Better Candy

We took our daughter trick-or-treating this year and had a candy eating experience I just had to share. Before venturing out to the streets in our neighborhood for "real" trick-or-treating, we met a friend and her son at our local mall for indoor trick-or-treating since our kids are so young. 

Our daughter had a blast running in and out of stores collecting candy, and as soon as she got a Kit Kat, she decided that was the candy she wanted to eat.  Before leaving the mall, we let her eat the Kit Kat, after which she asked for more candy.  Unfortunately, the rest of the candy she got at the mall was hard candy that was clearly a choking hazard for a two-year-old. 

I told her, "This is yucky candy and a choking hazard, sweetie. We have better candy at home," thinking I'd give her some See's Candy we happened to have at home (that was not a choking hazard). For the entire car ride home, our daughter said, "Better candy, better candy, I want better candy." I had visions of her eating an entire box of See's Candies. When we got home, she opened the fridge, pointed at a tupperware full of pomegranate seeds and said, "Better candy, better candy."

My husband and I shared a quiet chuckle and got out the "better candy." And that's what she ate for dinner before "real" trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

Cupcakes for Dinner? Sign Me Up.

My daughter came home from school recently with two cupcakes and a rice krispie treat. There was a bake sale at school, and daddy treated her to some goodies.  When they got home from school, our conversation went like this.

"Hi Emmy! How are you?"

"Cupcakes."

"Oh, do you have cupcakes?"

"I have cupcakes!"

"Can I have a hug?"

"Cupcakes! I eat cupcakes."

With that, she handed me the bag of baked goods and announced she was having a cupcake for dinner.

"Do you want spaghetti or broccoli?"

"Cupcakes."

I turned to my husand and said, "I'm letting her eat cupcakes for dinner." He agreed.

While Jeremy and I began eating spaghetti, meatballs and broccoli, our daughter began licking the icing off of her cupcake. She had a huge smile on her face. After a few minutes, she pointed at our broccoli and said "I want some."

"You want broccoli?"

"Yes."

We put broccoli on her plate and she proceeded to eat two+ servings of it (dipped in Ranch dressing). When she started to slow down with the broccoli, she stuck her finger in some remaining icing, licked it off and made a "yucky" face.

"What, it doesn't go well with the broccoli?" I asked.

"No," she said, and proceeded to eat a bit more broccoli.

As you can see from the picture below, my daughter never took a bite of the cupcake. She just ate some icing, which there actually wasn't very much of, given the damage done to the cupcake during its transport from school to home. And she ate broccoli. We re-filled that broccoli section at least twice until she got full.

Don't get me wrong. My kid likes cake. But on this occasion, all she wanted was the excitement of eating the frosting. I thought the entire experience was a wonderful example of what happens when you let kids eat intuitively.

Another time we were at a friend's house for dinner, and for dessert they served chocolate chip cookies. After eating one, our daughter asked for a second cookie. Due to me being in the middle of a conversation, I asked her to wait, which made her want that cookie even more. She kept asking, and kept asking until finally I got her another cookie (wondering to myself how many cookies she'd want). She was so excited to finally get her second cookie, and took a bite immediately (after looking at her cookie admiringly). Twenty minutes later I found that same cookie sitting on a side table uneaten (except for that first bite) while she was stacking blocks on the floor.

As parents, we want the best for our kids and therefore feel compelled to serve them (or demand that they eat!) the most nutritious foods. I'll admit that allowing a kid to choose what they want to eat (even if that means dessert for dinner), can feel totally wrong, especially when we're setting such clear boundaries in other areas of their lives. But I happen to be committed to raising a girl who knows how to listen to her body, too. I think the best way to do that is to support her natural inuitive eating instincts. Sometimes that means eating cake for dinner, and other times it means eating three servings of broccoli and calling it a meal.