Nourishment of a different kind

Food for the mind

It's been 10 years since I started this blog - with its one and only post about my food battles with M1, who is now a strapping 1.5m, 44kg 12-year-old. The turning point came at around age 5, actually, when she discovered spaghetti bolognaise. M2 was a similarly skinny toddler, who also expanded dramatically when he discovered burgers at age 6. Common denominator seems to be beef, so I'm crossing my fingers for M3, who is developing a liking for beef noodles. Here's hoping this will transform this little mite (age 5.5, 1.06m, 17kg) before he enters primary school and turns into a beast of burden (read: impossibly heavy school bags).

Now I face battles of a different kind - how to nourish their hungry minds and turn their mental tastebuds away from media fast-food. Cartoons, comics and video games are fun but like candy, need to be taken in moderation lest it creates an unhealthy craving for easy, shallow and superficial entertainment. It takes perseverance (now) to pick up and finish a book (specifically one with no pictures and many pages!), and even more dedication to read every word rather than skim for plot and story. So this blog will now chart the kids' readings - and writing - efforts, to motivate them to delve deeper into the mystery and beauty of words that have the power to shape their world.

Baby bird, baby bird, where is your mother?

Like all mothers, I worry incessantly about how much my baby is eating. In Miri's case, it's really how little. Basically, she eats like a bird on a diet, and more often than not, we're talking about a humming bird and its liquid diet.

Soup, milk, juice, and her all-time favourite, ice (as in water frozen solid) and ice cream. Those are always welcome and she can be depended on to slurp them up, though the amounts vary. Some days that's all she takes so I've resorted to freezing her vitamin syrup and making little popsicle 'stars' with them and buying an ice-cream maker so I can make Pediasure gelato just to make sure she gets enough nutrition into her every day.

I've also decided to start a blog dedicated to her eating - so I can see if my ideas work! So here goes!