Snack attack

Although Liam will still eat just about anything you put in front of him, he is starting to get more vocal about his preferences. Alas, he’s not the little vegetable he once was, and I can no longer eat peanut butter cups right in front of him with him completely unawares of what he’s missing. What’s worse, he has discovered our snack cupboard. It’s a high cupboard, not a low one he can get into on his own; as soon as we’re in the door from Cindy’s house, he is usually found underneath it, swinging from the countertop and saying “Up there! Up there!” This is his way of making it known that he would like you to pick him up so he can open the cupboard door and do some browsing.

Most of the stuff in there is not really bad stuff; it’s well stocked with fruit cups and pudding cups and animal crackers, middle-of-the-road sorts of foods that I don’t mind him having, but not right before dinner or in place of it. Sometimes he wants to browse the fridge as well, which 9 times out of 10 ends with him wanting a yogurt. I try to explain to him that he can have one of these things after dinner, and I will get him some cheese or crackers to snack on before dinner, but sometimes it is so much more worth it to cave and let him have his dessert first to avoid any tears. He usually goes on to eat his dinner anyway, so I’m hoping there’s no harm done.

His very favourite food item of all these days is dried apricots. I buy them in bulk and snack on them at work, and now he is addicted to them, too. He wants one after breakfast almost every day (despite having already had juice and fresh fruit) and that’s the first thing he asks for out of the snack cupboard at night as well. The after breakfast part is OK, since we go upstairs to brush his teeth right afterwards, but I hesitate to dole them out all day long because I fear his teeth will rot right out.

Surprisingly, he has never asked to sample the rice or noodles or other dry goods in the snack cupboard. Maybe they just aren’t packaged flashily enough to intrigue him? Also lucky for me, he has never taken any interest in the bags of chocolate chips we keep there. But I’m not taking any more chances; the chips and Oreos get socked away in a different hiding spot when they find their way home with us. I don’t want to be battling over those on a daily basis.