You Are What You Eat

Can a four-year old live off of french toast sticks?  I mean, I know that they will sustain him, but about how many years would it take before he'd have a heart attack or collapse under the weight of all of that syrup?  Ten?  Twenty?

I think Cael would be the first to sign up for that experiment.  Lately he has been shunning nearly every food I place in front of him and the little bit of nourishment I manage to encourage down his throat is only swallowed in order to earn his daily treat from our Advent train. 

"Mommy, I want my 'today treat'!"

"You have to eat some more of your sandwich and peas first." 

"How many peas do I have to eat?"

"I want you to try to finish them, but just do your best."

"I think I can only eat two."

"I think you can do better than that." 

"Fine.  I'm gonna tell you this.  I'll eat three peas." 

Do three peas fulfill one's daily vegetable intake?

Now, more than ever, I need to change up the kids' lunches.  We seem to cycle between the same tired meals, simply choosing a protein from column A, a vegetable from column B and a grain or starch from column C, with fruit for dessert.  And while that may seem like a pretty healthy formula, health means nothing if your kid opts to use his spoon to catapult said peas into your cleavage.

So the timing was perfect when a package sent by Bamma (Joel's mom) arrived with Christmas presents for the boys as well as a little something for Joel and me.  My gift was a book called "Insanewiches", jam-packed with creative spins on lunches and artistic ways to present meals to make them fun for kids and adults alike.

Right up my alley.

I knew the ideas in the book would reinvigorate our boring old lunches.  I fantasized that Cael and Graham would squeal with delight as they phoned one another from their mobile phonewiches.


I daydreamed about squares of ham stacked into an edible Rubic's cube.

I imagined the wide-eyed excitement on the boy's faces as they saw the delicious--

--What?!?

In the middle of an otherwise wonderfully creative collection of super-mommy ideas, was a recipe so repulsively bizarre that it would force any child to revert back to the most basic tenets of pickiness.  I could immediately imagine the dinnertable conversation.

"Mommy, what are we having for lunch?"

"It's called 'The Breakfast Club'."

"But this isn't breakfast time!  What is in it?"

"Oh, it's delicious.  First I take four waffles and layer them between bacon, lettuce, turkey and cheese.  You like cheese, right?  Then I put a big, drippy scoop of ice cream on top of the stack and pin a green olive on top.  And if you haven't thrown up on your train bib yet, I drizzle the top with maple syrup.  And on the side, I like to use a whole sack of potato chips with a bowl of mayonnaise for dipping.  You know, in case you were having trouble pooping on your own!"

"I want french toast sticks."

Aside from "The Breakfast Club-Me-Over-The-Head", it was a fun gift and I am looking forward to using a lot of the ideas in the book to put some of the creativity back into our food.  And if nothing else fails, I can always make "The French Toast Flagwich".

Hail to the chief cause of heart disease.