The Cluttered Pantry

E started out tiny, then spent the first two years of her life getting the minimum of nutrition that a baby can have and still thrive. Her body did that miraculous thing that nature knows to do and it conserved those calories for the importing things like brain cells and heart muscle but kept them away from anything silly like growing tall or weight gain.

The first year of the food related entries in this blog were so filled with fat and high calorie concoctions that we came up with (heavy cream added to chocolate milk? You bet!) that it was borderline obscene. My own waistline is a testament to the fact that you can’t have heavy cream and butter in your mashed potatoes without needing to buy bigger pants.

Within 6 months Both girls had passed the amazing mark of a 40% body weight increase (just imaging gaining half again what you weigh now! (I don’t think they make pants big enough for me to do that!). The girls systems finally started to trust on regular nutrition coming in and growth spurts of 11 inches (mostly legs!) happened during the first year. Their hair has grown in thick and healthy and Z even has a tiny bit of a tummy now.

But even after two years now (next week marks the date, two years ago that we brought the girls home from Siberia) E is still no wider than my hand, at age 4 she is often confused for a two or 3 year old and we are still shopping for 3T pants and then having to cinch them in since her waist is so small. Her lips turn blue almost immediately in the tub or swimming pool (no fat layer means being cold) and yesterday she squeezed herself through the dog door our 15lbs Westies use.

She is healthy and strong, and in just this month she grew another inch (the pants she is wearing in this standing on tiptoes picture were long on her when I bought them three weeks ago) she just isn’t gaining weight as she fast as she is growing. So, we are back on a higher calorie/high fat diet with a little encouragement from the doctor to see if we can’t help her catch up a bit as winter sets in.

The catch? When we did this the last time she was 2 and all food was magic so we could get her to eat anything. Now at the ripe old age of 4 she has real opinions about food and the include assessments like “no mommy that is mushy” or “I don’t like that color food” most of you who have small children recognize this as something that happens around age two. In a way, since she has on,y had this lifestyle for two years thAt is exactly what we have, a child with two years of eating experience. Only the terrible two with the added power of reasoning and language of a four year old is making for some real hilarity in our household.

Guess it’s time to pull out those recipes and see what we can do to appease the tiny critique.
I’ll post successful ones for this of you on this same track, with the fair warning that just reading them might cause weight gain.

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