Bibs

In the past I have only occasionally put bibs on infants/toddlers during meals.  Usually just if they were eating something particularly messy.  However, my current group of toddlers has developed a bit of a bib obsession.

In the beginning, one of the two-year-olds insisted that they must always have a green bib.  That was fine – I had two green bibs and two orange bibs.  The other ones and twos did not express a color preference so of course that meant I could arrange the remaining bibs to create patterns around the toddler table – I might be a little obsessed by patterns.

The green-bib toddler also insisted on wearing a bib for EVERY meal and soon all the toddlers would begin a bib chant as soon as they were seated at the table. Fine, wearing a bib for every meal is not a bad habit to get in to. Then one day, the oldest in my preschool group – almost four-years-old and never wore a bib – joined in on the bib chant.

I hesitated briefly then asked “You want to wear a bib too?” She answered ‘Yes’ with a somewhat mischievous grin.  Someone can count – four bibs and five children.  I asked her what colour she would like and then proceeded towards her with the orange bib she requested.  She quickly changed her choice of colour and when I then picked up a green bib she admitted she didn’t really want a bib at all.  Problem adverted – now I again only had four children who wanted bibs and I had four bibs.

Then, Mr green-bib decided he wanted to shake things up and wear an orange bib instead.  The ‘we don’t care what colour our bibs are’ toddlers suddenly DID care and the bib chant began to include their colour choice.  I anticipated another problem and made a quick weekend trip to Ikea to get more bibs.  I now have four green bibs and four orange bibs and four toddlers that want bibs and they can pick whichever colour they prefer.

Except now I can’t always make bib patterns around the table – but I can still create colour patterns when I hang the bibs up ;-)