Helpful Mom

Has this ever happened to you?  My daughter says this morning, “I’m hungry”.  “What would you like?”, I ask.  “I don’t know” is the response.  Then the suggestions begin, how about grapes, no, strawberries, no, yogurt, no, sandwich, no, oompaloompas, yes!  She just gets silly after a while and I realize it’s become a game.  That is why a few months back I created a picture menu for my girls.  The idea came from a friend of mine who had made menus by cutting out pictures of food and made menus for the kids to play restaurant.  I took that idea and ran with it.  I used clip art to create a simple picture menu of the food items they like to eat on a regular basis and left a blank area where I could tape on “Specials”  such as cantelopes which we don’t always have around the house each week.  Once the specials have been consumed I take them off the menu.  That way when the kids are hungry but don’t know what they want they can peruse the pictures until they decide instead of my having to play 20 questions.  My husband laughed at me because it took a bit of time to make but it’s saved me lots of time in the long run.  I also laminated the menu to keep it intact for years to come.  This allows you to tape pictures to it without tearing the paper and you can even write on it temporarily with dry erase markers.

Speaking of dry erase markers, they are life savers at dinner time.  We have a collection of laminated place mats for the girls that include Dora the Explorer Laminated Placemat, Blues Clues, and Sesame St. among others.  They have things like practicing your letter and number writing, games, and color and shape matching.  And they help dinner go smoother by entertaining the kids while we finish our meal when they are done or not interested in eating.  I have found these mats at Riteaid and Walmart for $1-$3 and have found them at garage sales and thrift stores.  We keep a cupful of dry erase markers on the table and rotate the mats to keep them interesting.

To make food fun I like to use a melon baller on cantelopes and watermelon, somehow foods more fun if it’s shaped.  It only takes a few minutes more but the food gets eaten even faster.  I also use this trick on sandwiches with cookie cutter shapes.  You can cut out big shapes or you can cut out lots of little ones.  We’ve had penguin, angels, leaves, even foot sandwiches.  You can make shapes with your pancakes, like one mom who doers a letter of the day so she’ll make pancake letters.   And I’m a big proponent of food color.  Have you ever had purple pancakes or orange waffles, or yes we have done it green eggs!  My husband even colored mashed potatoes once.  Kids are so much more excited if they get to pick what color their food could be.  And you can teach them some fun tricks about how if you mix red and blue it makes purple or yellow and blue makes green.  And let them “help”  I know it’s messy but if they’re helping they are not standing by whining about if it’s done yet?  And if they help make it they are more likely to eat it.  I also stick cereals like fruit loops or cheerios on strings so they can have necklaces  to eat that are fun.  I will make the whole bag of cereal into necklaces at once and bag them individually so I can pack them up quickly when we are going out for the day.  They come in handy when grocery shopping or waiting at the doctors office.