At the end of 2012 I started prepping the kids for some new adventures in 2013. Basically...this adventure would be with food. I guess I should back up a little.
I'm not really sure how/when my kids started eating only "kid" food. You know what I mean...noodles, hot dogs, chicken nuggets. As babies they all ate more adventurous foods. Dara and I used to share turkey cutlets and rice dinners when Carl was deployed. Caleb loved meatballs and peas (and boy could that kid eat!), and Dilly used to eat sliced avocado! I can't really complain as far as kids foods go since they eat TONS of fruits and the veggies (only raw) repertoire is expanding. But every night I make at least 3 different meals. Dilly doesn't like hot dogs, Dara won't eat noodles.
It's my own fault I guess. During deployments I never really cooked. I fed the kids "kid" food and I kind of ate whatever. Since we had several deployments kind of back to back I never really got into the habit of making them eat grown up stuff. For awhile I bribed them by telling them if they ate a bite of something I would give them a piece of candy (mother of the year...right?). That experiment worked for a few things...Caleb eats some rice, Dara likes yellow peppers and Dilly will eat pork chops. Without the candy bribe...none of them would have even tried those things.
In December we told them that we were going to make them try a bite of whatever we eat in 2013. So far Carl is doing a juicing experiment and I am trying to eat Paleo...so now I am making even more meals (liquid included) and we aren't enforcing our "you must try one bite" rule.
I guess I should be happy with what they eat. I do my best to feed them the best of what they like...such as nitrate free all beef hot dogs and whole grain pasta. Every dinner includes fruits and veggies and Caleb and Dilly eat Greek yogurt. And I have decided to pick my battles. I'm thinking that I will have some lessons in making your own food/lunches this summer...lol. So then, at least they will be involved in the craziness of distributing different food for everyone.
Or...I can make them drink beet juice...Carl really likes that one.
I am trying to head off the same thing before we go far too down that road (he's 3.5) but it's like we're already too far gone. I tell myself, "don't make meals a battle time", but then I daily fight between good food or no food. It's such a battle. We have several meals here too. It's so easy to talk about it - why would you give them stuff you wouldn't eat yourself, and, the best way is to model good eating yourself, but it's so much more complicated than that. i'm determined #2 will be better, but I need to work on me too. Baby steps and little victories,
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I have been blessed with good eaters who will try anything and typically like the meals I make. They really like Asian foods and spicey things, which I think is weird for little kids. That being said there are always somethings that I make that I just know they are not going to eat and then I have the rule "You must try it" and if they don't like it, they can have something else. As they are getting older and we are trying to get them to be more self-sufficient (at least Liam and Jack) that if they don't like the meal they have to try it and then they have to make their own peanut butter and jelly or go hungry until breakfast. Dessert has been a great motivator too. If you eat all the dinner I made you can have dessert.
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