A Full Belly, A Happy Child

I had a realization a couple months ago.  Whenever Isabelle was really cranky or having a particularly bad melt down I could immediately track that she hadn't eaten anything in a very long time.  It was quite an exciting realization.  All I needed to do was feed my daughter regular meals and have a few snacks handy and she becomes a much more manageable pre-schooler.  Who knew?  With such a simple solution there would just be no reason to ever encounter this type of melt down again. Right?

Of course there are a couple problems...she barely eats anything and I forget to feed her.  So often with our daytime meals on the run, me making us different foods, and dinner almost always being something she won't eat, I don't necessarily notice that very little food was offered to her that day and she didn't eat any of it anyway.  Until the melt down begins...

Having identified the problem I am getting better but, just as I have to be dilegent about maintaining the changes in my own diet I also have to be dilegent about helping Isabelle maintain the changes in hers as well.  I had been stocking food that I knew she would eat for lunch, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese or peanut butter and honey sandwich.  Along with a few snack foods she likes, mandarin oranges, yogurt, other fruits and she will eat some nuts.  I know she loves crackers and chips but so do I and neither one of us really needs to plow through a bag of chips in one sitting.

Then last week epic mom failure.  It was close to lunch time and we were out and about doing something when she begins this horrible melt down.  I am looking at her wondering where this is all coming from when I decide to figure out when she had last eaten...breakfast?  Oops we ran out the door that morning in such a rush I forgot to make her something...dinner the night before...oops she wouldn't eat it and then never had anything afterward...Lunch the day before...yes OK good she had eaten lunch the day before.  So there we were almost 24 hour after the last meal she had.  No wonder she was melting down, I would be too!  I quickly got her some food and life went back to normal.

(I do feel compelled to interject here the fact that the kids we ministered to in Kenya would only eat 1 meal a day often.  While we were there we would feed them lunch before our programing and they were always attentive and enthusiastic.  They tried to continue our program after we left but had a much harder time engaging the kids once they ran out of money to feed them.  So while this makes for a melt down one day in my life this is reality for many parents and children around the world.  End sermon.)

So I am renewed in my resolve to keep a snack in my purse at all times (for both of us), keep the house stocked with breakfast and lunch foods that Isabelle will eat and continue to encourage her to try the new foods she encounters at dinner time.

It is all about planning.  I need to plan to buy the right foods for her, I need to plan ahead to have snacks in my purse or make a sandwich to bring along.  Just like in my own diet, I have to plan there too.  So my fellow fighter pilots...what are your planning suggestions for making sure your children are properly nurished?

Also, I would like to propose our next challenge.  Let's each hit the library or book store for a new diet or exercise book we haven't read before and review it here.  Sometimes hearing the same information from a new angle can be just the inspiration we need to keep going.  Thoughts?