One of the most interesting things about spending all day every day at home with my two little boys is that I get to watch their personalities and preferences develop day by day. Sometimes, they like things that are similar – or, to put it more exactly like it appears to be from where I see it, Dylan likes Blake to have things (like clothes) that are similar to what he has, and Blake goes along with it either because he couldn’t care less or because he really wants to but doesn’t actually say so because he uses very few words. Other times, though, their tastes, interests, and personalities are very different.
Perhaps the most noticeable area in which Dylan and Blake differ is their taste in food. I have noticed that Blake tends to prefer the foods that I like to eat most while Dylan prefers things that my husband prefers. It does not seem like a calculated effort by either of the boys to “eat like mom” or “eat more like dad”, it’s more of a general thing that I have noticed over the few months that have passed since I made some pretty drastic changes to the way that I eat.
Most of the time, I eat things like meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and nuts. I rarely eat grains or legumes, and I eat very little dairy. Blake’s current favorite foods are ground beef, ground turkey, scrambled eggs, roasted broccoli, and fresh raspberries and blueberries. Dylan loves berries too, but he is very into eating grain – based foods like Cheerios, pasta, and bread. He picks at his meats and veggies, eating very little of them. My husband eats his meat and veggies, but he does eat a lot of grain, too, especially oatmeal in the morning. It’s actually quite cute, because Dylan sits on his lap and shares the oatmeal with him.
I am currently struggling with whether to try to bring my whole family’s diet onto the same page as my own because eating the way that I do works so well for me and I feel great. I am torn between feeling selfish for wanting to keep meal prep and grocery shopping as simple as possible, feeling responsible for the health and well being of my family (knowing what I know about how some of the things that they eat may be affecting their bodies), and wanting to respect everyone’s own right to choose what foods they put into their bodies. For now, I guess I’ll just try to stop overthinking and just make sure that everyone has enough healthy (by most people’s definitions, maybe not quite my own) food to eat.