In one of those helpful guides to raising kids, I remember reading that parents should not underestimate all that we will have to teach our little ones. How to drink from a cup. How to blow their noses. And, I now can add to the list, how to ask Mom and Dad for food instead of grabbing it off the counter or rooting through the pantry. This is what I’ve been telling my two year old repeatedly since an unfortunate incident with leftover chocolate cake: “If you want food, then you need to ask Mommy. Do not just take the food.”
My middle child has gotten more stubborn, clever, and creative in procuring snacks for herself. For instance, she goes into the closet where we keep the diaper bag, unzips the compartment that often contains leftover snacks from church and jelly beans for my husband, and tears the ziploc bags open in a flash.
Twice yesterday I was looking for her, calling her name, and when I came into the kitchen I heard muffled rustling and crunching. I realized it was coming from under the kitchen table. I lifted up the plastic tablecloth that hangs a little too low. There sat my sweetheart, merrily munching from the box of cereal that she had taken from the cabinet that serves as my pantry. It was mostly marshmallows going into her mouth, and mostly oat pieces on the floor, where they were getting ground into powder as she wiggled around.
Enough was enough. I fastened a child safety lock onto the cabinet knobs.
I recalled that we used to have one on that cabinet to keep my oldest out of it. At some point it had broken off.
Twenty minutes later, my two year old again was missing. When I stepped back into the kitchen, again the rustling and crunching. She had managed to pry off the safety lock!
This time I really tightened it. A little too tight…it sort of adult-proofed the pantry. I also put her sister in front of it to guard the food.
She can be more intimidating than she looks!
About an hour before dinner the lock was still intact…but then why was I hearing rustling from the vicinity of the kitchen table?
I lifted up the tablecloth. There she was, playing in a pool of oatmeal. She had climbed up on the bathroom stool we use to wash hands, grabbed the box of oatmeal off the counter, and taken it to her hiding place. She must have discovered pretty quickly that the oatmeal straight out of the box does not taste as good as the oatmeal served to her in her princess bowl with brown sugar, butter and raisins. But it was fun to play in!
My four year old saw what was happening. “I’ll handle this, Mom!” she assured me, running to the family room. She reappeared with her Melissa and Doug cleaning set. “I’m cleanup duty!” she announced.
“Glad somebody is…” I sighed. Her sister decided to get in on the act. I decided to leave them. This could keep them occupied for awhile. Occupied is good.
But letting them “clean up” the oatmeal sort of backfired. And not just because they created three times the mess. Today, yet again, there was the rustling. Yup, oatmeal all over the floor, with my two year old swishing her hands around in it, grinning. And it was my four year old who had grabbed the box, which I had set on the very back of the counter, thinking it was out of reach. My four year old apparently had learned that she liked the taste of raw oatmeal, so she had eaten a bit out of the box, then left it on the kitchen table, within easy reach for her younger sister.
This time, I lost my temper.
“Do I now have to keep every single box and every scrap of food in locked cupboards at all times?!” I exclaimed. “You know better!” I said to the four year old. “And you”–to the two year old–“You do not play with the food! When you are hungry, you ask Mommy!!”
My two year old started whimpering and tugged at me to be lifted up. I carried her downstairs to the family room, away from the mess. “You are cleaning up all this oatmeal,” I told my four year old, who actually looked contrite. I went to get my seven month old up from her nap.
When I came downstairs, my oldest was picking up oatmeal flakes one by one, dropping them in a pile, and then trying to brush the tiny pile into her toy dustpan. My two year old had brought several books up from the family room and was reading in the kitchen. She looked up from her Biscuit book and said sweetly, “Mommy, chips, please!”
“We’ve had a breakthrough!!!” I exclaimed. Knowing she had done something good this time, her face broke out into a melt-your-heart smile. I knelt down and hugged her, elated.
Teach child to ask for food. Check. This time, at least.
It’s the small victories that keep us going.
