Life With Ty #29 - Crackers, crackers, crackers

I'm pretty sure Ty is comprised of at least 20% graham cracker.  He doesn't just love graham crackers, he lives for and on graham crackers.  He is obsessed.

I remember the exact day that this infatuation began, too.  Ty was 15 months old, and we had just began our summer vacation together.  At that point, Ty was not yet feeding himself foods, and it was my mission to get him to do so by the end of the summer.  I put everything in front of him...fruits, vegetables, baby puffs, teething biscuits...and he wouldn't touch any of it.  Granted, he would eat all of the above if I fed them to him myself, but if he had to do the work, forget it.

So on this particular day, I was just fed up.  Ty sat in his high chair while I made myself lunch, and I found a package of graham crackers in the cabinet.  Knowing darn well Ty probably wouldn't touch it, I tossed one in front of him anyway, figuring anything was worth a shot at that point.  After making my lunch I turned around, and the graham cracker was gone.  Neither of the dogs were huddled under the high chair, and no cracker pieces were shoved on the seat next to Ty.  I couldn't believe it.  Sure enough, there were little crumbs all around his mouth, and Ty was signing "more".  Not only did he eat a new food, but he wanted more of it.  So what is a mom to do?  Give him more graham crackers of course!  With the amount of effort it took to get him to feed himself anything, if he wanted more of something, who was I to deny him?!

And so that began Ty's 17-month long obsession with graham crackers.  Today, they are a staple in our household.  Every day at 9:30am, Ty requests crackers for snack, and every day at lunch he gets a peanut butter or peanut butter and jelly "sandwich" on graham crackers.  He will eat them with any spread (hummus and cream cheese are two of the stranger spreads he has accepted!), and will dip them in any pureed food (cereal, yogurt, applesauce, etc).  I cannot leave the house without a baggie of graham crackers in my purse, and if we run out of them in the house, it most certainly warrants an emergency trip to the grocery store.  I can rattle off the serving size and nutrition facts of graham crackers, and know that eating four servings would fulfil his daily requirement of whole grains.  I have jokingly wondered what would happen if a natural disaster occurred and we were unable to get more crackers at the store for a while.  What in the world would Ty eat?!  Hey, it's not a perfect food, but it could be worse! 

So thank you, Honey Maid, for making a food that my pickier-than-picky eater of a son will eat willingly!