Packed with fiber...

As moms, we often struggle with ensuring our children have a balanced diet. Before we give birth to our first, we have visions of grandeur...a sweet baby seated happily in their high chair eating pureed fruits and vegetables lovingly prepared by yours truly; fast forward a few years to that angelic toddler begging for a snack of carrot sticks and wheat germ; the school age child who prefers Kashi cereal with a sprinkle of almond milk...yeah, right. Now, we know that there are many families who do have success in feeding their children nothing but healthy, organic foods and we applaud you. My children however are not those children, nor are my sister's. We definitely prepare healthy foods and snacks, our pantries are not overflowing with Little Debbie snack cakes, Mountain Dew, and Doritos (mainly because WE would eat all of that crap if we had it!) but they don't always eat what WE want them to.

I will be the first to admit that I have served my children a "totally popcorn dinner" and my toddler has had her fair share of nothin-but-fruit-snacks for breakfast. A daily occurrence are my half-hearted attempts to prevent a child from eating a "car floor snack" because I'll tell ya, I don't remember the last friggin time I bought Cocoa Puffs but damn if my toddler wasn't snacking on one just yesterday...at least I hope it was a Cocoa Puff. Nights that dad is at work late are cause for celebration because my kids know that it won't take very much to talk me into a bowl of cereal or a pb&j for dinner. It's just a few nights, Apple Jacks twice in one day won't kill them, right? For the most part I control what my children eat, as most parents do. However, there are those times that our children ingest something that not only did we not serve to them, we would not eat if you paid us...

Growing up, my grandparents had a wonderful little dog named Spook. Little black and white furball who was adored by all of the grandchildren. We would often fight over who got to feed Spook, as his entree choice was above and beyond the typical dried dog food. You see, our friend Spook dined on Gaines Burgers. These fabulous little congealed, compacted, pungent patties were to be crumbled into his bowl...fascinating to any child and way more fun than the dried stuff. Ugh...I just threw up in my mouth a little bit as I can remember the smell and feel of those nasty little buggers like I had one in my hand yesterday. Anyway, we would race to the kitchen and knock each other over in our quest to be the feeder-of-Spook for that particular day. This was so much better than getting a scoop of dried dog food pebbles; you'd take the disgusting little patty and have to crumble it up in your hands to create small, bite-size pieces...barf, barf, and barf. Of course, a visual may help:

I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. And yes, any young child in my family who was a feeder-of-Spook at one time or another sampled a bit of Gaines Burger. Ask any of them...if they say no, they're lying. Ask their parents, they watched in horror, gagged a little bit and went about their business (except my uncles, they probably laughed their asses off) But it happens...kids eat weird shit. Things we as adults would never dream of ingesting purposefully. Now that you're probably dry-heaving over your morning cup of coffee, think of the non-food items that one of your children or someone elses child ate. Nasty, isn't it?

I will apologize now as I've likely ruined your appetite for the day with not only the description of the Gaines burger BUT a picture as well, so I'll spare you the details of the time my oldest found a bug crawling in our apartment (yep, little legs kicking out of her mouth...it was awesome) or the time we convinced a neighbor child that the bird poop dried to his front steps was a cool new kind of candy (yes, he ate it...his mom was PISSED) or my cousin eating a moth, or was it a lightning bug? (nevermind...he was paid by aforementioned uncles) Either way, the next time your little darling grabs a fossilized french fry off the floor of the car, snags a fruit snack from the floor at Target, or is enjoying some other treat you KNOW you don't currently have in your pantry just remember: what does not kill them will make them stronger...or something like that...