Fruit Bats Of The Kid Variety

I have often noticed that my kids behavior tends to mimic those of animals as much as they do kids. This is not to say that my kids have bad behavior, in fact when we are away from home we get nothing but compliments. We must be doing something right. But we can't help but notice that sometimes they sound like squirrels when the are laughing or chattering with each other. And sometimes they seem to act more like monkeys at the zoo when the get wound up. But when it comes to fruit, my kids are like fruit bats.

My sister's crew consists of a family of 4. 2 grown ups, a 2 yr. old and 5 yr. old. When she goes to the store they buy fruits and veggies by the number of items they need mostly. 5 carrots or 4 bananas, etc. When we go to the store we measure fruit in kilos, (2.2 1bs. to 1 kilo). And even if we buy 2 kilos of apples, a kilo of Clementinas and so on, there is never enough fruits and veggies in our house. This extends to carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes as well.

The advantage to this is that we have discovered that people LOVE to bring our kids fruit because the kids actually get excited about it. Not to say the kids won't eat nosh when offered, but fruit is equally as good. This happened again last night when we had friends drop in. We got a call from our friends saying that they were at the store next door. "What do your kids eat fruit wise?" (They already know our kids can't 3/4 of the junk out there.) My answer, "let me tell you what they don't eat,it will be faster." I was taken aback by the amount of fruit that walk through our door last night and when I asked what the occasion was, the answer was " I love buying fruit for you kids, because they love it!" This is something we have heard over and over again from different people. We have a few friends that are between kids now, meaning, their kids are grown and no grand kids in sight. They get a kick out of playing with our very imaginative kids and when they come they love bringing them fruit because the kids consider it a treat. I seem to take for granted the fact that from about birth my kids have always loved fruit, because I hear from so many people the problems they have with their kids not eating it. For the most part we do OK with veggies too except for S. His idea of veggies are carrots, corn and french fries. But to give him credit he keeps trying to like them. Last week he asked for salad which was a shock! He did not eat the lettuce, but he did eat some of the other stuff and that's pretty good. I am impressed by his maturity.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I am often chagrined at the number of people who appreciate my kids healthy eating habits. Which I guess makes me wonder, what is the rest of the world eating?! Yikes.

And as a side note, I always thought I would have pets over kids, now I see I have a compromise. My kids have the inclination to be monkeys, squirrels,bears, and there was a temporary thing with pretending one was a dog that the others would "take for a walk and feed"...So now I realize I have a whole zoo plus kids and they all come in one complete package! Kids are truly an amazing creation of G-d, what would we do with out them!