I had such big plans. My children were going to eat nothing but healthy, organic, locally-sourced, homemade food. And exciting food, too: they were going to love exotic noodle dishes, cheeses of all sorts, chiles, olives, and all of the things I love that I never ate as a kid. I was going to spend my evenings and weekends happily cooking, filling our freezer and pantry with meals and snacks, and all of our friends would marvel how well it was all going.

Ha.

Ha, ha. Ha.

I am led to understand that there are people out there—food people—people with a love of food, and cooking, and eating, who have children, and manage to stay food people, who have adventurous, agreeable children with big, broad appetites, who make every mealtime a pleasurable and laughter-filled experience for the whole family. We do not have these children. If you do have these children, I am beyond happy for you, but I’m afraid I have to ask you to please, if you wouldn’t mind terribly, shut up about it.

There are days they eat almost nothing. Or days that they’ll only eat pasta. Again. Days when the food they’d happily tucked into only days ago is now emphatically and tearfully rejected. Days when I want to throw my hands up and never set foot in the kitchen again.

At our lowest moments (kids screaming, food everywhere, my head in my arms on the table) my wife reminds me of the advice our pediatrician gave us at their first birthday: “At one year, you can reasonably expect one good meal a day. At two, expect one good meal every other day.” These are, to be sure, low expectations, but they’ve become our mantra. If they don’t eat dinner, we remind ourselves that they ate lunch. Or vice versa. Or that they ate all of their oatmeal at breakfast. And that we’ll try again tomorrow.

There are victories, though. There are only a few parenting moments more proud than sitting across from my wife at dinner and watching both children gleefully shovel mujadarra or chana masala into their faces. Or hearing Julian urgently ask for “more more black beans!” Or having to remind Eloise to chew, chew, chew, and swallow before putting more chicken in her mouth.

Now that they can express their preferences, some meals are a little easier. At breakfast, I can ask, “What do you want for breakfast?” and get answers. Usually the same answers, but answers, nonetheless. (Julian: “Bagel!” Eloise: “Oatmeal!”)

With the understanding that eating is still a work in progress, and that we have a success rate far below 100 percent, here are the guidelines we try to stick to. These are inspired by Ellyn Satter’s Child of Mine, which I have not yet managed to read in its entirety. Still, the capsule version that I liked was this: “Parents decide what, when, and where to eat. Kids decide whether, and how much.”

What’s for dinner is what’s for dinner. I’m going to make one meal for the family each night, not two, not three, not four. The twins are going to eat what we eat… mostly.

There’s at least one thing they reliably like on their plates. Their dinner plates will have our dinner on them, but I try to design each meal so that there’s at least one component they recognize and have eaten before. Sometimes that’s as simple as making sure there’s broccoli or green peas or corn on the cob on the side. If dinner is especially adventurous (say, a delicious potato and fontina cake that Rachel and I really enjoy) I might put out some chicken bites or something. But the key to this rule, for me, is not going back into the kitchen for something new. Ever. Almost ever.

No seconds until you’ve tried everything on your place. The danger of having something they like on their plates is that they can tend to focus on that to the exclusion of everything else. It’s great that you like the pasta, Julian, but if you want more (and I’m happy to bring you more) you have to at least try the meatball. This has led to a lot of comical putting one molecule of food in their mouth and spitting it out ostentatiously. That counts. They might not eat the new food this time, but maybe it will be a little less unfamiliar next time.

Eat as much or as little as you want. My childhood is full of stories of being chased around the house by my father trying to get me to eat just one piece of chicken. I can’t believe that was fun for anyone. If our kids don’t want to eat something, that’s their choice. We try to tell them, “I think you’ll be hungry later,” but if they say they’re all done, and want to go and play, as long as they’ve at least made an effort to put something in their mouths, I don’t want to fight with them.

Keep trying. I’ve heard that to get a child to try, and potentially like, a new food, you have to offer it on at least ten separate occasions, even if they’re going to refuse it nine times. This is exhausting and demoralizing, and it’s the part I have the most trouble with. When they refuse to try (or spit out) the food I’ve lovingly, carefully, painstakingly prepared for them, it’s really hard not to take it personally. But my ever-patient wife reminds me that we’ll try again. And again. And again. And we do.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As much as I want to give them healthy homemade food all the time, it really won’t kill them to eat something from the (gasp!) grocery store freezer. Chicken nuggets, or little pouches of applesauce, goldfish crackers, or even the occasional cookie aren’t going to harm them, and don’t make me a bad parent.

