Everyone, and by everyone I mean my husband's family, thinks our little boy looks just like my husband. While I tend to silently disagree, no one can deny that I am holding my ground on the personality side. He doesn't like to sleep, he's incredibly stubborn, and he likes to suck on lemons. Me, me, me.
At his first year check-up, I learned he's picked up one of my less-than-admirable traits.
For those of you who have been around awhile, you may recall that I had to gain some serious weight to get pregnant. I LOVED working out, some might even say I was addicted to it. This was back when I was an all-powerful corporate lemming so the term "skinny bitch" was 99% accurate. My feelings will not be hurt if you mutter that phrase when thinking of me.
When the doctor read out his one-year stats, "85th percentile length, 15th percentile weight," I almost screamed, "he hasn't been near the elliptical, I SWEAR!" What I said instead was, "I feed him...really I do," as mom-guilt flooded my veins.
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| We're not underweight, we're just small-boned! |
My mom came to town soon after and threatened to give him a steady diet of potato chips for a full week. Totally pissed off by her implication that I was not giving my son enough to eat I went on the offensive. "Mom, he eats ALL THE TIME! He loves tomatoes, kiwi, turkey sausage, cottage cheese, chicken, and this morning he at an entire grapefruit!"
My mom started laughing hysterically. "You're feeding him diet food."
"No, I'm not mom, this is what I eat." I shot back.
"Why don't you try some real sausage and meat? He's not a middle-aged woman, he's a growing little boy."
"I don't eat real sausage or meat. It's gross."
She started laughing, looked at my son and said, "Grandma will feed you, sweetie," ironic because my mom weighs herself three times a day.
So now our fridge is grapefruit-free and brimming with real sausage and my little boy continues to eat higher calorie foods like a champ!
Before I know it, he'll be in the boring "average" zone for weight. However, if this is just the way he's built, long and lean, I don't know where he got that trait, but I assume he'll accept it no questions asked.
By the way, anyone eating turkey sausage should consider real sausage. It's like going from black and white to color. Who knew such a marvelous word existed?
At 1 year, my child was in the 3rd percentile for weight and 2nd for height. I feed him, or I try to. He's stubborn. But he comes from short, lean stock. My husband is only 5'6" and weighs 140#, and he's the tallest one in his family. I'm 5'4" and as a kid, I was skinny. My doc wasn't worried, though. He said that as long as the Boy was developing normally there was no worries. And now, at his 18 month (2 months ago) he was in 15th for weight and 33rd for height. They catch up, I promise.
ReplyDeleteThat's what Grandma needs to hear!
DeleteFirst off, I use ground turkey a lot in cooking, but when it comes to sausage, there is no comparison!! LOL
ReplyDeleteAlso, when I read your food list for him, I totally thought "that's my calorie counting diet foods!" - and then laughed at your Mom's comment. :) Kiddos definitely need full fat foods when they're little - they're growing peeps! Stella crushes avocado like it's going out of style (definitely a great super food), and we buy the highest fat kiddie yogurt we can find (usually between 4-10%), and lots of nutrition packed sweet potatoes, etc. Some kids are just little for sure, but "an entire grapefruit" is, what, 40 calories? :) Just FYI, Stella's typical breakfast is around 320 cals (I know b/c I'm a cal counting freak from college). 1/2 avocado (160cal) + 1 scrambled egg (70cal) + 2 oz whole milk baby yogurt (50cal) + 1/2 cup blueberries (40cal).
If you feed your kid stuff like that and he's still skinny - well hell, consider me jealous and him just naturally thin! :)
Real sausage is the way to go! He LOVES avocado, but his all time favorite food is a grape tomato, which is a whopping 10 calories. I've had to open them up in Target to prevent him from leaping over the cart into the basket!
Deletehehe after many years as women trying to eat as low fat / low calorie as we can, it is weird to start buying all the fattest things we can find for our kiddos!!! It is also kind of fun to cook though... although I will probably gain weight now snacking on Alidia's meals. Alidia is tiny too so now we are trying to load her foods with olive oil, cheese, avocado, full fat yogurt, and whatever other fatty things we can.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, don't feel bad at all!! It is hard to know exactly what they should be eating if they are enjoying it... and no one tells us otherwise!!! :)
I almost bought European yogurt for him yesterday, but the thought of finding cream on the top just grossed me out. I stuff him full of anything he wants...I'm sure a McDonald's happy meal is in our future.
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