Years ago my cooking skills were improving. I was toying with more gourmet type means and decorating my plates with garnishes to coordinate with the table center piece. Enter the children. I’m reduced to mac n cheese, chicken nuggets, peanut butter and jelly, and hamburgers. Ketchup goes on everything.
We further complicate things with the children’s eating habits. Tommy is a 15 year old garbage disposal that doesn’t eat spinnach. Sarah is a 12 year old wannabe vegetarian. Noah is a 9 year old carnivore. Amy is a 3 year old wannabe Sarah (that is, she would eat anything and still tries but adores her siste so much that she copies Sarah). Evan is a 10 month old breastfeeder that so far eats almost anything places in his mouth (including all the things Amy has fed him: Cheatoes, peanut butter, jelly, poptarts, yogurt, chocolate, etc.), except when he’s sick.
I thought eating habits were improving. For awhile he was trying new things. In the past he would make this huge production about gagging and having to chase down the miscule sampling that we would let him get away with trying. For instance, we allowed him a single grain of rice and he spent nearly a minute acting like he was going to throw up. One day his progress suddenly reversed. Instead of trying new things, foods to which he had grown accustomed suddenly started dropping off the menu. Jelly became evil so PBJs became just peanut butter sandwiches. The staple green bean, the one vegetable I could get everyone to eat, became a gagging fight to get down; now he gets a single green bean on every plate and won’t touch it. Noah eats no, zero, zilch vegetables.
This week breakfast changed. Noah has reduced his breakfast to a single slice of toast with cinnamon sugar on it. I have no words. I hope he grows out of this.