A toddler isn’t going to starve himself. Everyone eats, eventually. Trying to keep our own anxiety levels down helps make meals more pleasant for everyone. And maybe, if we keep this up, in six to twelve months, they’ll be happily helping me cook, and trying our pad thai, and asking for more samosas. Right?

Right?

Colleen’s latest post ends up being really timely for me, because it helped to catalyze some sort of vague ideas I had bouncing around in my head. Circumstantial factors helped, too: I happened to see the most recent post pop up on my iPhone while I was sitting in the passenger seat of a DCYF van, riding alongside the Child Protective Services investigator I was shadowing for the day.

We all judge each other, all the time. We rarely say anything about it, of course. If I’m sitting a few tables down from you at a restaurant and see you chewing with your mouth open, I’ll scoff silently. If you see me walking down the street with my shoes untied or my pant cuffs tucked into my socks somehow, you’ll probably experience a little mental snigger. We judge each other’s driving, our choice of romantic partners, our wardrobes, our taste in music, our Facebook posts, our writing, our singing, our posture, and, of course, we judge each other’s parenting.

How often have I caught myself thinking less of someone for making a different parenting choice than I did? More often than I’d like. Cloth diapers vs. disposables. Plastic toys vs. wood. Plastic bottles vs. glass. Sleep training vs. co-sleeping. Strollers vs. baby-wearing. Breast milk vs. formula. Midwives vs. OB-GYNs. Nannies vs. day care. Staying home vs. returning to work. Pacifiers. Junk food. Discipline. Clothing.

(I want to emphasize quickly that although this post has coalesced as something of a response to Colleen’s post (or perhaps it’s simpler to say that it’s inspired by what Colleen wrote) it’s not at all intended as a criticism of anything she said or did. I wholeheartedly agree that, yes, babies belong in car seats, and I applaud her decision to notify the police that this family was being so obviously unsafe. I wish I could say with confidence that I’d have done the same thing. Parenting may be mostly shades of gray, but some things are blank and white, and this is pretty clearly one of them.)

A recent blog post at the New York Times shared the experiences of a lawyer who represents parents accused of abusing or neglecting their children. She describes what happens when the instinct to judge another’s parenting is taken to its logical and legal extreme. To be sure, there are parents out there who should be judged. There are parenting choices that are, simply, objectively, better than others, and some that should never be made at all. Still, that impulse to judge, to disapprove, to intervene can become extremely hard to resist when it’s directed at someone who already has a history of making bad decisions.

I can’t tell you anything about the DCYF case that I witnessed, except to say that it involved a family reacting badly to a crisis that I would expect any family to react badly to. It just happened that this family was already in the system, and so warning signs become red flags, and red flags send white vans driving out from Providence. (I do want to say that the investigator I had the privilege of shadowing handled the entire situation with incredible poise, professionalism, and compassion: I was humbled and impressed.)

I think of myself in my worst parenting moments: when I’m at my wits end and snap at my children, or pull them too roughly out of harm’s way, or say something, exasperated, forgetting that they can understand. I wouldn’t want anyone to witness these moments; I can imagine how they’d look through the eyes of an average, judgmental parent-on-the-street, much less through the eyes of someone bearing the card of the Department of Children, Youth, and Families.

And look at me: even in my worst parenting moments, I’m married to the mother of my children, we both work at good-paying jobs that we enjoy, we have family and friends nearby who are able and willing to help, and we can afford food, shelter, clothing, and quality child care. I have every advantage. When I’m driven to the edge and fail to be the parent I want to be, should I be judged for it? Well, maybe. And so should anyone, perhaps. But parenting is fundamentally about compassion: compassion for our children most of all, but also for ourselves and for each other, each struggling to do the best we can for the ones we love most.

