the picky eater

Do you have picky eaters at your house? Mine does and he goes by the name of NoeyTom. Uhhhhhhggggg, I know on the scale of serious issues this isn’t that far up there but DAMN I find this problem to be one of the most frustrating.

I grew up in a large family where you ate what you were given and you were thankful for it. There was no complaining or mom scrambling to make chicken nuggets or a peanut butter sandwich when someone was less than pleased with the dinner served. I have carried this mentality over to my family and I would like to report it has been less than successful. And I would like to come clean now and say I am guilty of making Noah a special meal, not every night but a few times a week #momfail. Every time I do it I am torn between my feelings of failure and pure relief that the child is eating something!

I would also like to state for the record I am not making elaborate meals for my family. Have you heard of #dictatorlunches? Yeah, we aren’t even close to that. Think chicken, rice and a veggie, spaghetti and meatballs, tacos. Is it too much to ask for my 9 year old to eat pasta with meat sauce? Seriously, I am asking? Last night Noah spent the entirety of dinner sulking over that EXACT dinner.

I’m starting to feel like maybe you all will think that the kid is starving and mall nourished. While his diet is lacking in SEVERAL areas he does have a handful of things that I know he will eat and are hopefully filling in the gaps. I try to always have these things on hand yogurt, celery, strawberries, green apples, cheese, almonds. My aunt used to say, “as long as they have a glass of milk and a banana a day, they are good.” Well what do you do if your kid will only drink milk if it’s in a milk shake or frappuccino and he HATES bananas? This is what you do, you make sure he eats a yogurt, a nice generous portion of cheese, any and all fruit you can get into his belly in one day, throw your hands up say “fix it Jesus!” and call it a success.

I am not writing this because I want advice or tips. I have read the books, the blogs, listened to the podcasts tried all the tricks you can think of and guess what the kid still eats like shit. I am simply writing this because if there is another mom out there struggling to get their kid to eat ANYTHING healthy I see you, I understand, lets have coffee or wine and chat about our failures.

I will leave you with this to hopefully give you something to hang on to, Corey grew up in a “chicken fingers and fries” house, eating mostly an all beige diet. Fun fact, he ate his first salad when he was 21, let that sink in a minute… twenty-freaking-one! And now he will try anything at least once and honestly eats anything I put in front of him. So ladies it is possible for a tiger to change it’s strips it just might take a while, like till the age of 21.