Dad Feeds 18-Month-Old Son a Pickle After Work. Two Years Later, It's Still 'Their Thing' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Courtesy of Janie Robuck

One day in late 2023, Sheldon, 28, chose a pickle as his snack, and when he shared it with Cooper, he ended up eating the entire thing.

“He loved it. He called them ‘kickles’ for a while,” Janie, 27, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “It became a little tradition. Toddlers thrive on routine, so it just became another part of his evening to-do list. It became their thing.”

Since then, if Sheldon comes home and doesn’t immediately pick up Cooper and give him a pickle, it is a big problem. “He would start asking and asking,” Janie adds. “There were days he must have said ‘kickle’ 50 times! That would quickly turn into tears. We had to act fast.”

Recently, Janie took toTikTokto share an old video of Cooper, 18 months old at the time, eating a pickle, which quickly went viral, amassing more than 1.8 million views. The mom posted the same video toTikTokin October 2023, where it also went viral, garnering upwards of 3.5 million views.

In the video, Sheldon is sitting on the floor playing with 18-month-old Cooper, feeding him a pickle.

“We accidentally Pavlov’d our son into thinking he gets a pickle when his dad comes home from work, so now they have to share one every day or he has the biggest meltdown you’ve ever seen in your life,” the stay-at-home mom captioned the video.

“Imagine he’s 17, walks in with friends, and offers everyone a pickle. 🥰,” another person writes.

Someone else says, “Man kids thrive on having a consistent routine but you gotta make sure you don’t run outta pickles lol.”

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Speaking to PEOPLE, Janie says she started sharing clips of her family on TikTok two years ago. She was pregnant with the couple’s second child at the time and was looking for a creative outlet. When she posted this video for the first time, she was “shocked” that it went viral.

“I hope that this video just continues to make people happy,” she says. “It inspired me to make more content on TikTok and since then I’ve grown a small following of people who follow our story. My second son was born in January 2024 with a rare genetic disorder, so we have some hard days, but creating content gives me a creative outlet, makes people smile and occasionally I’ll use my TikTok to educate people on my second son’s genetic disorder.”

“The pickle video opened the door to that,” she adds.

Looking toward the future, Janie says that although Cooper will be 3 years old in April, sharing a snack with his dad after work is still one of his favorite things to do.

“I make sure to keep our fridge stocked with pickles, our favorite is Grillo’s,” she says. “They really are the best.”

source: people.com