I’ll try to remember that the next time I find myself shaking my head in middle-class disapproval at the parent with the shopping cart full of soda, or the kid I think is over- or under-dressed, or the house that’s full of Fisher-Price instead of Melissa and Doug. And I’ll try especially hard to remember it the next time I have the urge to tell another parent that the way I’m doing it is the right way.

(Still, people: kids go in car seats, infants sleep on their backs, and no honey before age one.)

This is a common scene, right? We’re driving home from running some errands and decide as a treat to stop by the playground to kill some time. The four of us roll into Humboldt Park, and the kids proceed to tear it up in the way that kids do.

(As a side note, because we hadn’t exactly planned to go to the playground, and because we sometimes let the kids influence what we dress them in, Eloise was wearing an adorable but completely impractical skirt and brand new white sandals. Just the thing. We must have looked like those parents who dress their daughter in inappropriately dressy girly clothes all the time. We’re not those parents!)

There were a handful of people there, including three mothers, each with a young daughter about the same age, who seemed to be casually acquainted. One of their kids kind of wandered over to where Eloise was playing and so the three of us ended up tossing a ball back and forth. The new kid, Sadie, was adorable, and the small talk with her mother was pleasant, and I thought, “Hey, new friend?”

And then they had to leave and I found myself kind of weakly waving goodbye.

How do new parents connect with one another and schedule these “playdates” that I’ve heard so much about? I’m sure that we’re at something of a disadvantage because both Rachel and I work full time, so we’re not often a part of the weekday kid scene. (Back before I went back to work, I befriended some of the other parents in the delightful classes we took at Bellani, but since I was demoted from “stay-at-home dad” to just “dad” I haven’t had a chance to see any of them.) But even on a weekend, when I do make meaningful eye contact or pleasant chit-chat with another parent hovering by the jungle gym, I have no idea how to seal the deal.

I think it’s so awkward and difficult because it’s essentially like trying to hit on someone you just met; I wasn’t any good at that back when I was single, and I’ve been cozily partnered up for more than a decade. There’s just no way I’m going to be able to successfully pick someone up at a playground.

I often wonder how much of it is gender-related. I see little clutches of moms that seem to gather together as if by some kind of electromagnetic force. Is new parenting secretly a “no boys allowed” club? Or does a guy wandering up to a bunch of women just exacerbate the creepy pick-up vibe? “Hi there. I think our kids are about the same age… laydeez.”

(This reminds me of a YouTube video that’s a couple of years old but is still, I think, funny. There’s probably nothing in it that’s precisely inappropriate for a family-friendly blog like this, but I feel that I should warn you, as Ira Glass occasionally says, that this video does acknowledge the existence of sex.)

I am generally baffled as to how new parents find each other. Most of our pre-kid friends still don’t have kids, and although we’ve met a few new friends with children, our social circle seems pretty narrow. How do you all do it?

Is there anything less dignified, more damaging to the self-esteem, or more pointless than competing for the attention and affections of a 20-month old child? Apart, obviously, from appearing as a contestant on a reality television program? I don’t think there is.

Everyone tells me it’s completely normal for kids to go through phases of preferring one parent over the other, and it’s true; I’ve seen our two do it. Sometimes they’d switch on and off, so one week Julian would insist that only Mama could give him his bottle before bed, and the next week, it had to be Daddy. Still, knowing that it’s happened before, and knowing that it will end, and knowing that it’s so common doesn’t change how infuriating and, yes, heartbreaking it is when you’re the dispreferred parent.

The past few weeks have been the worst in a while. Both kids have been sick, and they seem to have decided that while Mama generates loving waves of peaceful healing, Daddy is covered in acid-tipped spikes. It’s worse than ever before because now they’re talking. It’s one thing for them to cry and fuss and twist around when I pick them up; it’s something entirely different when they cry and slap and shout, “No! No Daddy!”

As a result, I look for ways to maximize their affection. I’ve started angling to do pick up, rather than drop off, at day care, because they are ecstatic to see whoever’s coming to get them at the end of the day. “That’s right, children. Shower me with your love. Not literally, Eloise. Can I have a tissue, please?”

