Feeding Moosie
March 27th, 2009by Caroline
Eli's portrait of Moosie
A new member of the family joined us this Christmas. At the time, we thought he was just a simple stuffed animal, a soft, brown baby moose that accompanied a larger moose my sister’s family gave to Eli. But Moosie, as Eli quickly and logically named him, has taken on a larger role.
When Eli goes to school, Moosie rides along in the car and then sits in the booster seat’s cup holder, waiting for Eli’s return. When my parents were visiting recently and my Dad and Eli played game after game of Candyland, Moosie played his turns, too (and won a fair number). Occasionally, Eli goes “out” (to dinner and a movie, natch) and asks me to babysit Moosie; when he comes back a few minutes later, he’ll take Moosie gently out of my hands and ask, “How was he?”
But most importantly, he’s teaching Moosie to eat. This, of course, involves the entire family. One night after bedtime, Ben came down the hall to my office, anxious and upset. “Mama, Eli wants me to wake him up to feed Moosie his peanuts at midnight, but I don’t think I can! I don’t think I can know to wake up when I’m sleeping!” I walked Ben back to bed, reassuring him, and suggested to Eli that I could help. It’s been a while since I’ve had to rise for a baby’s late night feed, but these days I’m usually still up at midnight anyway. Eli didn’t trust that I would do it right; “No, Mama, a baby’s parent should feed him when he’s so little.” Fair enough. I promised to walk in at midnight and say, “Eli, it’s midnight; time to feed Moosie.” I did, and Eli and Moosie continued to sleep, their heads nestled against each other.
My husband Tony took another tack when faced with this issue a few nights later. He set down an imaginary bowl of Moosie’s standard meal—-unsalted peanuts—-and told Eli that Moosie could help himself. Problem solved.
Until naptime, just a couple days ago. Not long after reading Eli his book and leaving the room, I heard raised voices and went down the hall to investigate. I paused outside his room, listening; it was one raised voice, speaking two parts: the anxious parent and the stubborn child. I went in. Eli was sitting on his bed cross-legged, holding Moosie in his lap. He looked exasperated. He looked like what I must look like when he doesn’t nap. “Mama, I’m just begging Moosie to try something else besides unsalted peanuts because who ever heard of someone who just eats one thing?”
Well. I don’t believe I’ve ever used quite that language or desperate tone with my children, but these days they are dropping foods from their diet more quickly than adding them and I’ll admit to once or twice recently quoting tired old (to me) suggestions like “eating a rainbow every day.”
Listening to Eli’s urgent talk with Moosie reminded me to stay the non-pushy course. I’ll keep putting a variety of food in front of them, and maybe they’ll just keep eating the carrot sticks, but probably some day they’ll try those kale crisps again, too.
And in the meantime, Moosie has broadened his diet. Although we continue to toss handfuls of imaginary unsalted peanuts his way, Eli told me that now Moosie also likes to eat lightly salted cashews, rice, noodles, tofu, tangerines, broccoli, green beans, fruit leathers, and raspberry juice mixed with unsalted peanuts. His diet — save for the beverage — sounds a bit familiar. And it’s really not such a bad diet, either.
March 28th, 2009 at 6:16 am
oh, Caroline, this is hilarious! It’s so fascinating to see Eli playing at parenthood this way.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Moosie eats a wider variety of foods than my firstborn eats….
May 31st, 2009 at 8:11 am
OHH Great post!! I just add this to my bookmarks. Thank You ^_^