Taming the Toddler

Applesauce & Carrot Muffins

So a friend gave me Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious book to help with toddler recipes (because I am always asking friends for tips on what to feed the Biscuit). While I won't share the recipe here (you can buy the book!) I will share with you which recipes in it work for the Biscuit and which ones don't.

So far we are 1 for 1. I made her Applesauce Muffins (which also contain pureed carrots) and the Biscuit devours them! (and I'm not turning them away either. So yummy!) The Biscuit thinks they are cake.

At breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner I hear from him: "CAKE! CAKE!" as he demands another.

And I don't have any problem forking them over to him. They're loaded with oats so it helps on the poop department, too. BTW, my ever-amazing 20-month old declared to me two days in a row "I poop!" Now, I'm not a linguist or anything, but that is advanced language development if ever I heard it. (Oh wait, I AM a linguist).

Potty training is just around the corner I suppose...

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Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food - View on Amazon →

💗A note from the Author: I'm opening up the archives of Taming the Toddler to share the real, unfiltered moments of grace and humor that defined my early years of motherhood. If you enjoy these stories and are navigating the journey of parenting or pregnancy, check out my devotional work in my Prayers through Life book series: Prayers through Pregnancy or explore my faith-focused apparel: Seek God's Grace.

Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Spaghetti

Everybody has their favorite recipe for spaghetti, so I thought I'd offer my favorite toddler (and baby) recipe for spaghetti. We've been feeding this to the Biscuit since he started on table food (I'm not kidding) and he has been lapping it up every time we have it since. (Oh, and the adults in my house eat this too!)

Ingredients (sauce)
2 cans organic diced tomatoes (non-organic tomatoes are one of the highest pesticide-containing veggies so go organic!)
3/4 lb ground beef
2 cloves/1 tsp garlic (minced)
1/2 yellow onion (diced)
4 baby carrots (diced)

Instructions

Brown the meat and drain.
Saute the onion and garlic in the same pan for about 2-3 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and carrots.
Add the meat back to the pan.
Cook for at least 20 minutes on low-medium heat.
Cook spaghetti noodles separately (according to package instructions).

I recommend (for babies and young toddlers) that you put some noodles and sauce in a small food processor and pulse/chop for a few turns to make it easy for the little ones to eat both the meat and the noodles. And, of course, everything's better with cheese so add Parmesan or some shredded cheddar if desired.

I've substituted the carrots for green peppers on occasion and I suppose you could probably throw in part of a squash or zucchini. Just remember that the veggies need to cook for about 20 minutes to turn soft (and to go unnoticed).

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🛒FEATURED PRODUCTS & RECOMMENDATIONS
365 Whole Foods organic diced tomatoes - View on Amazon →
Verde Farms organic ground beef - View on Amazon →
Yellow onion - View on Amazon →
365 Whole Foods organic baby carrots - View on Amazon →
- 365 Whole Foods spaghetti - View on Amazon →
- - Badia minced garlic - View on Amazon →

Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Sneaking in Healthy Food

A friend gave me a wonderful tip (that she read in the healthy kid recipes book by Jerry Seinfeld's wife). She told me to start offering the Biscuit appetizers before dinner. The thinking is that you offer your child something healthy (veggies and such) before dinner when they are hungry as hippos so that dinnertime won't be as stressful (since you already know they've had something good to eat).

The Biscuit looks forward to his special plate of appetizers that he gets 15-30 minutes before supper. I usually only offer him 1 veggie as the app (more than 1 seemed to confuse him and make him less interested in eating the app). His favorites are:

edamame (soybeans)
tomatoes
cucumbers
carrots

It truly has served to make both of us happier. Of course he will often ask for a cookie as his app, but when he sees the plate with the healthy snack, he forgets the cookie request and eats the vibrant veggie instead.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
🛒FEATURED PRODUCTS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food - View on Amazon →

Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Toddler Party Tricks

No, I'm not offering a list of things you can do at a 2-year old's party to entertain the kiddies, I'm talking about the horrible thing that some parents do: Turn their toddlers into the entertainment. I'm quite guilty of this and the kharma wheel came back to bite me this weekend.

