Breakfast Blues

Last week Ezekiel and Esther caught cold. As precautionary measure we took them to Homeo doc ; we have been avoiding allopathy for Esther for last 4 years and Homeo has been pretty effective both on Esther and Ezekiel. The reason to move to Homeo was we found that Allopathy docs in Trivandrum were prescribing very high doze of Antibiotics for Esther , who had some symptoms of wheezing ( one reason we decided to leave Bangalore and move to Trivandrum). So our Homeo Doc asked me what is Esther’s weight.. I said 2 weeks back I had checked her weight in the big weighing machine (kept in a retail store for weighing loads of vegetables, she usually wont allow her weight to be checked in the regular weighing machine, but playfully and curiously she wanted to stand on the weighing machine kept in the shop) and it showed 22Kg but i think she is around 20 kgs .. Doctor said - we will check again .. and she weighed 20.7 kg ... around 3-4 kgs below what she should be ... like any mother I do feel miserable to see Esther’s eating capabilities , but now I am used to all the usual questions which moms get to hear - "Give her this , give her that, don’t force , etc etc" ..So our doctor told me to give her Ragi every day - in form of 'Puttu', 'Adda' or porridge .. He then turned to Esther and said , its very colourful food – and I said she knows that because I used to give her ‘Ragi Puttu’ saying Chocolate Puttu :)

Breakfast blues - Methi Roti ? ..

In one of my earlier posts I had mentioned that I give terms like Paper Dosa, Thatta dosa, Egg rolls,Snake Parathas, try giving interesting names so that kids will be curious to see and eat .. sometime it works .. and after sometime kids get to understand that its one of Mommy tricks :) … .. Sometimes I do feel that kids these days are too fussy about food because they have too many options … and they know somehow they will get their way through of not eating and saying they don’t like this or that … think of our childhood … breakfast options we had .. Bread butter jam egg, paratha aalu sabzi or curd, sometimes puttu , dosas on Sundays some days oats … but that’s it …. And now I have in my breakfast list – Rava Upama and Kadla Curry, Puttu , Nai panjasara or banana, Idili, Dosa (Motta dosa, Uttappam, Onion Dosa , Masala Dosa ) with Sambar or Coconut Chutney, Iddiyappam, Ellayappam (its rice/ragi dough filled with sweetened coconut on plantain leaf and steamed ), Bread Butter,baked beans egg (Scrambled, Bulls eye, omelette, bhurji) , French toast, Pan cakes, Sevige bath , Poori sabzi, paratha sabzi, Halwa (Suji), Appam stew, egg curry .. and still Its very rare to see any excitement in Esther to have breakfast (except for pan cakes, Ellayappam and halwa ) … and Anil tells me to stop giving too many options … And guess he is right … And her lunch dabba is never the breakfast item , its usually Rice/Roti, one curry and one sabzi …

That reminds me of one of National Integration Promotional Ad (in 80’s )– Lunch time in a school – A teacher looking inside a class, lot of Shor and Halla –one of the kid had forgotten to get the ‘Tiffin’ and a Sardar kid sharing his dabba saying “Aalu matter or bahut sare matter , Bengali kid sharing , saying – Amar Rassagulla Bhishon mithaa “ the ad ending with teacher realising the bond between children and with the song in the background “Tu jahan saath hoga – Mera Saaya saath hoga “ … so much I could relate to my school days then … where my friends from Manipur liked having Puttu Panjasara , I loved Kichidi in someone else dabba ,Poori sabzi of my Punjabi class mate , bhara mirch achaar of my frind from UP, so much of dabba sharing :) … These days every morning before 8 am AIR Hindi News , ad on midday meals at school comes – it says Daal roti Dole sholey ke liya, hari sabzi football player ke liye – and ends up tu apni roti khaa na .. you should listen to that , you will understand what I am saying .. and sometime back in Gali Gali Sim Sim – the puppet show it was about why kids should have different food – and a lovely song “Khap khap kar ke khaatey hum hai …” Hoping Esther’s eating habits will change – She wanted Ragi Ellyaappam for evening snacks , was little late for evening snacks so gave her that for dinner (its rare she asking for any Ragi stuff) and I asked her what should I make for breakfast tomorrow .. her reply “Suji Halwa” :) (I hate sweet in breakfast – but now I cant be fussy ) :D …. I hear similar stories from other mothers on how poor kids are when it comes to eating … so I just tell myself, keep cooking, someday kids will love eating :)