Educational Food

Since my son tends to be a bit of a messy eater (he looks everywhere except his fork when he's eating), it's only very recently that I've introduced him to the joys of soup. I love to make soup, so his first couple of soup experiences were soups that I had made and tailored specifically toward his tastes (he loves corn, carrots, and rice). But when my husband picked up groceries the other week and brought home a can of alphabet soup, I knew it was time to introduce my son to Campbell's for the first time.

Because of his messy eating habits, when I do give him soup I go light on the broth and heavy on the other ingredients. So when I presented him with his bowl of alphabet soup, it was mostly a pile of chubby pasta letters with a few carrots, peas, and corn dotted here and there, with just a tiny puddle of liquid at the bottom. As is often his habit, my son barely glanced at what was in the bowl before absent-mindedly scooping some up while looking elsewhere. But when he peeked at the spoon before he shoveled it in his mouth, his eyes grew big. "Mama! Letters!" he said in astonishment. "Letters in my spoon!"

Being raised by an elementary school teacher, I find teaching opportunities in everything, especially things as obvious as alphabet soup. So naturally, I asked him what letters he saw in his bowl. Every letter he named, I told him something that started with that letter. He pointed out a "B"; I told him that "B is for ball." He found a "T"; I said, "T is for turtle." Then I started asking him to find a particular letter: "Is there an 'R' in your bowl? R is for Ryan! Can you find an 'M'? M is for Mama!"

I laughed at myself a bit for finding an educational opportunity in a bowl of soup. But then, it wasn't the first time I've used food as a teaching tool. We often count how many peas are on his plate, or how many pieces of cheese. I tell him that his peaches are a fruit and that they grow on a tree, and that his carrots are a vegetable and they grow in the ground, and that they both need water and sunshine and soil to grow. I tell him that candy is sweet and we only have it now and then as a treat, but we need to eat meat and vegetables and milk and bread every day to keep our bodies strong and healthy. We talk about how banana slices are circles and wedges of pineapple are triangles. We talk about apples being red and canteloupe being orange and grapes being green or purple.

In our house, food isn't just something you eat to give you energy or because it tastes good. It's something that can teach you colors and shapes and numbers and letters and agriculture and nutrition. Oh, and don't forget all those wonderful food vocabulary words: tasty, yummy, delicious, and scrumptious!

The Physics of Spoons

There are many processes in life that are so deeply ingrained in us that we don’t realize how complicated they really are. For example, a trained dancer who is asked to do a “triple time step” will perform a complicated series of steps without thinking about each separate part. To her, a triple is essentially a single action. To a dancer with less experience, the process consists of hop, shuffle, step, flap, step, stomp, reverse. To a dancer who is just learning the step, the process is something more like hop on your left foot, brush your right foot back and forth then step back and put your weight on your right foot, brush your left foot forward then step with your weight on it, step back onto your right foot, stomp your left foot on the floor, then do the whole thing all over again in the opposite direction. Put that way, it’s easy to see how complex the sequence is – at least, until you know it so well that you do it without thinking about it.

For a toddler, using a spoon is just as complicated. We adults don’t think twice about using one: you grab the spoon, you scoop some food onto it, you stick it in your mouth. Easy peasy, right? But if you watch a child who’s just learning to use a spoon, you realize that there are a lot of tiny picky details that we don’t even think about.

First of all, where you hold the spoon is very important. If you grab the very end of it, not only does it take a lot of coordination to scoop something onto the bowl of the spoon, but the slightest motion flings whatever is on the bowl up into the air and very far away from your mouth. You need to find that “sweet spot” where you have both strength and control. Short-handled baby spoons make this a little easier to deal with, at least, but it still takes practice to find that perfect balance point.

Next, you have to contend with the whole “angle of attack” thing. Gravity is not in your favor with most orientations. Sure, if we’re talking about cold Cream of Wheat or pudding, something will stick to the spoon no matter what orientation you hold the spoon at. Even something a bit soupier like applesauce or yogurt is pretty forgiving. But dry, unsticky things like peas or rice have an unpleasant habit of jumping right off the spoon unless the bowl is perfectly upright. And I don’t mean just upright when you scoop. It has to stay upright for that whole precarious journey from plate to mouth. That’s asking a lot of a child who six months ago could hardly sit up without assistance.

And then of course, you have the whole scooping action itself. You can’t just randomly jab the spoon into the food and hope to come up with something in the bowl. Unless we’re back to Cream of Wheat or pudding, the random jab maneuver is not likely to meet with a lot of success. The spoon needs to start off deep enough in the pile of food to get a mouthful on it, and it needs to move steadily enough to avoid dislodging its contents during the whole scooping arc. Again, peas and rice are not cooperative with this step of the process, and often result in an empty spoon reaching the mouth.

Impressively, most children do not seem to be particularly frustrated or disappointed by the empty spoon. Ryan, at least, enjoys chewing on the spoon as much as he does chewing on the food, so an empty spoon in the mouth is merely a mid-meal toy break. (It is also useful as a drumstick, thereby leading to another type of mid-meal toy break.) Nor is he bothered by the fact that as much food lands on his shirt and on the table as makes it into his mouth. Occasionally his hunger overtakes his interest in the spoon and he shovels a few mouthfuls in with his hands, but generally he goes back to working with the spoon again pretty quickly.

As I watch his skills develop, and as I watch his surprising patience and diligence in practicing and honing those skills, I am once again amazed at how quickly children go from not even comprehending how something is done to mastering it completely. Within just a few months, Ryan has gone from tottering a few steps to confidently running all over the house. He’s gone from staring uncomprehendingly as us when we talk to him to eagerly responding to verbal requests and recognizing names and objects. He’s gone from sitting back and watching other people show him his toys to actively finding things (toys and non-toys alike) to amuse himself with. And I can only imagine what changes are to come over the next few months. I can hardly wait!