I went to Kaia’s school for their annual Thanksgiving lunch today. All the parents pitched in money, and the teachers and staff put together quite a feast for us. The staff bought a delicious roast turkey with gravy and made numerous sides, including mac and cheese, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, stuffing, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, creamed corn, corn bread, pumpkin pie, and cinnamon rolls. I didn’t realize that all the food other than the turkey would be made either at home by the staff and teachers, or on site at the school. It was really sweet to see that the staff went to all this effort just for us.

While the parents and kids were all sitting together eating, I was chatting with some of the other parents when I realized that Kaia had actually stolen all the broccoli off my plate as I was talking. One of the other parents also noticed this, and he exclaimed, “Wow, Kaia is such a good eater! Look at all the broccoli and cauliflower she just ate! She even just stole all of her mom’s broccoli!”

I smiled. My little Pookie stole all my broccoli. I was totally fine with that. Kaia had quite the appetite at lunch today. Of course, she indulged in her little treat, which were the “veggie sticks” that everyone likes. She dug into the turkey first on her own, then the broccoli and cauliflower, and then the mashed potato and stuffing. Unfortunately, Kaia wasn’t too keen on the sweet potato mash and told me to eat it. She cleared almost her entire plate, minus the mashed sweet potato, cinnamon roll, and some mysterious brownie-like thing that her teacher put on her plate. If you compared the plates across all the kids in 3K and 4K, you could definitely see that Kaia not only ate the most food, but she had the largest variety of food.

“It’s amazing that she eats so much, and she eats all her vegetables,” another parent said to me. “My kid basically just eats carbs, meat, and chocolate!”

I am fully aware of my child and all that she is and does. Even if I didn’t get comments like this as often as I do, I still feel very proud of my Kaia Pookie all the time. Since she was a baby, she’s always been very curious about everything, especially food, embracing new foods and digging in. I can only hope that it continues. I love that she eats a large variety of the same foods that Chris and I eat, and I never feel like I need to make her something different (what work that would be!!). It always makes me so proud. Today, seeing her eat this really well rounded meal on her own just made me feel like I was nearly bursting with pride. All the work I put into her baby-led weaning/early feeding days is most definitely paying off. I loved every moment of that work (when can we say that about any “work” we do?), and I still fondly (with an extreme amount of nostalgia) go back to my video memories of those days, encouraging her to eat and try new foods as a little wee baby. That little baby is not so little anymore.

Our neighbor friend also remarked the day that she stopped by a few weeks ago and saw Kaia eating dinner in her high chair how amazed she was at the sheer variety of food she was eating and what was on her plate. She said she could only dream of her son eating the way that Kaia did.

My Kaia Pookie is setting examples. I just love it.