Snack Attack

My 3 year old loves to snack, when it comes to snacks she is never full (if only dinner was the same).  I really have to try and limit her snacking to twice a day. Although she does seem to eat for a good part of the morning, but sometimes she hardly touches her breakfast so I give her one thing at a time and if she's still hungry we'll add something else, and then another thing until I finally have to say "okay, that's enough sweetie".  The one good thing is that she is great about eating healthy snacks.  If you put a bowl of strawberries and a bowl of pudding in front of her she would gobble up the strawberries in a heartbeat.  Of course when she was finished she would ask, "Now can I have the pudding?"

She takes an absolute fit when I tell her she cannot have a snack.  One day I was in the middle of preparing lunch when she asked for a snack,

"No hun, I'm making lunch right now." I reply.

She pouted and said with a whine, "I don't want any lunch, I want a snack." (huh?)

All day I hear...

"but I'm hungry"

"Can I have a snack, plllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaasssssseee!"

If I tell her no she cannot have a snack usually 2 minutes later she is asking for gum (word of warning; do not get one of those cute little novelty gum ball machines, it's not worth the drama.)  I've threatened on many occasions to throw the gum away if she doesn't stop asking me every 2 minutes. (maybe it was worth it...leverage!...wahaha)

So yesterday she has been asking for a snack over and over again.  It's 11:00 am and she has already had a bowl of cereal, a banana, a piece of toast (which she didn't finish), and a yogurt tube.  I mean the girl is not wasting away, but she is having a absolute fit.  So I start on lunch and decide it won't hurt to eat a little early.  

"Do you want an apple with your noodles today?" I ask

"Yes, can I have an apple and an orange?" she replies

"Okay." I can do that. So I give her half an apple and half an orange (shhh don't tell her).  She gobbles up all her food and looks up at me, she has these squinting playful eyes, and says "Can I have a snack?" 

I look at her plate and giggle, "Yes honey, go ahead."

"Yeah!" she cheers as she hops off her chair and heads into the cupboard.

I think we'll change the name of supper in our house to 'Snack Time'.