Alas, all the nibbles bought for guests eventually got consumed by DW and me. At least she helped. The only thing that works for me is to not have them in the house so that I resort to cherries or carrots.

I did watch the DGD rapidly consume two clementines for lunch yesterday. No food, just two clementines. At 21 months, it seems that eating is just . . . whatever. On other occasions, I've seen her consume more than an adult. Kids seems to have this unworldly notion of eating only when they're hungry. I wonder how long it takes to lose that?

Very good question, Bill. I don't have the answer, but it immediately reminded me of my childhood and being forced to clean my plate. I struggle with that mentality to this day.

While I certainly try to eat only when I'm hungry, there are times when I'd rather not eat but those around me are hungry and I'm the one preparing the food, so I eat anyway. Or it's just so ingrained in me that 6 o'clock is dinner time, therefore I'll put dinner on the table and eat. I think that if I were living alone, I could probably do the eat only when hungry thing a lot easier.

One day of work this week and then we're off for two weeks vacation!

I try to only eat when I'm hungry, but I seem to be hungry most of the time.

We have a new feral cat in the house -- Oliver is his name. All black and quite a beauty! He's been living under the mobile home for several months. We trapped him last week. He's been to the vet for neutering and antibiotic shot to help with all the open wounds on his face and neck. I think our neutered cats have been tag-teaming him when he starts a fight. So far he will approach a hand when it is attached to a spoonful of canned cat food, and he is not trying to escape the large dog crate when we open the door to change the litter, etc, so maybe he had early human contact. A large 4-tier cat crate is on order. I hope he will be quieter once we move him to that. The goal is for him to become tame enough to eat in the house so we won't have to put food outside.

Happy 4th to the USA people and Happy Canada Day to Canadians!

Forgot it was Monday. The pet sit is calming down - no one barfed last night or today so far so that's great!

It's a holiday for some folks up here but others took the Friday previous as our stat holiday - now called Canada Day - was on the Saturday.

You Americans have the holiday tomorrow - do you have today off as well?

Enjoy!

Dagmar

I am finally using an option that my client, owner of the 7 pets I'm sitting, gave me. I'm boarding the oldest dog for 3 days. He has successfully prevented me from sleeping more than 3-4 hours every night since the sit started and I need a break.

Dagmar

What does he do? Just restless and wandering around??

He's 12 years old and has never had any training - housebreaking, obedience, etc. He walks around marking the walls with urine and defecates wherever he wants. This is not senility - he's done this since they got him at age 6. And he whiny cries if he wants something until he gets it. Last night one of the cats was in one of the dog beds. The dog wanted the bed so he sat beside it and whined and pawed at it despite my repeated attempts at correction. The rest of us couldn't watch TV because of his noise.

He also now urinates in the human beds, which is why I'm not letting him (or any of the other dogs) upstairs. They are all gated into the living room at night and the other 2 are totally fine with it. He smashes against the baby gate and cries and whines, trying to get me to come downstairs. Last night it went on for over an hour before he finally gave up and went back to sleep.

I couldn't get back to sleep so lay there until 4:45 which is when I get up.

This has gone on for 5 nights now and I'm exhausted. I'm going to board him Fri. through til Mon. so I'll have a chance to enjoy the company of the other pets, the pool, etc. and to get some sleep. SIGH.

People wonder at all the training I do with Trixie. She is a JOY to live with because she understands the rules and behaviours expected of her. That understanding is all a result of showing her repeatedly how to behave in all sorts of situations.

The owners of dogs who receive no training aren't doing those dogs any favours.

Dagmar (climbing off my soapbox now)

Having watched all 3 of my boys transition from "eat only when you're hungry and eat whatever's on offer" to "preferentially eat fun food over not fun food" to, eventually "bargain for more fun food and promise to eat not fun food if given more/extra fun food," I can tell you that this is exactly how the transition happens. If you, the parent, inadvertently make things worse by providing fun food for special occasions like parties, or offering dessert only when the main meal has been consumed, then you are part of the problem, because this directly teaches that some foods are inherently more desirable than others. If you want an age range, I'd say the transition to the adult eating mentality is largely complete around age 8.

Thanks, Andrea, for the steps in the transition to preference for "fun food." Birthday parties with cupcakes and birthday cakes are already a part of the young lady's life - her own and those of her young friends. I'll think about how we can reduce the "fun food" concept when she's here.

Andrea, I'm curious about what methods actually work for helping kids learn to eat well. We frequently tell our kids they can't have a food they want until they eat some requisite number of bites of the food we gave them, but it's mostly because I can't think of any other way to teach them that when it's dinnertime, they eat what we eat and we're not short-order cooks who are going to make them something else. I don't make them clean their plate or anything, I usually say something like "you have to try a bite of everything on your plate to get dessert" or "if you eat one carrot stick you may have dessert," where "dessert" means "fruit or vegetables of your choice." We also have "special treat" food like ice cream or donuts that they can have when they fill up their reward jars.

