I've had nutritionists tell me that kids eat the same variety of foods as grown-ups, but they just do it in jags: they eat all of one food at a time, then change to something else. I'm not really sure this is quite true, since Jambuca has eaten cornbread ("yellow bread") with nearly every meal since that fateful day he first tried it probably about a year ago and sometimes it's the only food he eats. But I continue to offer healthy things on the plates, with a fruit and a vegetable, some kind of protein, dairy, and starch. Breakfast we usually skip the veggies but there's always the fruit (which does usually get eaten). And I have to credit e-baby: she has grown into a great eater. She still doesn't eat much, but she will try anything and regularly eats raw vegetables. Jambuca, not so much.
This morning, e-baby was painfully constipated. I told her it was because she hasn't had enough fibrous vegetables or water recently, and she asked for some carrots. I told her I was out of carrots but that what she really needed was celery, bell pepper, sugar snap peas (the very things I had just finished cutting up to take for my own snack to work, as it happens). I made her a baggie of raw vegetables to eat in the car on the way to school. Her brother got jealous and started to screech, "MY WANT BAGGIE OF RAW VEGABLES TOO!!!!" So I told him that if he was a good boy and put on his shoes, I'd make him a baggie of raw vegetables as well. He was DELIGHTED.
In the car on the way to school, the only sound was the crunch-crunch-crunch of little teeth making short work of red bell peppers and celery.
Sometimes, you're the worst parent in the world. But sometimes, you get it right.
