The Very Hungry 2 Year Old

The book The Very Hungry Caterpillar has been one of Garrison's favorite books for the past few months. At one point we were reading it 4 times a day every single day, twice before his nap and twice before bedtime. I actually thought about hiding it from him for a while because I was getting so tired of it. Terrible I know. He loves counting up all the fruit that the caterpillar eats and especially loves the day when the caterpillar eats a piece of chocolate cake, ice cream cone, a pickle, a slice of cheese, a slice of salami, etc, etc. The caterpillar eats a lot and it seems to be Garrison's favorite part of the book.


Welll... we officially have a very hungry 2 year old on our hands. I'm not sure if he's going through a growth spurt or what but it seems like for the past week we literally can't keep him full. I mean he has always loved to eat and he's always had a really good appetite, but lately it's become crazy how much he's eating. A few weeks ago we thought his eating habits might be changing or his appetite might be slowing down because he seemed to be sort of picky about what he would eat, especially at supper, and we were really having to work to get him to eat a good meal (something we weren't used to at all). Those days are now a thing of the past. If he keeps up this pace, our grocery bill is for sure going up. haha!


Just to prove my point and so I'll remember that he actually did eat this much as a 2 year old, here's a look at Garrison's meals yesterday:

Breakfast: A strawberry muffin (the easy Martha White kind), a little less than half a cup of yogurt (we tried out a different kind that he didn't really care for), and a handful of apple jacks. So breakfast was pretty normal.
*We went to the pool mid-morning for about an hour and a half and he had a snack there of gold fish, raisins, and grapes
Lunch: 2 pieces of turkey, cheese, and crackers from a lunchable, half a cup of mixed fruit, gold fish, cheez-its, grapes, several bites of mine and Terrell's frozen pizza, and a mini-chocolate donut (he is now requesting zert, dessert, after lunch and supper so we're trying to be really careful with what he has for zert and how much of it he has.)
*He had a grape popsicle for his afternoon snack
Supper: Half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (I only decided to fix this for him because he doesn't like chicken casserole and I knew he would just keep asking for more food), a few butterpeas, a helping of mac and cheese, a helping of rice, the other half of his cup of fruit, raisins, grapes, cheez-its, yogurt melts, and puffs (the yogurt melts and puffs were considered his zert)


Is it just me or is this a ton of food? Of course all of these things didn't start off on his plate for lunch or supper, he just kept asking for more. The only thing on his plate at the start of supper was his sandwich, butterpeas, mac and cheese, rice, and half a fruit cup. But he kept telling us over and over, "Garrsin want somethin else. I want somethin else mama. Garrsin want raisins and gold fish." So we'd give him raisins and cheez-its since we're almost out of gold fish... then we'd hear it again. So we'd give him some grapes... and so on and so on. The crazy thing is that this has been going on for the past week or so at just about every meal. I don't know what we'll do once he's older and eating grown-up size portions. I guess it's possible his appetite could change and he could become more picky... there's just no sign of it anytime soon. For now we're just trying to keep up with our very hungry 2 year old. =)