glub glubs

fresh off the heels of having a plate of glub glubs (aka goldfish crackers) hurled my direction, i sat down to compose this post. since when are glub glubs offensive to two year olds?! titles like "what's the fine for throwing your child out the window" or "i give up" or "n., mom and failure, a retrospective" came to mind for this post. i know i have created terrible eaters and that i am entirely to blame.

my children have always been voracious breakfast eaters, fairly decent lunch eaters and downright atrocious dinner eaters. when we moved into this new house, i said, "new house, new rules!" i really did try. but somehow, life got in the way, and little by little we slid into our old habits of making 3 separate meals for dinner, one for grown ups, one for the school aged set, and one for the toddlers. sadly, short order cook skills are topping my resume these days.

when f. was a baby i was a good mama and made all of his baby food myself. i turned my nose up at jarred baby food. i spent one day every couple of weeks preparing food for the days to come, froze it in ice cube trays and thawed it as needed. he chowed down on mango, avocado, lentil soup and the like. now his repertoire consists of cheese sandwiches, lunch.ables and peanut butter on rit.z crackers. i justify it by telling myself at least they are whole wheat rit.z. when the twins came along i was in too much of a haze to consider making all of my own baby food. although i would still mash my own bananas, mangos and avocado. somewhere with all three of my children, the switch from baby food to people food has gone seriously wrong.

the thing is, i love to cook! i enjoy roasting veggies or marinating a protein or making up my own recipes. however, when a thoughtfully prepared meal is hurled back at you at full force by a two year old, it starts to lose its appeal. so the blue box, longtime fav of poor college students and toddlers alike, started to creep its way back into our weekly routine. as depression also creeped its way back into my life late this winter, there were days when toasted waffles handed over the baby gate sufficed for dinner. nary a complaint, i might add, from the shorter set.

now that i am living better through chemistry i am thinking i might be ready to tackle the whole eating debacle again. otherwise i am going to be drowing in a sea of glub glubs being tossed my way.