My child will never sleep in my bed.
My child will never have a soother.
My child will never watch television.
My child will never behave like that in a restaurant.
My child will never eat anything but the most nutritious, raw food ever found on God's green earth.
Ya, well, it's good to have those kinds of ideals but I'll tell you, after having two children, there is a cure for mychildwillneveritis. It's called Having Children. I challenge you to find one parent who has ever stuck to all of their "My child will nevers." If you find them, I will call them a liar to their face.
I've said them all. And I've gone back on them all to some degree, especially the last one. Madi is an extremely picky, and extremely unpredicatable eater. She will gobble down a certain food one day, then spit it out in disgust the other. Sometimes it varies from minute to minute! There are some foods that I would have bet her own life on that she wouldn't eat that she devours (cream of garlic soup, anyone? Roasted red pepper soup?) and then there some things you would assume she would love but she wants nothing to do with.
Her main issue is with raw veggies or fruit. Give her a carrot stick and you might as well be serving her dirt. Actually, there is a better chance she'd opt for the dirt. Give her a jar of carrots and she'll down them in no time. Offer her a handful of any type of berry and she'll turn her nose up. Hand her a pure fruit smoothie and it's gone in 60 seconds.
So it's not surprising that my dirty little mommy secret (and we all have them) is that she still eats jars of veggies. Do I wish she would eat a celery stick in it natural form? Yes. Do I offer her blueberries and strawberries often in the hopes that one day she will, quite literally, bite? Yes. But I'm also more than willing to continue with the jars because as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather watch her gobble down an entire jar of peas (and get the nutritional value from it) than force feed her 1-2 peas, if I'm lucky.
While the jars are well and good, I have been trying to get a bit more creative in how I get various foods into her. She loves breads and "liquid" food, such as soups so I've been trying to run with that. The following is a list of fruit or veggies packed foods that I have successfully gotten her to eat. Sometimes it takes a little enticement (low-fat cream cheese frosting or a sprinkling of chocolate chips.) The bonus is that a lot of them are low-point value foods so they also help me with my nutrition and weight loss.
- Roasted Sweet Potato & Garlic Soup
- Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins
- Cream of Zucchini Soup
- Low Fat Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
- Carrot Cake Muffins
- Weight Watchers Fettucini Alfredo (I dump a jar of veggies into the sauce)
I am constantly on the look out for veggie-packed foods that she might jump on, so I am hoping this list continues to grow.
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