I don't know how that compares to my own childhood when I was that little. The only rule I remember from growing up was that we weren't allowed to have junk food unless we ate a piece of fruit first. My parents had desserts in the house all the time and never made me clean my plate or insisted I eat all of my vegetables or anything. I still ended up fat, so clearly I didn't learn to only eat when I was hungry.

Actually a funny side note about my kids -- they have problems with constipation, so we frequently tell them that they have to eat healthy foods so they don't get "clogged up." Lately, DD1 has started asking, "How many bites do I have to eat to get clog-up foods?" It's a struggle because the foods they are willing to eat the most are things like chicken nuggets, french fries, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza, and plain pasta with cheese on top. They're good about fruit, and we use 100% whole wheat bread for their PB&J and such, but getting them to eat vegetables is pretty difficult, as is getting them to eat any of the meals that DH and I cook, even though I specifically choose recipes that I think they'll enjoy. DD2, when we tell her she must eat one bite of the food we gave her before she can have anything else, will frequently make a huge fuss and gag on like, half of a chickpea. (She did actually eat one half of one chickpea last night after I insisted and then nearly spit it out, and this was a recipe where last time we made it, she ate a TON of them.)

Anyway, in other news, my dad's health is declining rapidly. I'm glad we made it out to see him a couple weeks ago with the kids, because I don't think the kids will be able to visit him in person again. Two days ago my mom called and said the doctor had updated their prognosis from him having a year to year and a half to saying less than a month based on some new lab tests, but yesterday his doctor consulted with a different specialist and revised his estimate to be up to six months, and that it's not as imminent as he thought. Given the rapidly changing information, I do think that it really could be any time, and they just don't know for sure. My sister lives close by to my parents, so she and her wife are there for my mom and dad even though I can't be. I guess we will just take it day by day, and when it's time, I'll fly out to CA to be there.

I have vague memories of eating meals as a small child. I ate whatever my parents put on my plate, which was the same stuff they ate but smaller portions. My mom cooked all of our meals from scratch. I went through a stage of hating milk and cheese but had to still eat them. We ate fast food once a week when I was a teenager - KFC. We never had dessert except after Sunday lunch. My mom baked whatever that was.

I wasn't fat as a kid but soon did pack on the weight when I got an after school job and was allowed to spend my pay on whatever I wanted. Usually candy and pop.

Dagmar

Jessica - I'm so sorry to hear about your dad.

I've done a lot of reading on kids' nutrition from dieticians and psychologists, because 2 of my 3 are picky eaters and drove me crazy. Of course, despite all of the sage advice, we did it all wrong because I simply couldn't trust the recommended system. Recommended system follows, for Jessica:
1. At meals, all foods are equal in value. There is nothing better about chicken over chips; carrots over cupcakes. If you are serving a sweet thing (e.g. cupcake), it's fine to eat it first.
1a) DO NOT USE FOOD AS A BRIBE, REWARD, OR THREAT.
1b) Get rid of the idea of "dessert." If you're serving a traditional "dessert" food (processed with added sugar/fat), make it an ordinary part of the meal. If you are serving more than one course, try to end with a simple, non-processed food item (fruit, cheese, egg).
2. Serve almost exclusively nutritious foods at meals. Cupcakes should make only a rare appearance in your kitchen, while chicken and carrots should appear often.
3. All foods have a "reasonable portion" size that should not be exceeded, but you are welcome to take less than a full portion of anything, as long as you take at least one bite. Instead, eat for maximum diversity (one portion of everything on the table). Note that portions of calorie-poor foods like lettuce are larger than those for calorie-rich ones, like peanut butter.
4. All meal options are put out on the table. If it's not on the table, it's not on offer for that meal. No short order cooking. If you don't like what's served, wait for the next meal.
5. Between-meal snacks should be simple, low-processed food items (unsweetened yogurt, popcorn, veggie with hummus), and only to assuage hunger, not for entertainment. Most eating is supposed to be done during proper sit-down meals, ideally at consistent times and with all family members present.
6. No sweet beverages.
7. No texting, reading or tv during meals.

Jessica, some very useful pointers from Andrea above. Here are a few remarks from me. Anecdotal evidence: the DB (17) eats most things and doesn't have a sweet tooth. He ate what we ate from when he was weaned. The principle we used was based on being a participant, not a consumer.

Real food at proper mealtimes. Have fun learning about where real food comes from, grow things yourself - even if it's just mustard and cress on some kitchen towel, make food from scratch yourself as much as possible. And do it by hand so there's plenty of opportunity to talk about what's happening and why. There's a lot of science to talk about when you're making proper food. Making fruit crumble, for example, was a favourite from when the DB was tiny. It needs fingertip work to rub the butter into the flour - it's a lot of fun for a child to master that skill and eat the results. (He also used a knife from being small because I wanted him to learn about controlling a blade, and safety in general. I know not all parents would go along with that.)