BBJ Decides Enough is Enough

BBJ decided, on Saturday, that enough is enough. She will not consent to let me feed her, if she's paying attention to what I'm doing. (Tonight, I resorted to having her on my lap, facing away from me, and shoveled a jar of squash into her mouth as fast as she would open it back up, to make sure she didn't realize I was feeding her her dinner!)

I need to preface this - I am, completely, of the opinion that children know when they are full. They know when they have had enough. Their little meter beeps inside of their little heads, and they know they have eaten their fill.

BBJ knows when she is full. However, she also knows when she is bored. She gets bored way before she gets full. (Yes, she's one of those children!) When I was living Abroad, I attended a picnic where I saw a woman chasing her two year old son around a pond, brandishing a spoon full of lunch, calling, "Gallagher! Come here, Gallagher! Gallagher! Come here, Gallagher!" (I'm ashamed to say I helped pick the name. She wanted our help picking an English name, but it absolutely had to start with the "ga" sound. There just aren't that many names...and she thought Gary sounded too weird. Go figure!) I always swore to myself I would never be like her, chasing my child around, imploring her to eat. I always intended that my child would be like me, more inclined to over eat than under eat! I had all sorts of plans of how to teach my child to make proper food choices and keep herself healthy.

My foot is now officially in my mouth! If my child is not strapped securely into a high chair, no more than two bites will pass her lips before she wanders away. If I sit on the floor, while she is playing, and call her and show her a cookie in my hand, she comes a running, screaming with delight, shouting, "MMM!" (That's her new word for all things edible. If she ever says this while looking at you, steer clear - she bites.) She will run up, climb in my lap, take a bite of my cookie, look at me in rapture...carefully chew her bite of cookie...wipe the crumbs from her face....carefully lick those crumbs off her chubby little palms...and then leave, the cookie forgotten, in favor of a piece of trash sitting nearby. The only exception to this rule is chocolate or sweet drinks. Those, I give her a few bites and then hide it and tell her it's all gone. Someday, I think, she'll forgive me.

As seems to be the theme this week, I stumbled on a way to get her to be happy to eat the remainder of her lunch: I let her feed herself. I handed her a spoon, loaded full of delicious rice, and let her have at it.


She was thrilled! She was enthralled! She licked the spoon and threw it away. She grabbed great handfuls of the rice and licked each finger carefully, squishing the rice in her little palm, glorying in its delicious texture.


She was so excited, she didn't even notice when I grabbed another spoon and quickly spooned the rest of her bowl of rice into her mouth, refilled it, and then fed all of that to her as well. Life with BBJ is messy, but never dull!