Irony

There are times in your life when you do something you swore you would never do. And sometimes you are so happy about it. Today was one of those times. While we were in Oregon Cecilia decided she was done eating baby food. We would be fine with that, if she would only eat meat that isn't in baby food. I worry about her protein intake because she doesn't drink milk very well either. So I've been trying to get her to eat protein in other ways. Of course I give her what we eat, but she won't eat it, unless it is in a soup and is really distracted and I feed it to her, and not always even then. She also won't eat potatoes or pasta either so it is really hard to find different things to feed her for three meals plus snacks everyday. Well it came to a head the other day when I tried a million things for dinner and she didn't want any of them. I finally put her to bed, probably hungry. The next morning Shaun didn't have any better luck. He finally turned to me and said, "just go to the store and get some chicken nuggets." We swore we wouldn't feed our children chicken nuggets. Oh the preservatives and junk in those things. They can't be good for you, except they do have protein. Shaun has always said "if you don't feed your children chicken nuggets (and french fries) then they won't get addicted to them and request them for every meal." So it is a testament to how frustrated we are that he would say go buy them and I would run out and get tater tots, dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, and fish sticks. That day for lunch I tried the thing I thought her most likely to eat, tater tots. Well she scarfed them down. I was really excited. Fried potatoes, yippee! So for dinner I tried the chicken nuggets. She took two bits, which I was pretty happy with because that means she will probably do more next time. I waited a few days to get the fried food out of her system before trying again. Today it was the fish sticks and she ate about 1 and a half sticks. I never thought I would be so excited to see my daughter eat fish sticks. Oh the lengths we go to feed our kids, and the things we will do. If you told either Shaun or I five years ago we would celebrate this we would have refused to believe you and given you a lecture on how bad that food is for you. In my defense, I read this nutrition book which talks about making connections between the food your kids will eat and the foods you ultimately want them to eat. For example you give them tater tots, then roasted potatoes that are similar enough that they are willing to try them, then once they eat them well you move on to baked potatoes and then mashed. My goal is to make a connection between fish sticks and real fish like a nice baked salmon. And dino bites towards other types of chicken Wish us good luck, and don't tease us too much if we are still feeding her fish sticks and dino bites in a year from now. Someday she will eat good like us, hopefully!