Frantic Food Phase

We’ve reached a phase in June’s development, and that phase is called Don’t Go in the Kitchen.

For one, there’s her near-constant desire for crackers. We can’t leave the pantry door open because she’ll just wander in there and point upward and ask, “Cackar? Cackar?” Unfortunately you must walk through the kitchen and past the pantry to get into the house from the garage, so every time we get home I have to distract her with Wild Talking!! and Opening Blinds!! and Look At The Keys!! to keep her from glancing into the pantry and asking for more.

Another problem is the Sparkletts water dispenser. Sure, the hot water spicket is child-proofed, but the cold water one is not. So June gets a good laugh out of releasing a gush of cold water into the trough/onto the floor/onto her person. So while I’m chopping raw chicken with a chef’s knife, Michael’s on “June Duty,” but he’s mopping up the latest puddle and I’m calling, “June now has the blender, with is now just a glass-and-blade contraption of terror!” while wondering if I have time to wash the E. coli off my hands before grabbing her.

Nothing can be done with food while you and June are both in the kitchen. If you grab something to eat, pack a snack to take on an outing or even prepare the food that she is about to eat in thirty seconds, June acts as if she’d never suffered through starvation more than in that moment. Patience, I’ve learned, is not something yet acquired at 18 months.

If she so much as wanders past the kitchen and spies the refrigerator, she asks for “Milch? Milch?” She’ll hasten over and try to open the fridge and get mad at its refusal to cooperate, all while pitifully whimpering about her milch. I swear, you’d think we never feed her by how much she’s always demanding more sustenance. I promise you that we do, in fact, feed our child.

I’m not sure what to do here.

She acts like she’s starved, but anyone can see that she’s not exactly Skeletor. (I just googled Skeletor and it turns out I've been using this reference incorrectly my whole life. Skeletor isn't exactly...skeletony. Still, June mostly doesn't look like Skeletor.)

 

 

We can’t just feed her on demand all day. We can’t just let her gorge herself until she’s sick, meals must be ended at some point. I’ve researched how much toddlers should be eating. We redirect until the cows come home. We have predictable meal and snack times, and we’ve even tried increasing the amounts we give her in case she’s going through a growth spurt.

Girl just likes to eat.

We’ve gotten comments. “Wow she…she’s really taking that quesadilla down, huh?” We’ve made comments ourselves. “June, you don’t have to put all of the pieces of banana in your mouth at the same time.” “Let’s chew before we get more zucchini.”

Any advice is welcome.