Being a fan of the University of Arkansas (Go hogs!), it was only natural that one of the skills that the Biscuit needed to learn was how to "call the Hogs." I decided to test it out on him last weekend. He picked it up like a champ. He's so smart.

Wooooooo PIG SOOOIE (click 2 see it on YouTube)! The Biscuit even had the hand motions down pat. When we went to visit his Starenka (his grandma; loosely Americanized it's pronounced stah zhenka) and grandpa, we showed off his new trick. He repeated it again at dinner. It was one of my most proud moments! Until Sunday...

Sunday morning we, as usual, went to church. (and you all know where this is heading) During the pastor's sermon, when all was quiet, the Biscuit (perched up in his Starenka's arms) began to call the Hogs in the midst of God and everyone.

Well, I hushed him fairly quickly and we giggled a bit. Guess that'll teach me not to use my child as a trained monkey. (but it was really funny)

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Arkansas Razorbacks plush - View on Amazon →

Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Teach Your Toddler Some Manners (Please)

Call me old fashioned, but I truly believe that you should raise a young boy to be a young gentleman. As soon as the Biscuit was able to say the words "please" and "thank you" we began incorporating the words into our daily lexical diet. Now he can express his wants and pleadings (for food usually) to me by saying "More please." And at only 22-months old, I am quite proud of the accomplishment.

Just this week, we started working on yes ma'am and yes sir (and the no's). The Biscuit is following suit very well. Maybe it is old fashioned (I hope I don't set him up to be bullied), but I have seen a few kids in today's society who still actually say these words (and I have seen so many who don't). I view it as a sign of respect for the parents (or teachers) and it just makes the child who says it seem more well-behaved than the next (who doesn't).

As an update, the pushing and hitting behavior calmed down pretty quickly after I brought home "the naughty stool" for the Biscuit. He responded so well to the discipline. No matter where we are (we find naughty stools/chairs/spots wherever we go so we can use them in a moment's notice), if I mention going to the naughty stool, the Biscuit pays attention. To be fair, our little naughty stool gets a lot of wear and tear (and sometimes he just sends himself there because he likes to sit on it) so I'm not saying that it is a true deterrent yet, but I certainly can say that tantrums are rare and I can quickly change his behavior just by mentioning the word "naughty."

All in all, the Biscuit is one well-behaved little boy. I think that a lot of love from a lot of family and teachers helps. I'm quite grateful for that because it makes it a lot easier to help him on his path to becoming a young gentleman.

Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Stretching Every Dollar

It may be a bit off-topic for this blog, but I thought I'd add in my two cents on some ways to save $$$ as a toddler mom. So, my biggest suggestions for saving money... (No, for not WASTING money) are:

Consignment stores, and
Online auctions

When I was preparing for the arrival of the Biscuit, I started exploring consignment stores. There are SO many out there in every community and there are SO many good deals to be found there. Now, I'm not saying that everything you buy your child has to be used, second-hand, previously-owned, however you want to package it, but I am suggesting that you consider it for things like play clothes (or clothes for daycare) and for things like books, strollers, high chairs, etc. Just get yourself a nice high-pressured steam blaster if you're like me and paranoid about cleanliness and germs.

An example of a big way to save (at baby time): I opted not to get a brand new stroller when the Biscuit was born and, instead, picked up a 3-year old Graco stroller for $10. It's been great and now that the Biscuit is walking, he won't even get back in a stroller. I know it seems like a good idea at the time to spend $200 on a new stroller and put it on your baby registry, but I would so much rather keep that $$ for his college fund or spend on diapers and wipes.

Now, on to online shopping. My son has an unusually wide foot, extra wide to be exact. I can't walk into a Target, Wal-Mart, or Old Navy and walk out with new shoes for him. A fitted pair of shoes is going to run me about $30 a pop minimum (ouch!). Once I determined what the Biscuit's size is, I opted to start shopping around on online auctions, like eBay. So far, I've managed to do well shopping there. I even managed to get a pair of $45+ Stride Rite shoes (gently used) for $15... not a bad deal!

