I’m gonna go back to pancakes today. Hands down my middle son would pick pancakes for 90% of his meals if given the choice. He LOVES pancakes although for some reason he is on a waffle kick right now. It works out great because they warm up in the toaster better than pancakes. He has his waffles while the rest of us can choose something else like the smoothie my daughter and I had this morning. Strawberries that had been frozen, yogurt, and orange juice mix it up in the Vitamix and a delicious breakfast drink. We like pancakes but not every morning like brother.
My pancake recipe is one my dad made when I was a kid from scratch. I first started modifying it when we realized that my youngest son had a milk intolerance. Same recipe just different type of milk. I sometimes would throw in oatmeal, applesauce, or a banana. [I hated when my dad would try and sneak things in…I could always tell…for me it was the chunky and the smooth textures. I remember feeding that smooth baby food with the chunks to a toddler in my daycare and he would gag every bite. Who likes that texture anyway?] Anyway, that was as far as I had modified my pancake recipe.
At the convention the nutritionist had a recipe for chicken pancakes. My first reaction was, GROSS! Well when we arrived home I had this huge zucchini that had been growing for two weeks. What was I gonna do with it? Well they love zucchini bread maybe zucchini pancakes? So I have learned that all you really need for pancakes is some wet ingredients with some dry ingredients to make the thickness of the batter you like. So I took my basic pancake recipe and added zucchini plus a banana blended in the Vitamix toss in a little cinnamon. To my surprise they all loved it including my husband who is not a huge pancake fan. Success, he thinks he is getting a pancake but he is getting the nutrition.
My youngest is a granola bar fan, that would be his meal choice. I am trying really hard to limit him to two per day. That is all he wanted for lunch so I convinced him a pancake would be good. [1 egg, applesauce, oatmeal, a little flour to thicken the batter] He gets a pancake, which he loved, and I get him more nutrients. Success again.
Besides from the mention of “chicken pancakes” the other thing we really learned at the convention was to move our expectations into our child’s world. Often times we forget our child’s feelings and try and move them into our world…get them to do what we want. It should not be about bribing them to do what we want or rewarding them for going to the store or taking a nap. If he wants to play trains then we find the train tracks on the way to the store. It is a win-win not that constant win-lose battle. I know I would not have thought about this without someone talking about chicken pancakes [I still have not tried :)] but am so glad I could think outside that box and into my child’s world making our world together a happier one.
By the way those waffles he is eating every morning this week are zucchini-banana waffles. 🙂