Eating Frozen Tater Tots

It was inevitable. But, is it really time? I know, he's 3, but is it really time?

Since Austin started crawling, he would head straight for the pantry door as soon as his little ears heard me turn the door knob. When he started talking some, he would say "nack..nack" at the door when he was hungry. These days it's, "Mommy I'n hungwy." If he had his way, he would shop the pantry for 20 minutes describing every item that he didn't want to eat.

And now, we have 3 fast crawling (soon to be walking: Tyler is taking about 10 steps) toddlers plus big brother that have this super hearing, although the triplets are more interested in playing in the dishwasher when it opens. They use this power for the pantry and the refrigerator. There's nothing like trying to keep 4 kids out of the fridge when the door is open.

The pantry door is equipped with a child safety knob, so that the pantry is off limits for unsupervised visits for all 4 kids. You develop decision making skills that would rival ER docs when you are trying to locate an item, remove it, and shut the door before the fast crawling toddler moves in. And that occurs after you squeeze the knob correctly to get it open. This is loads easier than the magnetic devices on all of the lower cabinets! Clif is still trying to learn those after 3 years :-)

A new challenge has been overcome by Austin, though. The refrigerator. I just wasn't ready for him to grab the handle and pull open the fridge door, then the freezer door today. He had NEVER tried it and today he just pulled it open like he's been doing it his whole 3-year old life!

At that moment, I was trying to stall him for dinner which would be ready in 20 minutes. He's at that stage where he'd rather fill up on crackers and apple juice than wait a little bit and eat a good supper. We hear a lot of "Mommy, I not want supper!" But now, he can choose his own supper (so he thinks). He riffled through the freezer and said, "Oh Mommy! I eat these for supper. Look Grammy Poe! My supper!"

Frozen tater tots. He pulled one out of the bag and started munching. It's all about control these days. Then I heard, "Here Laurnen [Lauren]. Tater tots!" She thinks her brother is a genius. Now they are both munching on frozen tater tots! All we could do is laugh and try to explain how much better they would be if they were baked. Luckily, it's still short-attention-span-theatre on some things and by supper he had forgotten about the tater tots.

Fifteen minutes later, he needed to make sure he still had his new found skill-set and opened the fridge door. Out flew a jar of olives that Daddy bought at Sam's Club today. If you don't shop at Sam's or any other discount club, I must mention that they don't sell anything in small quantities. He's so lucky that jar didn't break!

Now I have to re-think my fridge and freezer...a lock...re-organizing a little...making sure the jars are out of reach...etc... I can just imagine Austin opening the door for his siblings saying, "'Ya want some [fill in the blank]?"