The Politics of Yogurt

In our house, we buy yogurt by the case. These cases of yogurt contain the same three flavors, every time, peach, strawberry and blueberry. It'd be nice to have more variety, but these three are the ones packaged in the cases. We occasionally buy at the grocery store, but we invariably end up with mostly these three flavors, so we only do it when we're out and can't get to the box store to pick up a case.

Rich and I eat plain and vanilla flavored yogurt that I buy in quarts and pack in smaller tupperware to take for lunch with some fresh fruit. This works really well in the summer with all the lovely berries and stone fruit. In the winter, I cheat and buy frozen fruit and cook it down with a little sugar or *gasp* buy out of season fruit from around the world. I know it's bad, but I can't help myself!

Drew eats about a yogurt a day. During dinner, he angles for one and starts talking for his stomach saying things like, "My tummy is full of dinner, but has space for yogurt." This doesn't go over well as he has to eat his dinner to get to the yogurt. This idea of his stomach independently deciding to save space for yogurt and dessert, when we have it, has grown. Now, his stomach doesn't feel well, "My tummy doesn't feel so good. A yogurt will make it feel better, I think."

As you might imagine, Drew isn't exactly pulling the wool over on us, so there is generally a heated negotiation over how much of the food that is left he has to eat to get yogurt and/or dessert. This negotiation has been heavily influenced by the removal of the post-school snack.

Drew gets a snack at school after nap/quiet time, around 3-3:30. He used to come home and immediately demand a snack saying he was starving. When we let him eat something, we noticed that dinners became exponentially longer. We'd sit around while he dragged his food around and occasionally ate it. We started getting better about eating very consistently around 6-ish, and cut out the snack and suddenly meals don't take longer than an hour. Drew still eats slowly, mostly because his mouth is busy talking, but he's eating instead of fidgeting, a definite improvement.

For about a week, Drew caught on and started telling us that he didn't get a snack at school after nap/quiet time. We didn't even think twice about that until we hit a day when he had a fit about not having been given a snack. And...well, we called his bluff and asked at school. Boy, did he get in trouble with his teacher for lying.

And now, we do not do an after school snack unless Rich and I know dinner will be delayed. In those instances, he gets a snack, generally half an apple or a nut snack.

The other sensitive part of yogurt in our house is the yogurt retrieval process. Drew has expanded the scope of his duties in the house beyond cleaning up his toys and dressing himself to helping around in the kitchen. He sets the table and reminds his dad that Rich needs to get the drinks at dinnertime. After he's done with his food, he pulls himself back from the table and lithely hops to the floor and runs to the garage, where he props the garage door open with the door stopper and get himself a yogurt from the fridge. Then he re-enters the house, closing the garage door, and get himself a spoon from the utensil drawer. He started pulling the tops off his own yogurts a few weeks ago, so he does that, now, too, throwing it away before sitting down to enjoy his yogurt.

This morning, while I was packing up a breakfast to take into work, I asked Rich to get me a yogurt while he was going to garage. When Rich left the kitchen, Drew was standing in the family room and his face looked sad. I asked him what was wrong and he said that it was his job to get yogurt. I felt bad about that since he likes to help and in the mornings, especially, he feels left out as Rich and I run around getting ready to leave the house. So when Rich brought me a yogurt I asked Drew to trade it out because I didn't really want strawberry today. Drew's face lit up and he brought me this flavor. His favorite.



After I was packed up and we were about to leave, Drew came to give me a hug and told me that he wants me to go find the rest of the peach yogurts and make sure there is at least one left for him because he is sad that he gave me the last on from the top of the box. (There are two levels to the box.) He hopes there are peach yogurts on the bottom. (Between you and me, I'll pick up a couple of peach flavored yogurts at the grocery store and put them in the box, just to make sure.)