Yes, some call me frugal, but I prefer to think of myself as practical. My son looks adorable and I always pick out nice things for him. So don't read this and think that he looks like a rag-a-muffin. For goodness sakes, he'll either ruin them during dinner of playing outside. It just makes sense (or should I say cents) to me.

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Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Me and My Shadow

The other day, I noticed that the Biscuit was behaving strangely. He was walking backwards away from a wall and then forwards repeatedly. Thoughts of "uh-oh, what's going on in that brain of his?" came to me.

I realized eventually that the Biscuit had found his shadow. I was delighted!

"He's your friend Biscuit!" I shouted to him. The Biscuit was amused with his new friend and desperately wanted to touch him so he kept moving toward the wall to try and get closer.

Ahhhh. A developmental milestone reached. A world of imagination begins. I can't wait to get him outside so we can have him jump and try and chase his new friend.

Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Pick Your Battles

Last night at dinner I gave the Biscuit some broccoli on his tray for the 4th or 5th time. I assumed that he would refuse to eat it as he usually does. To my surprise, he picked it up and named it "bwok-uh-lee" and put it in his mouth for a moment. He then very promptly removed it and threw it on the floor.

Usually I give him 'the business' for throwing food. I do pick my battles with him and while I typically will correct him verbally for throwing food on the floor, I don't discipline him much for it. I'm hoping the food throwing is a phase and he'll begin to mimic my table manners soon.

He continued the broccoli dance throughout the meal: In the mouth for a moment and then hurdled onto the floor.

Each time he put the broccoli in his mouth, I smiled, and tried not to breathe (thinking I might break the spell that was causing my toddler to actually eat "some" broccoli). Finally, I realized what the Biscuit was doing.

He doesn't like the tops of the broccoli, only the bottom. Aha! He was putting it in his mouth, eating the bottom part and then throwing the icky tops away. I, too, used to be a broccoli stalk-eater as a child so I can understand the preference. There's something mushy about the tops that I despised eating.

So, today I served broccoli topless. The Biscuit loved it. Stalks only for a while around here. Victory!

Tip: If you buy the broccoli cuts instead of florettes, it's easy to pick out the stalks. I like the tops now so he can have stalks while I eat the tops. (and I think the brocolli cuts are usually less expensive)

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Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Climbing the Stairs

While I was in college, I had the blessing of taking 2 semesters of a perpetual motor therapy development class. We worked with kids with challenged motor development skills. In the class, we had two goals for the kids we were assisting. The goals were to help them learn how to:

Walk up a flight of stairs correctly, and
Tie shoes by themselves.

Many kids, as they are learning to walk up stairs, will walk up sideways instead of with their head centered straight and legs straight. Most learn the proper way eventually.

We live in a 1-story house that has these amazingly steep steps up the front to the porch. I've always carried the Biscuit up the stairs when we go in the front door (we usually go in the back door). This past weekend, I put the Biscuit down at the bottom of the steps and said, "Watch Mommy."

After watching me walk up the stairs, my child walked up 6 or so steps, holding on to the rail with both hands, with no assistance at all. Apparently, he had done the same when he went to visit his Paw Paw so I wanted to check to see if he could do it at our house, too. Let me stress again that we don't have stairs inside the house since it's a single story, so this truly is a bit amazing. The Biscuit walked straight and held on with both hands (one crossed over his body).

I love how suprised I get as he passes through milestones like this. Don't you love watching your child develop?

He truly is magic to me. I guess we'll start working on tying shoes now.

Got a toddler story of your own? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to connect.

Taming the Toddler

Amazon

Applesauce & Carrot Muffins

Spaghetti

Sneaking in Healthy Food

Toddler Party Tricks

Teach Your Toddler Some Manners (Please)

Stretching Every Dollar

Me and My Shadow

Pick Your Battles

Recommended Reading

Climbing the Stairs

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