The Fat Diaries: Luring Kids To Healthy Snacks
So the kids are home from school now. It’s been a week already and I’m a wreck.
The living room floor is a battle zone, Laundry Mountain has risen another vertical kilometer, and the mattresses are off the kids’ beds and currently being employed as a fort.
And through all this I keep hearing the same refrain: “MOM, I’M HUNNNNNNNGRY!”
Sadly, they keep asking for junk food for snack -- things like vanilla wafers, pretzels, fruit roll-ups, and cupcakes, which had been the fare at preschool snack-time. With atypical optimism, I tried to steer them away from sugary snacks (which I don’t have) and kept plopping apple slices, blueberries and carrots in front of them, only to get tantrums.
I tried to sweeten the deal with peanut butter for dipping, or letting them pick their own snack.
No dice. They wanted pudding cups. I was just about at breaking point when I stumbled upon the solution purely by accident.
It was about 2:00pm and I was feeling peckish so I betook me to the fridge and pulled out an apple. It was really the last word in apples, tangy and crisp and cold and I wandered into the living room enjoying it thoroughly.
My son watched me closely as I tried to catch the cold juice running down my wrist and suddenly yelled, “Can I have a bite?”
My youngest, not to be cheated out of anything her brother was getting, immediately yelled, “Me too! I want a bite!”
So I was caught in the middle of two jumping kids trying to snatch the apple from my hand.
“No! My apple!” I said.
“Please?” they cried.
“NO! Go away!”
“BITE! BITE! BITE!” they shouted in perfect unison.
I sagged, defeated. “Okay, who wants an apple?”
“ME! ME! ME!”
I stomped to the kitchen and got them apples for snack.
Now, my children are ordinarily very polite except for this one foible: any food I happen to be eating will usually involve me defending myself from my mooching offspring (fortunately, growing up with four brothers has prepared me for this).
Until now, I only equated this seagullish behavior with breakfast cereal and rare goodies. Now it occurred to me, I could do this with healthy snacks too!
I experimented with this the next day.
Around 2:00pm I got a bowl and filled it with baby carrots. I carried it into the midst of my kids, in plain sight, as I tried to crunch as loudly as possible.
The curious kid, stopped in their various activities (like turning dolls’ hair into complicated rats nests and deleting my computer files) and watched.
As I hoped, the youngest turned her china blue eyes on me and in her most beguiling voice asked, “Can I have a bite?”
I said nothing, but frowned and clutched the bowl to my chest like it contained rare Aztec gold. I made sure she and the boy were watching as I shoved another carrot in my mouth. Now they circled in classic shark formation.
“BITE PLEASE! BITE PLEASE!!”
This time I pretended to be annoyed as I shouted, “Okay, fine! Carrots for everyone!” to a chorus of cheers.
There was no mention of pudding cups that day. So now I’ve been able to reinstate healthy snack time by teaching the children that a). annoying Mommy brings rewards, and, b). one must guard one’s food at all times like a feral pitbull!
Ah, crud. Is it September yet?
