There's a children's book called The Seven Silly Eaters in which Mrs. Peters has seven children and all are very picky eaters. One child likes his milk a certain temperature, one girl will only drink pink lemonade and so on. The illustrations are hilarious. Chet and I sat down and read it together one night after the kids were in bed. I know, we're losers.
Anyways, I don't have seven silly eaters but I do have one and his name is Tucker. In trying to think of what he doesn't like, I'm too overwhelmed so I'll list what he does like.
1. Pizza
2. Peanut butter & jelly
3. Pancakes
4. French toast
5. Anything sweet
I don't make pizza and sandwiches and pancakes and french toast every night so many times, he goes without eating a whole lot. I've fought back and forth with myself, wondering if I should just make him what he does like so he'll eat, or if I should go with the notion that if he's hungry enough, he'll eat it. It's funny; when he was a baby, he was so chubby, we called him Fat Boy. He ate anything in sight. Now, his stubbornness has taken over and he'd rather go hungry than try something he doesn't like.
Many times when I'm preparing supper, he'll watch me pull out a frying pan or a pot and he'll immediately tell me he doesn't like it. Half the time, I haven't even pulled out a single ingredient from the cupboard and he's already decided that he doesn't like it, based on the fact that the griddle isn't out or the oven isn't preheating.
Last night, we had pulled pork on a bun and since it wasn't any of the five things he likes, he wouldn't touch it. He ate the chips that accompanied it and drank two glasses of milk, but that was it. For a bedtime snack, I served meat and cheese on crackers, thinking that he should probably have something solid before bed. He ate the crackers and left the meat and cheese.
I sighed, telling him he can't live his whole life on carbs, and reminding him that he would be hungry in the night if he didn't eat, but it went over his head. He said he wasn't hungry and went off to bed.
At about 5:15am, I woke up to someone whimpering upstairs. Upon investigation, Tucker was curled up in a ball on his bedroom floor, weeping.
"I hungry, Mom." he said.
It's impossible to tell a two year old "I told you so", so I brought him downstairs and gave him a cup of milk, hoping it would hold him over until breakfast. It did, but I had to wake him up to eat. Avery had picked out a box of Smorz cereal at the store and I allegedly agreed to it, according to her, not noticing it until we got home from the store. She poured three bowls of it, but Tucker pushed it away and asked if he could have wife for breakfast. I poured him a bowl of Life and watched him take a few bites.
The next time I came into the dining room, I found him like this.
It's hard work being stubborn. My poor little boy. He's now sound asleep on my bed. When he wakes up, I'll feed him whatever he wants. I don't care if it's ice cream, cookies, a piece of rhubarb torte and a candy bar. Just as long as he EATS!
We used to have that book! It's a great book. I should get another copy, since the first one was read to death. Where did you find it?
ReplyDeleteAt the library.
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