Baon Diaries

Our little boy has started school!  Homeschool?  No.  I am still hanging on to that great endeavor but for now, we have enrolled him in the mainstream.  And since he is away from home for a couple of hours, I send him off with some love in a small snack box. Sharing with you the baon (snacks) I have prepared for him since his first day of school.

Day 1: Pandesal with banana and nutella spread + apple cubes

Day 2: Star sandwiches with banana and peanut butter + apple cubes + tri-color fusilli pasta (with tomato and spinach add-ons for the red and green colors)

Day 3:  Star sandwiches with peanut butter and nutella spreads + banana + raisins + tri-color fusilli with Cheezee sauce

Day 4: Heart and star-shaped sandwiches with cheese spread + green and red apple slices

Day 5: Star sandwiches with peanut butter or nutella spreads + tri-color fusilli with attempted homemade carbonara sauce

Day 6:  “House” sandwiches with nutella and peanut butter + slice of red and green apples + slice of papaya

Day 7:  Rabbit fish cakes (from Cold Storage) + green apples + papaya

Day 8: (I forgot to take a picture of this snack box.) Peanut butter and nutella sandwich triangles + indian mangoes + hard-boiled quail egg

Day 9:  Choco crinkles and oatmeal choco cookie (from My Bitter Baker, a deaf-mute baker selling baked stuff for a cause.  Contact #s 02-427-1693 / 0917-532-4543) + banana + cheese

Rambo Rambutan

I thought of monitoring how much fruit LC eats in a day. Lo and behold! When I counted that day, LC ate 3 bananas, 2 indian mangoes minus one “simot” seed (he gave it to me),

And seven rambutans.

He ate 2 of the bananas and 5 of the rambutans for his morning snack. The rest he ate in the afternoon.

Yes, yes, he eats rambutan! And he knows not to eat the seed. 🙂

He can peel and eat lanzones, kiat-kiat and dalanghita (this picture was taken many months ago) all by himself. 

Meals Are Served On The Table

LC has already learned that meals are served and are eaten at the dining table ONLY.

He used to go up and down his dining chair as he pleased. He would run around and play during mealtimes. We used to plead endlessly for him to come to the table and take a spoonful.  When that won’t do, we would chase him with food on his spoon or to his fork.  Making him eat, a challenge in itself, was then a balancing act too.

But gone are those days!  Now, he eats and stays on his chair until he’s done with his meal. Most of the time, he even asks for approval if he is clear to go. We no longer run after him. Thus no more food morsels on the floor, and we get to stay on our seats too. Hooray! 🙂

How we did it?  Through consistency and tough love.

Learning that meals are served on the table.

A Monster Plate for The Little Picky Monster

LC is still a picky eater. I first blogged about it November last year. Recently, I have resigned that he’s just like the many picky eaters out there. Telling a 2 year old nutrition facts – how veggies and greens will make him brighter, stronger and taller – is like giving him a Stock Market 101. Why did I even insist that LC would hear that kind of reasoning?

So my effort to make him eat healthy is now focused on giving him interestingly plated meals. My first attempt is a cute as a monster plate.

Malunggay omelet triangles for horns, fried rice with carrots, broccoli and more of the omelet for the eyes and nose, and ketchup for that luscious lips.

Puppets Can Make Our Toddler Eat

Our Little Cat is as agile as a cat, as curious as a monkey, as talkative as a pelican and… uhm… as light as a … feather…???

I’ve breastfed LC and still do now, gave him homemade food right from the start and slightly practiced baby led weaning on him.  But still we ended up with a hard-to-feed toddler.

We actually did not have a problem with his appetite until we left my father’s house.  I guess just a few days or weeks of being on our own… I don’t have eight arms and four eyes to do chores while watching over LC.  And I do not have forever to feed him. …it was enough to dislodge the healthy appetite from his system.

This feeding issue probably (?) wouldn’t have mattered if he’s heavier.  The pediatrician has given us a warning two weeks ago.  LC is in the 10th percentile.  He should eat more and gain more pounds.  An appetite booster was then prescribed for him to take.