Feeding Time at the Zoo

My dad is a vegetarian.  Each meal eaten looks like a rainbow collage of color on his plate.  Me, salad and fruit and steak and fish and salad and salad and salad and more fruit.  Mom and my sister Jessica are healthy eaters in the form of many small snacks and occasional plate picking.  Their plates are always bright.  Todd will eat anything and it's usually bursting with organic hues.  Brother-in-law Brian is a fellow at UCLA Medical Center and he doesn't have time to eat but does his best to find color in the hospital cafeteria.

All this color, readily available to our children daily.  Rarely does this palette of health get consumed.

Rainbow Dining (absence of children)
Aunt Jessica and Uncle Brian

My college best friend Mara told me, "I'm sick of throwing out beautiful meals I make for my kids."  Agreed.  Her house rule, "if you don't like it, you may have a piece of bread with clumpy butter."  Nothing thrills her kids more.  They beg for prison bread with butter.  It kills her.

It kills me routinely -- serving my children quality meals ranks as high as good hygiene and being nice to others.  My children are pretty clean and mostly nice.  What's sad is that my husband Todd is the natural chef in our house, not me.  Anything he creates is delicious and salubrious and anything I create, he improves upon and makes it into an irresistible four food group feast.

The effort to do cuisine-right for my children is lost on my brood.  The responsibility for three meals a day, all in vivid-color according to anyone who doesn't have children under the age of 12 -- falls squarely, like a ton of brussel sprouts, onto my shoulders.  Add to the pressure -- often, having maternal grandparents present during feeding time at the zoo.  Grandma Barb likes to lord over what you're putting on each child's plate with a running tsk tsk narrative.  The other is not any easier, he's from a Polish Shtetl -- plates must be cleared and nothing gets thrown out, just reheated and re-served for the next meal in perpetuity.

You can lead a kid to Nobu, but you can't make him eat the miso black cod.

Memories of many meals growing up consist of an unhealthy amount of Macaroni & Cheese, Taco nights and bone-in slippery dark meat chicken that was thrown under the table to avoid ingestion.  My mom swears she only bought chicken breasts.  Our house was not the paragon of the four food groups.

Happier culinary memories do exist.  Delightful digestion of Doritos and Coca Cola as snack after a long day of school.  Chocolate donuts for breakfast.   Gino's pizza and Chinese food for dinner.  Sometimes a truly terrific home made meatloaf was served.  Not exactly the pinnacle of healthy dining or a food resume to hold in high regard -- yet somehow I am a thriving adult, held to a standard that wasn't delivered to me as a child, best efforts aside.  During my childhood, my maternal grandparents lived in Florida and surely they too would have chastised my mom about the contents of our meals -- albeit lovingly.

All hope is not lost... according to some article my mom read and cites during our children's meal time, "it takes an average of 10x to finally get your child to try and incorporate a new food."  Put the money on the meat Grandma.  Everyone has their own two cents to spare on the subject of feeding our children and yet no one is offering to foot the bill for the pounds of filet mignon that will go to the dogs!

Miracles are not reserved for the Gods only.  The kids will eat apples.  Eden loves artichokes dipped in butter.  Remi will eat tuna fish and Chad adores ham.  Recently the girls tried and liked hard boiled eggs.  Everyone enjoys chicken noodle soup and Saltines.  Edamame is a crowd pleaser -- sometimes.  Just not often enough.

Denial is a wonderful accessory to parenting.  It's easy to justify Dole canned mandarin oranges in syrup as a fruit of distinction.  Pop Tarts are certainly fortified with vitamins and minerals.  Frosted Flakes must help lower your cholesterol.  Yogurt tubes make your bones stronger and the sugar's got to be all natural.  Proudest parenting coup of them all -- the number of Perdue Chicken nuggets my children consume on a weekly basis.  Now that's quality meat and filler.  Cheese sticks?  Fabulous, on par with fresh cheese from an organic dairy farm.  Often the battles need to be lost for the war to be won.

The battle over today, wounds licked, the reliable post consumption question gets lobbed, "did I eat enough dinner for dessert?"  Lips pursed, tongue twitching, I control my urge to holler, "mini-muffins and jello for dinner is dessert.  Enough."  With failure as NO option, the fruit bid is extended, "Sure, go ahead and have as much of Nature's candy as you'd like!"  Bon appetit mon amie!

Remi and Chad enjoying Nature's Candy