Feeding the beast(s)

Like many couples, especially those with kids, we struggle with the daily challenge of what, and when, to eat. As a working mom, my challenge is compounded by the time constraints of commuting to and from a job, picking up kids, etc.


As a lover of  the French approach to many things, I was not surprised to learn that they take their school lunches for kids, even toddlers, as seriously as they do meals for adults. Check out this CBS News story on French School lunches.


We have been very intentional and fortunate with our kids' eating habits. We buy organic where we can (milk, fruit, some veggies), and in general, we have pretty good eating habits and rather than any hard rules, try to do all things in moderation.


Despite my southern birth and family, we fry infrequently and when we cook soul food, we try to make it a bit healthier by using smoked turkey in place of pork, chicken and seafood in place of some of the pork and beef sausage, etc.


The fortunate part has been that the kids are pretty easy when it comes to food. Ava has the toddler standard 'no crusts' edict for sandwiches and over the past few months seems to have picked up the 'vegetables are yucky' mantra from some of the kids shows we let her watch. Athough she says it, she will still eat and request broccoli, carrots, edamame, sugar snap peas, corn and more.


With Ava, the bigger challenge is making sure she eats at all. Some days I'm sure she is subsisting on sunflower nut butter and jelly sandwiches (her school has a 'no nut products' rule), grapes and string cheese. Other days, she polishes off her meal, asks for more, and sneaks bites off my plate.

Look what I found! Is Magic Shell a vegetable?

One month ago, Dylan, aka The Eating Machine, had a single upper tooth. Which he promptly chipped somehow when I was away overnight. Le sigh. 


Three weeks later, three more broke through within a day of each other! And as of last night, a canine tooth is poking through too. Amazingly, despite having five teeth erupt in such a short period of time, other than a runny nose, he's shown no discomfort or discontent, other than sticking his fingers in his mouth periodically. Having read about the teething-related misery of other toddlers, I know that once again we are incredibly fortunate with this little guy.


And as I've mentioned, even before teeth, he ate at will. Now, I think we can simply stop dicing everything into tiny slivers and instead give him slightly larger pieces for feeding himself. Next up: teaching him to use a spoon and fork.

Almost a year old: time to choose a school

Okay, not quite school-choosing time, but almost. Back when Ava was born, I started looking around to see what types of schools were out there, what was close by, what teaching approaches to consider, and how much we'd need to budget for preschool or daycare in the years ahead. It's daunting!

11 month old Ava looking fetching as she uses her dad's collar for stability

Now that we're getting a little closer to when she might actually be going to part-time care of some sort, I revisited this school review site http://www.savvysource.com/ to start trying to narrow down my options.

Unfortunately, instead of feeling more informed, I'm more conflicted and like it's still too soon to try to choose a spot. I have no idea what type of learning environment Ava will need. Will she do better in Montessori? Waldorf? Bilingual? More or less structured? I have no idea. I'm leaning towards some sort of bi-lingual school in either Spanish or French. Either (or both) would enable her to communicate and connect with millions of people around the world and J. and I have at least a fighting chance at developing some proficiency in those ourselves at this advanced age so we could practice with her too.

One thing I admired in Europe during my fellowship last year and during our trip to Paris a few years ago was the widespread multilingualism, even among kids. The U.S. will have to do better by its students in the coming decades and most language teachers say kids shouldn't wait until high school to start studying foreign languages. They learn it much more seamlessly the earlier they start.

After Gov. Bill Richardson spoke at the DNC last week, sprinkling Spanish through his remarks, I told J. I was going to study Spanish. Again. I took a year of it in high school after finishing my French requirements, so I probably know just enough to accidentally insult some native speaker with a hair-trigger temper while trying to ask directions to the bathroom.

That said, Ava's just getting to the point where she can assert her preferences for activities or items. She shakes her head 'yes' and 'no' in response to simple questions, like "Do you want more of this food?" and "Are you all done?" "Are you sure?" She loves music and starts wiggling her torso, waving her arms or bobbing her head when she hears something she likes on the radio or even rockin' commercials on TV. When I fold clothes, she likes to methodically take them out of the basket one by one, then put them back in. Maybe someday she'll like doing laundry. Or maybe money laundering. It's a toss up at this point.

11 month old Ava practicing her smile for school pictures some day.

I suspect we'll start getting a better bead on what she'll need and what our options are soon, but some of these places have a 12-18 month or longer waiting lists! So like parents everywhere, we'll plan and hope for the best and make the most informed choice we can that fits our resources over the next year or so.