how much we talk about baby’s cuteness (which we can’t help, cause Chubz really is too darn cute).   Since Kassiah is usually at the receiving end of the bullying, I tend to ‘take her side’ and get upset with Rya often.  But I recently thought of an analogy that kind of helps me empathize with her a bit more:

I suppose in Rya’s mind, she is, was, and forever will be mine & Ivan’s baby – it’s a vital part of her identity.  Just like I’m the wife/mom and Ivan’s the husband/dad.  So when little #2 showed up one day, that just totally threw a wrench in Rya’s understanding of the world around her.  Us adults try to use logic to reassure her that we still love her and that she’s still important, but almost a year later, she’s still adjusting to a major life change.  So to take a look through her eyes, I guess this would almost be like if I came home from work one day and Ivan introduced me to his new wife!!!  To add insult to injury, she just happens to be younger and arguably cuter than me.  Ivan might assure me that I will always be his wife and he will always love me, but I would still be pretty crushed.  He would sit me down and explain to me that as the ‘older wife’ I would need to move into my own room so that he could share a bed with the ‘new wife’.  She would start doing the chores that I had done for years, but all of a sudden they would be good enough for waves of positive reinforcement: “Wow, new wife – you folded my shirts so well” “Great job, new wife, this meal is amazing!”.  Now even if this lady happened to be a lovely person, I would probably take every chance I could get to elbow her in the hallway or maybe even knock her down a stair or two.  According to Big Love, I may start to become fond of her eventually – we might have chats over coffee or go shopping together…but it would take a very long time to get there.  I know it’s a bit extreme – but this idea really helped me understand Mariah’s perspective a bit better ; )

Currently, that little monkey is in her bed with a bit of a tummy bug.  It’s the first time she’s been able to say ‘my tummy hurts’, but she doesn’t quite understand the cause and effect part.  Usually when she gets a boo-boo it’s because she’s fallen down on rocks or something so she keeps trying to figure out who or what made her tummy hurt.  We had gone to a restaurant for lunch so afterward she told me ‘the lady pinched me’ – I’m guessing she crafted an image in her mind of the waitress squishing her tummy enough to turn it into a boo-boo.  I’d better go check on her, so hope you all enjoy this read : )