IN between trips to the farmers’ market, bakery, deli and bulk food supplier on Saturday, I noticed a Magpie-lark was doing the very same thing.
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Same, same but different.
The Magpie-lark was feeding its chick non-stop as it careered in and out of the gum trees out the back of our place.
The toddler bird – comparable in size to its mum – had an insatiable appetite.
No sooner had the mother bird delivered one tasty morsel to the noisy, enfant terrible, than she had to set out once again for the next course on the menu.
The mother ducked down to our lawn for a dig, then back up to the tree top. She even flew onto our trampoline – through the zipper opening, mind – to source some seeds scattered on the mat. (Other birds tried to warn her off but she was not having a bar of it! Desperate times call for desperate measures!!)
Quite a few times the mother bird flew low over the road behind our place; I worried she might get hit by a car and never come back.
Who would demand-feed her baby, then?
But she did turn up, time and again. The same thing happened on Sunday morning before things finally quietened down late on Monday.
I can only assume the chick was having a growth spurt.
The first time my eldest daughter had a spring growth spurt at about eight weeks old, I was really caught out – literally.
Living in the New Zealand capital of Wellington at the time, we had family staying with us.
I wanted to show them my favourite cafe haunts like Caffe L'affare, a cool green grocer and a historic department store during a walk through the city.
Caffe L’affare had a chalkboard sign welcoming breast feeding mothers with corkage rates applicable, though they never did charge me one cent.
Within 40 minutes of leaving that place, my baby was looking for another feed.
We stopped at a second cafe. Then we paused soon after that at the parents’ room of the historic but now defunct department store Kirkcaldie & Stains, then finally, a park bench and a bus shelter.
It was a three-hour round trip.
Just as I was thinking I might not be cut out for this very full-time gig, my Kiwi maternal health nurse happily advised me my daughter was simply having a growth spurt and it would soon pass.
She was right for the most part.
However, every November I feel like the collective spring growth spurt is on all of us responsible in any way for feeding and filling up children.
It’s the business end of the year, when kids develop insatiable appetites.
With dance concerts, basketball tournaments, drama productions and choir rehearsals in full flight this month, the need to feed children more snacks more often is more pressing than ever.
Sometimes it feels like you’re catering for the whole troupe when, in fact, it is probably only a “hangry” (hungry-angry) trio and two out of three of them belong under your roof.
Who would have thought singers needed so much sustenance? By dinner time, my youngest tells me she’s had nothing to eat since she got home from school. I pass her a peeled carrot as I remind her of her two afternoon teas that day.
Here’s my best tips for catering the spring growth spurt:
- Large bags of apples to feed a whole team. For local and unwaxed, try farmers’ markets.
- Cherry season seems to have cropped up early this year. They’re not ideal for dance dress rehearsals but delicious for breakfast, afternoon tea or dessert.
- Big bags of popcorn, split up into smaller ziplock bags.
- Hommus and vegetable sticks. Careful how you pack them in a basketball bag though and remember the leftovers!
- Protein and bliss balls. You can make them but our girls won’t go past the ones from Albury-Wodonga Farmers’ Market.
- Christmas has come early at Nord Bakery. Their Danish spiced biscuits are always popular in lunchboxes!
The mother bird even flew onto our trampoline – through the zipper opening, mind – to source some seeds scattered on the mat. Other birds tried to warn her off but she was not having a bar of it!
Whatever way you deal with the upcoming spring onslaught – making, baking or buying – there’s only one thing to remember.
The early bird catches the worm!