I have been remiss in updating you, dear friends. So many apologies…. I have been ill. My parents, who are integral in helping me care for my son, giving me much-needed ‘grown-up’ time, and many other child-rearing facets, have embarked on a well-deserved Mediterranean cruise for the next month…. leaving me sitter-less. Of course, my body decided to get all sick at the same time. I am now well on the road to healing, and am starting to get my energy back.
In my efforts to find the ‘funny moment’ every day, I end up blank at the end of the day. I think I am trying too hard. ONTO THE BLOG POST FOR THE DAY!
My son, all almost-seven-years of him, is a PICKY EATER. There, I finally admitted it. My sweet little adventurous boy, who decidedly loved blue cheese at 6 months, and sushi by age 2, is now insisting…. nay, DEMANDING on only eating things like plain noodles, cheese pizza, plain bread….
Don’t get me wrong, he LOVES fresh fruit, and most vegetables too. But out of the blue, he HATES broccoli and Brussels sprouts (they’ve een his faves since he started solids!). He has never liked mashed potatoes (its a texture thing) and will ONLY touch potatoes if they are French fries or chopped up in canned clam chowder. The only meat he will touch is hot dogs, sliced deli meats, or prepackaged salamis. If I try to give him chicken breast, or pork roast, or beef steak, it must be cut into cubes and provided with BBQ sauce, ketchup, and mustard (BUT NOT TOUCHING).
Cheese pizza is fine, “That’s how it’s supposed to be,” he says. But if I order a pizza with toppings and tell him to pick off what he doesn’t want, I get a writhing, gagging mess of a boy who won’t even stick his finger in the cheese because “it’s grooooossssss.”
Stew is OK as is, “That’s how it’s supposed to be,” but soup has to be separated – broth in one bowl, noodles/meat/vegies/whatever in another. And forget about casseroles… “IT’S ALL TOUCHING!”
I have ripped my hair out trying to change this; I have made him sit at the dining room table “until your plate is clean.” He fell asleep at his place two hours past bedtime. I have told him if he doesn’t eat, he can go to bed hungry…. and he did (talk about a self-inflicted guilt trip). I have tried to make meals of three things he likes and one thing he doesn’t know about yet; he is good enough to have a ‘no-thank-you’ bite, but 99.999% of the time, the nibble leads to a “No, I don’t like it.”
So, for the last year, I have been creating meals around things he does like. Great for him, but BORING for me!
He loves wonderfully odd things, which I also enjoy, like dehydrated seaweed (sushi wrappers called nori), water chestnuts, pine nuts, beets, pickled anything….. oh, and pho… we LOVE pho.
I love things like curries, Asian cooking, French cooking, Cajun cooking… he wont even go NEAR these things.
There are only so many nights I can get by on plain pasta noodles (the spiral shaped three-color kind) next to a side dish of canned corn or green beans (NOT TOUCHING) and some kind of protein… usually with one of the three above-noted sauces. Note: in our house, dousing things in cheesy-sauce or Ranch dressing does nothing except cause a pouty fit at the dining room table.
I long for a night of a massive everything-touching crab boil; or a medium-rare steak with a hint of crushed sea salt and fresh-cracked pepper and NO SAUCE, or even a blindfold-me-and-feed-me-something-new dinner. When can I get THAT, please? PLEASE???
What have you all done for YOUR picky eaters???
