Clearly my children don't miss many meals. After all, they have hovered in the 90-something percentile since birth. Connor is even currently "off the charts" according to our pediatrician. And though we know that means very little in terms of what they'll look like later in life, it seems to be a good judge of whether or not they're getting enough nutrition now as they grow up.
On average, the kids have three meals a day and one pretty large snack. Typically they have breakfast after we get up and get moving (usuallly around 9:30 a.m). Breakfast consists of dry cereal and a full sippy cup of milk to start, while Mommy gets whatever we're having ready. It can be toast with butter (each child can pack away at least three full pieces), pancakes (the twins can eat one whole one each and Connor can eat up to 2 pancakes, all at about 6 inches in diameter), or simply fruit and yogurt, or any combination of the above depending on how ravenous, I mean hungry, they are.
Lunch is usually about 1:00 p.m., before nap time for those who are tired. Typical lunch items are pizza, pasta, cut up hot dogs (except Alexander who thinks these are yucky), peanut butter and jelly or marshmallow sandwiches, club cracker sticks with peanut butter, chips, and fruit. The three of them can eat an entire can of fruit in one sitting and still want more, even with other items included in the meal. Unfortunately, my children take after me, and have not yet found a love of vegetables. Carrots, celery and even snap peas have all been rejected numerous times, despite offering cool dipping sauces to tempt them. Connor will occasionally eat part of a salad, if it's covered in dressing and shredded cheese - one of his favorite food groups.
Nap time can be as much as four hours for the little guys, so depending on when they had lunch, they either get dinner or a snack when they wake up, and then they have the other (whichever they didn't get after nap time) when Josh and I have our dinner about 7 p.m. The snack is typically a bowl of goldfish crackers and some cut up grapes or banana. Dinner is much the same as lunch, though we sometimes pull things from our meal if we think they might eat them - green beans, corn, bread, or an occasional meat for Connor (he loves steak, which we find odd).
Each meal and / or snack comes with a full sippy cup of milk, and sometimes another one at some point during the day. As I've mentioned before, about seven gallons of milk a week are consumed in our house. Juice is rare, unless someone isn't feeling well. Water sometimes mixes in, especially in the summer. But that's about it. Clearly we're feeding our children plenty of food and giving them enough to drink.
But you would never know it by them.
My first example is Connor's recent development of saying "Onnor hun-gree!" every 20 minutes. Of course, one would think he's just simply learned saying this gets a reaction, not that he's really hungry. The scary part is he will absolutely eat every 20 minutes if you produce something for him. His current favorite is a bowl of cereal with milk and his child-size spoon to eat with - he had five bowls in one day earlier this week, in addition to regular meals.
Example number two, which is perhaps the cutest and, at the same time, the most annoying. My children think that if you simply walk into or through the kitchen, it's time to eat. They will come dance at your feet the entire time you're there and will cry if nothing is produced. If you happen to be there to fix something to eat, they expect it to be ready right that moment. The minute a pan or food item is pulled from the cabinets, three little boys go running to the table, pull out their chairs, and begin climbing into them. Clearly the explanation that "cooking" takes a little while, despite being offered numerous times, has not sunk in. So out come chips or marshmallows or fruit snacks, or some other little something to occupy them until their next meal is ready to eat (we won't even begin to discuss their impatience at the fact that some foods need to "cool" before they can be eaten).
Stay-at-home mom. Short-order cook, among other things.