Most of the time, I have the maturity and presence of mind to take it in stride. I know that they’re basically irrational little beasties whose moods and preferences change by the minute. Sometimes, though, it stings. It’s unpleasantly humbling to have your feelings hurt by your child. There have been times when I’ve sullenly parked both wailing, ungrateful snots on their mother’s lap and stormed off to sulk. Way to go, Daddy.

In another example of my exceptional maturity, the times when they do request me over my wife feel like Olympic-level victories. I may be guilty of actually pumping my fist once after Julian said, “No no mommy!” and crawled into my lap. Ha! In your face, HONEY!

The upside, if you can call it that, is tbecause she’s been sick, Eloise has been waking up in the middle of the night. My attempts to console her have been met with apocalyptic shrieking so I’ve had to regretfully concede middle-of-the night duty to my wife. “I’d totally go and get her, honey, but you know she really wants you. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

The whole thing is karmic payback, of course. My dad never tires of telling the story of when I was about two or three years old, and started crying in the middle of the night, and he walked in and leaned over my bed, and I looked up and said, “Not YOU!” He seems to have gotten over it, so I’m sure I will, too.

Apropos of nothing, here are two pictures documenting Julian’s facility with neatly stacking his toys:

It’s worth clarifying that the wooden post on the ring stacker only comes up to about the orange ring. He just grabbed discs from another set and kept on stacking.

The coverage has been a bit maddening. The NYT’s Motherlode breathlessly wonders:

Add frustration with the logistics of the recall to fears about finger amputation — not to mention the question of how on earth to get junior to the park or the supermarket if the stroller is now too dangerous to use — and you have some cranky parents.

Except, as I understand it, the strollers aren’t too dangerous to use. They’re just potentially dangerous to fold if your kid is sticking their fingers in there. We never fold up our stroller (it just lives on our porch) so there’s really no reason for us to freak out.

Motherlode also wonders if “too much damage to customer loyalty has already been done” by the fact that Maclaren’s website was overloaded by requests for hinge covers yesterday. Who in their right mind would stop using a stroller they already own and like because a company’s website crashed? I don’t think I understand people. Handling a recall is a very delicate operation, and customers are bound to get nervous and angry, but I don’t understand why the media is calling this a PR disaster just because the recall was successfully publicized.

Dr. Griffith, our fantastic pediatrician, was being shadowed by a medical student. We were talking about feeding, and he mentioned that he recommended we continue feeding them baby cereal for a bit longer rather than switch to regular oatmeal or some other cereal. He then turned to the med student and asked, “Why do you think I recommend the baby cereal?”

“Um,” she said, “Fiber?”

“Yes, fiber is important,” Dr. Griffith said, “but the other very important thing is…” He paused for maybe half a second. At this point, had you been looking at Rachel and me, you would have seen us literally sitting on the edge our chairs and bouncing up and down. We very nearly both had our hands in the air, waving, “Ooh! Ooh! Call on me!”

We couldn’t restrain ourselves. We blurted out, “Iron!” a split-second before Dr. Griffith said, “Iron.”

So, yeah. Big nerds. (I’m pretty sure that med student hates us now.)

That same night, the babies ate the chicken enchiladas I’d made for Rachel and me. Ever since I read Crouching Tiger, Hungry Monkey, I’ve somehow elevated enchiladas as the food that would, once the twins ate it, prove that we had gustatorially adventurous children. Well, mission freaking accomplished.

Whoa.

Yeah, that’s kind of hard to believe.

When my family sold our old house in St. Louis, I dug up an envelope full of cards that my parents received when I was born and on my first birthday. I thought it was a neat memento. Rachel and I started talking about what we’d like for our kids to have in this newfangled Internet age. Someday, Julian and Eloise will be old enough to check the email addresses I set up for them when they were born. Wouldn’t it be neat if their inboxes were full of birthday greetings (in addition to the inevitable penis-enlargement spam)?

If you have the inclination, we’d love it if you’d write a quick email to Julian and/or to Eloise wishing them a happy first birthday, maybe telling them who you are and how you know us, and sharing any memories you have of their first year. In four or five years (or however long) the kids will get a real kick out of it. It’s like a time capsule, only way less effort.

Each baby’s email address is his or her first name @ sparveys.com.

Thanks so much!