Food War

My son just had his annual physical. He is four years old. He gained two pounds and two inches in a year. He is healthy, but he eats like a little birdie. So, I have initiated the "try a bite" at every meal. My son eats no vegetables. He eats no meat, except McD's chicken nuggets. He eats bananas, and a couple other fruits. He would live on water, chocolate milk, cheese, bananas and peanut butter sandwiches. Oh, and all the junk food and sweets in the world.

So, last night, he tried a bite of Ramen noodles. He tried a bite of cucumber. Today it was "try a bite of turkey from the Lunchable you chose". Great progress! And, he helped me make the shopping list. He requested raw spinach.

So, at dinner tonight, I asked him, "What would you like to eat for dinner?" He told me mashed potatoes. So, I said, "Where did you eat mashed potatoes?" And he said, "Preschool! And they were red!" Hmmmm, could this be possible? So, I made the kids mashed potatoes, and baby spinach, and turkey from the afternoon lunchable (lunch lunchable sounds dumb to type). He didn't want any of it. Big surprise! I forced him to eat one leaf of spinach, one small bite of potatoes, and one small circle of turkey. The reward was cookies. He fought me, he clenched his teeth, he cried and yelled. I won.

But, then he had mashed potato on his hand and chair. He rolled around on the floor crying and carrying on. In the end, after he calmed down and after his vanilla wafer cookies, I said, "I wish you would stop throwing a tantrum over new foods. I am going to continue to make you try new foods. You cannot live on bananas and peanut butter." He responded, "Mom, maybe you should be nicer to me, huh?" I am a mean mom.