food glorious food

I'm starting to wonder whether I should be concerned about how much my children eat.

Today for breakfast, each of the twins ate two and a half slices of banana bread, two slices of vegetarian bacon, and some fruit.

Isabel also ate the lion's share of a two pound box of strawberries (We all know how much Isabel loves strawberries, but that's a little ridiculous. Two pounds is more than 10% of her body weight!)

Other unbelievable eating experiences include:
1. An entire loaf of sourdough bread devoured by twins who had eaten a full meal just an hour or so beforehand
2. Veggie bacon, fruit, and 6 pancakes each (And they would have eaten more if we had allowed them... Jon and I were completely stuffed after 4 pancakes!)
3. An entire banana, several pieces of bread, and three gigantic scoops of garlic mashed potatoes about an hour after they had eaten an entire meal of rice cereal, peas, and applesauce.
4. An entire bratwurst each, grilled veggies, corn, watermelon, and mounds of raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and blackberries.

If they put away this much food at 1, I'm terrified to think of what they might be eating as teenagers!

I have never seen these children turn away from food. I try my best to feed them only reasonably healthy foods, lots of fruits and veggies, etc. but they are definite carb addicts. Elijah has recently learned to say "cracker" which is their favourite snack. He will now follow me around the house all day long saying "cracker?" and pointing vigorously to the area of the kitchen where they are kept.

The kids have been taking medication every day, and Elijah likes to spit his out instead of swallowing it. Today I reasoned with him. I told him that he could have a cracker if he took his medicine without any problems. The kid drank his medicine down like there was no tomorrow and then looked at me and said "cracker?" Don't tell me 1 year olds don't understand what we're saying.

As I walked toward the kitchen, Elijah began bouncing in his chair, repeating "cracker" with a gigantic smile on his face. oh boy.

On the one hand, I'm thrilled that my children are starting to communicate with me and express their desires in more sophisticated ways. I certainly don't want to discourage this by brushing off their requests. However, just how many crackers should I be giving these kids in one day? If I didn't cut them off, they would easily polish off the entire box! My policy right now is to give them each a cracker or two (depending on when they last ate) when they first ask me for them. Then when they continue to ask, I tell them "no more crackers" to let them know that I've heard their request, and try to re-direct their attention.

The twins are 15 months old. They're both teeny tiny for their age (their weight absolutely does not reflect all that they eat) and neither one of them has even made it to the American growth charts. we've talked to 2 different doctors (our regular pediatrician and an international adoption specialist) and they aren't concerned. The twins have both been battling chronic giardia since we arrived home in February, and I'm sure those parasites are sucking away a lot of the nutrition that they would normally be getting from their food. My first priority is to get rid of the giardia. At that point, I will further assess their food issues.