Elijah Wants a Snack Too

I've had many friends tell me stories of their older child trying to feed the newborn baby (edible and inedible items). One was innocently sharing a Cheerio, while another tried to cram a blueberry muffin down the poor baby's throat. And yet another tried to feed his baby brother the cherries from his Hi Ho! Cherry-O game (definite mental note made on that one!). Because I had been forewarned of this possibility, we always remind Jaden that the only thing Elijah can eat is milk (mom's milk, that is - don't want Jaden giving him a swig of his sippy cup). When we ask him if Elijah can have some of what he's eating, he says "No, not till he's big like me!" So far Jaden's been really good about not trying to feed Elijah anything...until today...

Sam and I were busy getting groceries put away, while Elijah was swinging in his swing. Jaden was helping take the groceries out of the bags for us, which didn't last long at all once he decided he'd rather be sampling the groceries. He handed me a box of dried fruit packets and insisted that he needed a snack (that's his new thing: a desperate "Mom I need..."), so I opened one up for him to keep him occupied while Sam and I rushed to get everything else put away. Jaden went off to eat his snack, then shortly after came back and said, "Mom, Lijah wants a snack too." I thought it was very cute and thoughful of him, and didn't really think much else of it, as I repeated back, "Oh, Elijah wants a snack?" I guess Jaden took that as a "Go ahead and share with him," because he returned again and said "I shared my snack with Lijah, mom." My immediate thought was "WHAT! Does that mean you gave him one?" I looked up at Elijah from the kitchen and could tell that he was definitely enjoying something. I rushed over and forced my finger into his ever so tightly sealed lips and pulled out a chunk of dried pineapple. And boy did he wail when I took that away! And then of course I went on to think that he could have swallowed it or choked on it, and I would have had to do CPR, and would I have known what to do, and on and on and on! But I also just had to laugh at how cute it was and appreciate that Jaden was being considerate of his baby brother and simply wanted to share his snack.