Ben's most recent obsession is dipping his food. Not a meal goes by where doesn't ask for "dip, more dip, have some dip?" His dips of choice are ketchup, ranch dressing, honey, and syrup. He also believes that soup is a giant bowl of dip meant for bread, crackers, or even slices of cheese. Dip is an entire food group and can be and often is, eaten separately from the rest of the meal with a spoon.

I've heard that this is a normal toddler phase and doesn't really bother me. He usually eats bigger portions and will try a bigger variety of food when he does have something to dip it in. Yes, it's a little annoying when he starts crying at dinner because he can't have his third "serving" of dip...we usually draw the line at two, but it's hardly a real problem, mostly we just think it's funny.

Our one attempt to dissuade him from eating the dip seperately was to drizzle it over the food so that he didn't actually have to dip it and therefore couldn't scoop it by fork, spoon, or finger into his mouth was a pretty dismal failure. He just sucked the dip off each piece of food and then asked for more dip for his now soggy chicken. We still do use this tactic because he does eat more food and less dip, but there's definitely a limit on the number of refills.

So far the strangest things I've seen him dip is cheese into yogurt and this is the gross one: melon into ketchup. He also asks for syrup randomly throughout the day when he's hungry like I'm just going to serve him a bowl of syrup for a snack.

Recently when I told him "no syrup" he looked at me and very earnestly used his newest phrase, "I need it". Ahh, my little dip fiend.