There's a first time for everything...

Today, Garrett experienced a first. His first peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I'm sure many of you are shocked and appalled that my 4 year old has never had PB&J before, but it is true. (Well, aside from a bite of one of those pre-packed, frozen Smuckers ones, which he hated, back when he was 2.)

I grew up hating PB&J. I honestly don't remember ever eating a whole one in my life. I'm sure at some point I tried them and was disgusted and therefore I've never wanted another one. I'm also sure my parents would have loved it had I liked them because they have to be cheaper than lunchmeat sandwiches, which I LOVE! I've always been a sandwich girl. Give me a turkey (or ham, or bologna) sandwich with mayo (or Miracle Whip) and mustard (and an occasional slice of cheese, I don't care either way) along with a glass of milk and some chips or pretzels and I'm happy. I still eat this once a day, typically at lunch (and the glass of milk changes to water or coke on occasion, but I still love my [skim] milk. And the mayo is now always fat free Miracle Whip and the lunch meat is always 99% fat free as well. And it's always pretzels, never chips. And I NEVER can have white bread, ever again. Ah, the 30's. How wonderful they are to the metabolism...)

Anyway, back to my point. Garrett's first PB&J. He occasionally talks about all the kids in his class who bring one for lunch, and the other day he flat out asked me for one. So today, I bought a jar of grape jelly and this afternoon after school, I made him half of a PB&J sandwich to see what he thought. At first he was really hyped up about it, but he only ended up eating half (which would be a quarter of a whole sandwich.) He said he was full, and it was only 3:30pm, so it's hard to tell if he liked it and just wasn't all that hungry after having a popsicle immediately upon coming home, or if he was just saying that he liked it because he thinks it's expected of him to like it because all his friends eat them. I asked him if he would want me to make him a PB&J for his school lunch on Thursday and he said he would rather have ham. We'll see if this jar of grape jelly ever actually gets eaten.

I'm sure Cooper would eat one, if I gave him one. Which I won't because babies can't eat peanut butter and I would never offer one jelly either. He did have a first the other day though. On Sunday at supper time, I fixed all of us grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. I made half of one for Cooper because Garrett LOVES grilled cheese and I knew he would eat the entire whole sandwich that I made for him (which he did), and that wouldn't leave any left for Cooper. I figured whatever Cooper didn't eat, somebody would. Turns out that wasn't even necessary because that boy devoured every bite of his half of a grilled cheese that I made him. It was just wheat bread with a slice of cheddar cheese, but he thought it was the best. I couldn't believe how careful he was picking up each bite and if he dropped one in his lap, he made sure to look around and find it, then eat it. I found one stray bite that was dropped on the floor, the rest made their way to his belly. Of course, I tore the sandwich up into small, easy to manage bites for him, and then I just put them on his highchair tray and he went to town.

I can't even begin to imagine what our grocery bill will look like 10 years from now. When Cooper is nearly 11 and Garrett is pushing 15. I'm sure our current bills will look meager in comparison. I really don't want to think about it.

One last confession. Garrett, with a few exceptions like grilled cheese, is a picky eater. I enforce "x" number of bites per "important" food that he's served at each meal. (By important, I mean the veggie dish along with the meat dish. Rice or potatoes or anything carb related, I don't enforce bites required, though that's usually the part of the meal he's happy to eat and attempts to negotiate with.) Lately, I've started "reminding" him during our conversations about how many bites are required, that if he doesn't eat these foods, he won't grow big and strong like his Daddy. That's his new current obsession, how big he is and whether or not he's getting close to my size. Typically, reminding him of this will do the trick, at least in getting him to eat the requisite bites without complaint, and sometimes even to get him to eat more than that. I hope I'm not doing him a disservice by reminding him of this, but at the same time, the boy is skinny so I'll take what I can get in order to get him to eat a decent amount of food at mealtimes.

And why oh why couldn't Garrett and I swap metabolism? Just long enough for him to gain 5-10 pounds and me to lose at least 10 more.