Beefing With Chicken

Yesterday we saw the doctor. Clark got his chin stitches out and both boys had their 2 year-old checkups. Turns out that Cal has lost weight since he was at the doctor a couple months ago, so we were given some advice on how to get him to eat in the form of anecdotes, several print-outs, and a bottle of something that is called chocolate medical food. My two-cents? The words chocolate and food have no business being so close to the word medical. It makes me want to throw up cookie chunks into a bedpan not drink it.

Operation Beef Up Cal in full swing..ironically with chicken

After the appointment we quickly formed Operation Beef Up Calvin and went to Chick Fil A for some nuggets and fries. Those are a couple of the things that the boys will rarely ever turn down.  I’d say the trip was a success. They ate a lot, sucked milk through straws with a 90% success rate while only occasionally looking like old men, and played in and around the playground without getting stuck in it or scared by it more times than they were amused by it.

Following closely on the heels of the Chick Fil A experience was a leisure family walk to town center for some ice cream. The boys discovered a tiny fountain we didn’t know existed while we tried to feed them ice cream, so it actually took awhile for them to eat in between splashing and nearly flopping into the fountain face-first in front of all the adoring dogs people watching them.

The fact remains that we need to work harder to get Cal to eat. The list I got from the doctor suggests stuffing foods with sour cream and peanut butter and things like that…which doesn’t seem like it would work at all for Cal, but I’ll try it. My brilliant friend Gen clued me in to serving the boys V8 Fusion since they will hardly eat any vegetables or fruits lately. They seem to really like that, and that’s another way to add calories and a daily vegetable serving. Last year at this time the boys would eat any fruit I gave them and they wouldn’t want anything else. Now all they want is the bread or cheese and nothing fresh. I’m looking for other ways to beef Cal up, but also to get them both to like to eat fruits and vegetables again.  For good measure I’ve also started a bread-baking experiment in order to provide better bread for the boys (and the Huzz and me). The loaves I made today turned out better than the ones I made last week by far. Last week after Cal tried a piece of the bread he made a face and said, “Different bread, Mommy.” This week I didn’t use as much whole wheat flour so it’s more like bread, less like a carpet square, so things are looking up in that department. Also, the house smells amazing.

Moral of the story: I’d love some advice on getting picky kids to eat healthy things. And I’ll also give some advice as I keep trying. Now excuse me while I go cover dinner in peanut butter and sour cream make a totally normal dinnertime meal.