Picky Eater

Imagine a menu of only bread and fruit. This is pretty much all that the Boss eats.

No veggies. No meat. My son is a picky eater.

The Boss definitely didn’t take after his father who at the ripe ol’ age of two, was always found walking around with a sausage in one hand and a panini bun in the other.

He wasn’t always this way. When he was a baby, he would devour any vegetable puree I made for him. He would even eat two fillets of fish at a time while my husband and I looked on in pure shock.

But once I stopped breastfeeding at just over a year, he refused to drink any kind of milk. Homo milk, skim milk, soy milk, chocolate milk, I even tried adding strawberry syrup to the milk. He would just spit it out, and cringe and shiver as if he has just sucked on a lemon. I was forced to give him orange juice with added calcium and of course now I have to control his intake because of all the sugar.

I used to crush a Flinstone vitamin into his cereal, when he used to eat cereal, because I was worried he wasn’t getting enough nutrients. But when he gave up the cereal, he refused the vitamin. I thought I was smart when I tried to conceal the crushed vitamin in his juice… who was I trying to fool??

I can’t really get upset with him considering I too was a picky eater as a child. I grew up on Cheerios, milk and hot dogs. But I turned out ok, didn’t I?? I think!

My mom would have to play games in order to trick me into taking a few bites of something healthy. She’d tell me a story, usually the old Greek tale of the Seven Little Goats. While the other kids were off to play or watch television, I was still there at the kitchen table, sitting on my mom’s lap while she shoved a forkful of food into my mouth and went on and on about the big bad wolf. I swear the number of times I’ve heard that story, you’d think I’d remember it??? Often she’d try to fool me by giving me a piece of pear, which I liked, and then sneaking in a bite of a homemade hamburger. Ew! Just think of that taste combination… not very appealing to an adult, let alone a kid!

Spikey, on the other hand, eats everything. As soon as he sees one of us with food in our hands, he runs right up to have a nibble. [Ok I can no longer call him Spikey… Gone are the days when his hair would stand straight on end as if he just came out of the Science Centre or had his finger permanently placed in an electrical socket. Nope, that cool spikey hair has gone flat! Only gel and a bottle of hairspray can imitate that look now. So what nickname do I give him now? Because he has been eagerly following the footsteps of my eldest, the Boss, it is only fitting that I promote him to the highly-respected position of Underboss.]

Back to the picky eater. If he doesn’t like the way food looks, he won't even try it. If I'm lucky and he happens to taste something new and doesn't like it, he'll literally gag. I’ve tried to find ways to make healthy food more appealing. I’ve cut up sandwiches into cute shapes, like little hearts. Baked muffins from scratch and have thrown in every type of vegetable and grain product imaginable. I’ve created a smiley face using turkey pepperoni on pizza but he’ll just peel it off along with the cheese.

He also inherited a sweet tooth, after me of course! If he had it his way, he’d be eating double chocolate chip cookies first thing in the morning, and again for lunch and dinner. Damn you Cookie Monster!! You turned my son into a chocoholic! I love how in The Backyardigans, at the end of their adventure they all go back home for a healthy snack, like granola bars or carrots and dip. I wonder if this actually influences the kids watching... I'm still waiting for my three-year-old to ask me, “Mommy, can I pleeeeease have some celery with hummus?”!!!

The pickiness also goes in phases. First, the Boss requested “grilled cheese” every single day. (I don’t use a frying pan; I melt the cheese on whole wheat bread.) This lasted quite a few weeks. I knew he would soon get bored of it!

Then he moved onto spaghetti with red sauce only. Or as he would say, "pasghetti". No penne, rigatoni or even rotini. Only long pasta that he could slurp. And make a huge mess of the kitchen table and himself. Before he eats a bite of pasta though, one by one he will pick out the onions and garlic he can manage to find in the sauce, his face with a look of disgust.

Next it was hot dogs with ketchup. Lots and lots of ketchup. Would you like some hot dog with your ketchup???

Don’t you wish you never introduced your child to McDonald’s? His eyes light up when he sees those golden arches. But the Boss isn’t your typical chicken nugget fan. Not even the French fries are appealing to him. What kid doesn’t like French fries???

He’ll use the French fry like a spoon to eat the ketchup. He’ll dip that French fry into the ketchup and suck the ketchup off until the French fry has melted down and no longer will hold up. And onto the next fry. He could down a whole bottle of ketchup this way.

When I started worrying about the Boss’s diet, I decided to write down what he ate in one day. Amazingly, he managed to eat quite a variety of foods. And when I looked at the entire week, I realized that he’s eating more than I thought! To my surprise, my picky eater is generally consuming enough good stuff to get his nutrients. He IS growing, as the scale and height measurements prove, so I should just rest easy.

As long as I keep offering a variety of foods, eventually the Boss will come around and be bold enough to try something new. But with my luck, he’ll be well into his teens before that happens. Hmm, sounds familiar… that was me at his age up until I was a teenager! What I put my mother through with my eating habits is coming back to bite me in the butt! Karma is a real bitch!!!

Maria LC

Article: http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/0_how-to-handle-a-picky-eater_64302.pc