Bargaining

I have another video for you!  I have a story about something that happened over the past 24 hours, but damn I am having a hard time these days finding time to write.  Perhaps tomorrow.  In the meantime...Sonya made this video a couple months ago.  We were discussing dinner and what she was going to have with the soup I was making.  You will see she insisted on both options, until she realized if the arguing with mommy didn't stop she wouldn't get the one thing in this world she obsesses most about.  DESSERT!  (And again-you get to hear my lovely voice become increasingly annoyed.  I hope if nothing else it makes the rest of you nagging moms not feel so alone.)

Georgia's Eating Adventures

I have three different kind of eaters with my three girls.  As I've well documented on this blog, Lana is my picky eater.  If it's not peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese, it takes much coaxing to get her to try it.  Sonya will try just about anything I ask her to, but won't necessarily like it.  She is willing to try though, which I love.  She will also eat whatever she has to in order to get to a treat.  Although, we don't always have a treat every night.  Georgia, while she's not fond of veggies, she will eat just about anything else.   I made beef stew a few weeks ago, the other 2 gagged down their three bites.  Little G had two bowl fulls.


 Last week I made Chili for Andy and I one night.  It's a very healthy and not very spicy chili recipe I got out of my Cooking Light magazine.  The next night I decided to give the girls the leftovers for their dinner.  I was sure they wouldn't like it, but I feel like you should expose your kids to as many foods as possible, whether they like them now or not.  If you don't, then all they will ever eat is PB&J and grilled cheese.  At least this way they try new things and start to get a taste for them, and maybe someday they will even like different foods.  At least this is the theory I'm working with.


So I gave then all a little bowl of chili, complete with some cheddar cheese and crackers.  Lana took one look at it and gave me her usual,


"YUK!  I don't want to eat THAT!"


Sonya tried it, and even though at first claimed she liked it, was done after about five bites.  Georgia ate her entire bowl and then proceeded to eat TWO more bowls of the chili.  Although, she was not so fond of the kidney beans and did pick most of those out.  I couldn't believe it.  She absolutely loved it.  Then on Sunday night we were having "clean out the fridge" night with leftovers.  I gave everyone the choices of what was to eat and given the options between lasagna, pasta, and chili, girlfriend chose the chili.  Well, actually this is what she chose,


"Georgia, what do you want for dinner tonight?" I asked her.  I had already given the options a few minutes before and had asked the others. Everyone else was opting for Lasagna or pasta.  Not G.  She looked up at me and said,


"Cold."


"What?" I asked, not really sure what she had said.


"Cold," she said again.


"You mean chili?" I asked.


"Yeah!" she said.


Not only will she eat just about anything, but she's funny too!   I think next week I will try liver and lima beans, although I'M not eating that one.  

A Haunted Dinner

Last night at dinner Andy and I came up with another creative way to get Lana to eat.  I've mentioned a few times here and here on this blog about Lana and her eating habits, or lack thereof.  Most dinner time meals are a struggle to get her to even taste anything, and last night was no exception.  So when an opportunity presented itself with a way to get Lana to finish her dinner, or at least start it, we took it.  This time-fear of ghosts!


While we were in the middle of dinner, the ice maker in the freezer dumped out the recent ice it had made, making a bit of a noise. Andy and I recognized the sound immediately, but the girls all asked,


"What was that?!"


I'm not sure why I started it.  I guess because it's close to Halloween and we have all the decorations up.  Plus sometimes it's fun to scare your kids.  So  I said,


"Oh I don't know what that could have been.  Maybe the ghost?"


Andy took this and added to it.  "Oh yeah, it's the ghost.  You better eat your dinner Lana before the ghost comes out."


Right on cue another sound came from the freezer.  Lana's eye's got really big. Then Andy pierced a piece of Lana's chicken with her fork and encouraged her to eat it.  She immediately did.  Then I suggested it was a food eating ghost that was going to come eat her food if she didn't.  


At this point all the girls were questioning whether we were joking or not.  We told them we were quite serious and Andy even started to look around nervously like the ghost was going to come get us at any minute.  I was having a harder time not breaking character and let a giggle go a couple times.  Lana wasn't paying attention to me though.  She  was taking it all seriously and eating every bite of her dinner. 


Sonya, who tends to get the most scared of just about everything, started to get really nervous.  I quietly whispered to her that we were just joking, so she wouldn't flip out.  She of course took that information and announced it to the rest of the table after a couple of minutes.  No matter though, Lana had finished her meal.  No ghosts were coming to get her food!  


So the latest getting Lana to eat tactic worked!  Eventually, she did realize we weren't serious and there were no ghosts.  Okay so maybe we connected being scared and eating for Lana, which may be harmful to her psyche later, but whatever, we got her to eat.  Besides, it's nothing a therapist can't fix in a few years.  We'll just add it to the list.  

Living on Bread Alone

A few nights ago I made the girls leftover Chicken Parmesan, pasta with a little Parmesan cheese on top, and veggies for dinner. I also gave them a piece of garlic bread, which I usually wait to give them until they eat some of their food, but for some reason I didn't this time. Call it a memory lapse or being distracted while on the phone with one of my sisters. Whatever. The girls sat down, I gave them their plates of food, and I went to the living room to start the nightly ritual of shoveling out all the toys. After about two minutes Lana got down from her chair and wandered into the living room where she announced,

"I done."

"You're done eating?" I asked.

"Yeah, I all done," she told me again.

"Did you eat ANYTHING?" I questioned her.

"Yeah!" She told me very matter of factly. "I ate cheese and gawlic bwead. Soooo, I all done!"

I started to march her back to her seat to begin my argument with her about eating, when I decided I just didn't feel like it that night. Screw it. Instead I let her go to take her bath. I mean the way I look at it, she had her grains in the bread and her dairy in the cheese, and can't garlic be considered a veggie? It does grow in the ground and all.

I'm not so sure this is what Jaime Oliver had in mind when he started his Food Revolution.