Wonderfully and Uniquely "Normal"

As the mother of a toddler, the two words I crave more than any others these days are “That’s normal”. Talking to Kaleb’s day care teacher this morning, I was telling her about how all he has wanted to eat for the past couple days now is the Aunt Millie’s Swirl Bread (either Cinnamon Raisin or Apple Cranberry), and how he’ll eat 2-3 slices at a time. She smiled and said “Oh, that’s totally normal!” and I just felt a million times better.
I know I read in all my parenting books and websites that toddlers go through these phases where they will only eat one thing. But you can’t really prepare yourself for the day it happens with your kid. And, even though I’d read about this being a possibility, I got to worrying that maybe a bread-obsession wasn’t normal, like it would only be “normal” if it was cheerios or goldfish crackers or something. Honestly, what kid only wants whole wheat bread with raisins in it?? The relief I felt when she told me that my kid’s most recent behavior was “normal” got me thinking about how much I crave hearing that. How, every time I share stories with other parents of toddlers I’m really hoping to hear them say how their kid did something like that as well. Every time I go on a google search about dealing with tantrums or getting my son to let me brush his teeth, the thing I find the most valuable and reassuring is not the word of the professionals, but the comments from other mom’s who have been, or currently are, dealing with the same thing. Because, as much as I know my little boy is special and unique, ultimately I just want to know that he is “normal”…at least in the toddler sense of that word :)