The Great Oatmeal Fiasco of 2007

Today is Elise's birthday (more on that later). Oatmeal is one of Elise's favorite breakfast foods, and one of the few that she is pretty much guaranteed to eat on any given day. I very, very rarely give Elise oatmeal. She ate it every day when I spoon fed her, but now that she feeds herself, oatmeal is rarely on the menu. I know, I know. It's incredibly nutritious, one of the best breakfasts she could eat. But it's oatmeal, people. It is a thick, grainy glob of oat paste. And Elise is two.

So today is her birthday. Her party will be tomorrow, but we'd still like to make the actual day special for her. I decided to bite the bullet and give her oatmeal for breakfast. It was her idea, not mine. She actually walked up to me and asked for oatmeal for breakfast. So I made oatmeal.

What do I have, amnesia or something? Elise can handle silverware pretty well. There is usually a bit of a mess to clean up, but nothing catastrophic. But somehow oatmeal changes that. Somehow she reverts to her 16 month spoon holding abilities. Giving my child a bowl of oatmeal and her own spoon has pretty much the same result as putting a blender in the middle of the dining room table, filling it with oatmeal, and turning it on high...without the lid.

I tried very hard to remember that today is her birthday, and that in the long run my errands and chores are not the things that really matter, and that someday soon I'll wish I could solve her problems for her as easily as I solved her oatmeal mess this morning. (That's not to say it was easy to clean up. It wasn't. I just mean that when she is first snubbed by a friend or gets her heart broken by a boy, I'll wish I could take a big, warm washcloth and make it all better.) And I only partially succeeded in my "have a good attitude" attempt. There were still several deep sighs and "Oh, Elise!"'s. I should have taken a picture, especially given that it is her birthday, but....my attitude didn't make that much progress.

So let this be a warning to you, oh parents of toddlers. Oatmeal is nutritious and easy to make...but it has consequences.