Food For Sick Kids: Fruit Juice Popsicles

I went through a minor popsicle obsession when I was pregnant with Z. It was a particularly hot summer and popsicles made from fruit juice seemed like just the thing to keep me going.

Z was sick with a cold and mystery infection for several days this week, and was refusing to eat anything. She wouldn't even drink any juice, which is usually a treat for her, and was subsisting on breast milk. We don't keep popsicles on hand, so I decided to make her some out of fruit juice to see if she'd get excited about eating them. I thought I remembered that we had some paper cups left over from a party, and we have a box of around 5,000 popsicle sticks (see above) so I thought I might as well try to make her a popsicle. I diluted the juice with a little water, poured it into a cup, stuck a popsicle stick in it and put it in the freezer.


If I'd wanted to do it "right" I would have set a timer for 30-45 minutes and put the stick in when the juice was starting to freeze so that it sat upright, but we were lucky to feed ourselves during those days and a properly-angled popsicle stick wasn't high on my list of priorities.

A couple of hours later, we all needed a change in activity, or rather inactivity, and I could tell Z needed something in her system so I primed the pump with talk about her "special treat." We had to do a little explaining but once she started licking she didn't stop! She got through about half of the popsicle in that sitting and finished it off a day later with lots of fanfare when she was feeling much better and more expressive.

That's a keeper for sick kids - and for really hot summer days.