gummy vitamins

Meet Reid.

He’s my sweet little charmer; a terribly opinionated, feisty toddler who still prefers the company of his thumb over any stuffed animal I present him with. And for those who’ve been following my blogging journey, yesterday was his second birthday. Yes, he is TWO. (Already!)

Now would be an appropriate time to insert a predicted “Where does the time go?” – except for the fact that I know exactly where the time went: two years of feeding, changing, amusing, disciplining, soothing, teaching and caring for a sweet little baby. A baby whom, according to Old Navy’s size guide, is now a toddler.

My toddler Reid, who go-go-goes, pausing only briefly to smell the flowers – or eat a well-seasoned tortilla chip, as demonstrated above. He was a champion breastfeeder, is an authentic foodie (preferring pan-seared scallops over chicken fingers any day) and demands enjoys a cup of warm white milk before bedtime.

And, every single day of his life, he has been below the 5th percentile for weight….

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I tend to swing to extremes – either I do something extraordinarily well, or fail miserably at it. In fact, I often wish I was Jennifer Lopez and could get paid for excelling at mediocrity (how can someone be a mediocre singer-actress-designer-producer-dancer-perfumer and still warrant that kind of paycheck? Oh yeah, she’s hot).

Focus, Lena.

Anyhoo, one of the things I royally reek at is getting a healthy, balanced breakfast from the boys’ plate to their mouths. Like, I fail at this EVERY morning. In all fairness, they don’t put up too much of a fuss at lunch and dinner; there’s just something about the 8:00 a.m. meal which has them pushing the food away in frustration, irritation and downright hostility.

I like breakfast. In fact, it’s probably the meal I look forward to most!

Think about it – it’s the only meal where it’s socially acceptable to have something sweet or savoury – or a glorious combination of the two. They even invented a hall pass for gorging on pastries and little cakes – it’s called “Continental Breakfast”. And every fitness enthusiast will preach the importance of protein in the morning – bacon IS a great source of protein, right? Right.

So what the heck is their deal? I am at a loss. Ryder and Reid will push aside cereal and take about one bite of scrambled eggs (sometime two). Muffins will be tossed on the floor and don’t even get me started on oatmeal… the gagging begins the second they see the pot of water boiling on the stove. Toast? Used as Jedi swords.

(They even discard bacon. Seriously! They cannot be my sons.)

In fact is, the only thing they will eat willingly – in large quantities – is fruit. A bowl of strawberries, sliced banana and apple, and a few blueberries for good measure. THIS is my “Plan B” every morning… which is slowly starting to turn into Plan A, since I’m just about done wasting perfectly good food, and my waistline can’t afford the whole “waste not want not” phenomena, if you know what I mean.

Fruit they will eat. Even veggies – thinly sliced raw green pepper, cucumber and grape tomatoes make repeat appearances at the breakfast table for the boys. (Ryder asked for an onion the other day, and after insisting it’s not a good food to eat raw, I called his bluff and handed him a slice. He ate it and asked for a second. Who IS this little person?)…

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