My son is a snacker.
He's nearly two years old and eats more snacks than I do. That says A LOT because I love snacking. He definitely gets that from me.
Generally, he goes through a box of Annie's Cheddar Bunnies and the box of Annie's Bunny Grahams that has chocolate, chocolate and honey bunnies in about a week and a half to two weeks. I try to get him to eat better snacks when we're around the house, obviously, but when we're out and about, those are his go-tos. (I try to give him the Cheddar Bunnies more than the Bunny Grahams, but, hey, everyone needs sweets every now and then.)
After MANY Pinterest searches for better snack options (and better snack transportation), I decided that I wanted to start off relatively simple. I needed something that would travel well and that wasn't really messy.
Hopefully, as soon as next Monday Bodhi and I will be taking a 15.5 hour (that doesn't count in ANY breaks) road trip from Arkansas to Cocoa Beach, Florida. 16-18 hours (depending on how breaks go) in a car with a toddler can be... Dramatic to say the least. However, he really likes car rides and I want to try and travel at night, so it fits better with his normal sleep schedule. However, that doesn't mean that he won't want to snack like he normally does. He's a fan of the midnight snack.
The first thing I wanted to try needed to be a snack that would fit in his snack cup. He's already incredibly used to using them and doesn't sling them around or throw them. In the life of a nearly two year old, those are important things. I didn't want to spring something new on him that might hinder his comfort during an already stressful time.
That's where this trail mix came into play.
Most of the ingredients are things he's eaten before and I figured the other two or three things wouldn't be that big of deal for him at all. I wanted to try something that would keep him interested.
The few and simple ingredients that I chose for Bodhi's trail mix consist of :
- Ritz Bits (I chose peanut butter because he had cheese elsewhere in the trail mix, but you could choose either.)
- Raisins
- Goldfish crackers (I chose the pretzel variety because he didn't have a lot of salty in his mix and I chose Goldfish instead of something like pretzel sticks because the Goldfish are more bite-size for my bitty guy. Also, the sticks wouldn't fit in his snack cup.)
- Annie's Cheddar Bunnies
- Honey Nut Cheerios (I mean, I bought the off-brand, but they're the same thing. You could replace these with regular Cheerios.)
- Teddy Grahams (This time I used chocolate chip Teddy Grahams because I already had a box of them. Generally I would have used Annie's Bunny Grahams and I will in the future.)
There are, of course, a million things that you could add to a toddler trail mix. As I stated earlier, I chose these ingredients because most of them are things he already enjoys. Some recipes call for things like miniature marshmallows, chocolate chips, or M&Ms, but I don't give Bodhi a lot of candy, or super sugary snacks. If I don't give them to him now, he won't ask for them later, right?
As for how I actually MADE the trail mix, I literally just measured a cup of each ingredient out and mixed it together as I added each in. By mixing it as I went, it made sure things were evenly distributed.
I made two batches, one for me and one for Bodhi's dad. I cannot WAIT for him to come and be excited. I'm so happy that my handsome boy is a foodie just like me!
