What's your kid eating?

A while back, my girlfriend emailed me and was like, "I have a post for you.  You're always posting pictures on Instagram of Sofia eating everything.  Write about how you keep her from being a picky eater."

It took me a minute to pick myself up off the floor from laughing so hard, and then I got serious because I realized I had unwittingly perpetuated the 'My Life Is Perfect' Internet lie.  I pride myself on keeping it real in everything I write, being as honest as possible and not sugar-coating things unnecessarily.  I strive to tell the whole truth as much and as often as I can because I grew up in an environment of lies and deceit and that shit stops with me.  

So let me say, loud and proud:  My daughter does NOT eat everything I put in front of her. I may post pictures of my successes, but that's strictly because they are so few and far between.

One of those successes.  I couldn't get her to wear pants, but I got her to 

eat some yogurt.  You win some, you lose some.

Food is a tricky beast.  You can be addicted to it, but you can't cut it out of your life.  There are millions of books and articles written about our relationship with food and just as many about getting your toddler to eat.  I definitely drove myself crazy reading everything I could because I want Sofia to have a healthy relationship with food and it starts now.

Then I got overwhelmed - there's just too much information out there and I couldn't keep up, so I shut down and listened to my intuition.  In particular, I clung to the notion that toddlers won't starve themselves.  If they're hungry they'll eat - they won't deny themselves food if that's what they want.  

Think about it:  Toddlers are the purest creatures of impulse out there.  If they want the truck to play with, they take the truck.  If they want to lay on the floor and have a tantrum, that's exactly what's going to happen.  You won't hear a toddler saying "I shouldn't have this meltdown in Target.  It's not good manners and everyone will look at me."  Nope, if they want to scream, that's what the hell is going to happen and there's not much you can do to stop it.  The same holds with food.  They're not going to be like "Oh, dinner is in a few minutes, I can wait.  Or, "I shouldn't eat now because I'll ruin my dinner" or "Candy isn't a healthy choice for lunch.  Let me ask my mom if she has some carrots."  Yeah right.  

Kids want what they want when they want it and if they want food they'll eat.  And if they're not hungry, there's no way on Earth you'll get them to eat.  You can't get a toddler to do ANYTHING they don't want to do.  Try all you want to and when you've given up, you'll come to the same realization.  

Thankfully, we were never a 'clean your plate' house when I was growing up so I didn't have to un-learn that.  I hate throwing food away, and I hate being wasteful but sometimes it happens.  On the other hand Drew is positively allergic to wastefulness, so quite often whatever uneaten food remains on Sofia's plate goes in his belly, but that's another issue altogether.

That's not to say I don't worry.  I worry that the four bites that she's eaten won't be sufficient enough for her growth and development, that she should get something from the four food groups at every meal - or are there five food groups now?  I can't keep up.  I worry that she's going to have some vitamin deficiency that will hinder her forever and it'll be all my fault.  So I absolutely worry, but I refuse to hold her down and stuff her face because that makes absolutely no sense.  So I exercise the only option I have.

If she's going to eat four bites of food a day, they're going to be the healthiest four bites I can manage and I let the rest go.

Nowadays, I cook just about every dinner from scratch.  It used to be a pain in the ass, but it's just a part of my life now and I'm pretty well used to it.  I meal plan using Pinterest and The Fresh 20.  BTW, Fresh 20 has saved my life.  You sign up, and they give you a weeks worth of meals, using 20 ingredients and it's very rare that we've had something we didn't like.  I use Pinterest as a back-up if there's a meal I'm not crazy about, but it's definitely cut down on my 'what's for dinner?' scramble every night.  Plus, everything is fresh and both Drew and I have lost weight since starting.  We weren't trying, it was just a happy coincidence.

But this is about Sofia.  Does she eat the delicious Fresh 20 recipes every night?  That would be a Hell and a NO.  I never wanted to be the mom that made a separate meal for her kids, yet here I am.  We'll have our healthy, organic dinner and Sofia's over there eating a bagel with sunflower seed butter and grapes because that's what she wanted.  So I just make sure it's a whole grain bagel with organic grapes and then I make my peace with it.

I'd say we eat about 80% organic/healthy because really,

life wouldn't be worth living without Five Guys burgers.

I took her back a few weeks after this photo and she wanted nothing to do with the cheeseburger, she only wanted the fries.  I brushed off as much salt as I could and let her have at it and I ate her cheeseburger for lunch the next day.

Sometimes that's all you can do.

And here's photographic evidence that Sofia has eaten

dry scallops in her young life.  For the record, she loved them.

However, at $25/pound and with her eating about $15 worth on her own, that

was the first and last time she had dry scallops.

Because that's the problem:  toddlers are notoriously finicky.  They may adore dry scallops one day, and the next day they're throwing them across the room.  That's probably the most frustrating thing and I have definitely pleaded with her "But you LOVED this yesterday!  What gives, little kid?!"

Case in point:  We went out to eat and got Sofia a couple of huge meatballs. 

She ate them within two minutes so we got some more.  She didn't want them so we figured she was full and we boxed them to go.  I offered them to her every day for the next week and she wouldn't touch them.

Despite my frustration, I try not to attach emotion to food where it concerns her.  It's super hard, but I don't want her to have a bad relationship with food.  I don't want her to think that she has to eat to please me, or that she has to control her food because she's not in control of anything else in her life, or that food is an acceptable choice when you're sad, mad, etc.  I know that's complicated thinking to attach to a toddler mindset, but I firmly believe that eating habits are formed early, consciously and subconsciously.  Therefore, if she only has four bites of her dinner I try not to let it faze me.  Again, I just try to make those four bites as healthy as possible.

To that end, we have no junk food in the house.  She loves chips, and we have them but they're bean chips.  She eats nuggets and hot dogs and mac n cheese but they're healthy nuggets and for a minute I was using Annie's mac n cheese but I'm going to start making my own because even organic boxed mac n cheese is still processed and I can do better than that.

Fruit is a hit or miss.  Just about the only thing she'll eat as is are apples and grapes.  With all other fruit, if I want her to eat it I have to put it in a smoothie.

I've even gotten her to drink a spinach kale smoothie.

I have to admit, I patted myself on the back for that one.

Don't tell Sofia.

Veggies are another story.  I offer veggies with almost every meal, but all I ever get is a vehement "I no like it!"  Again, I never wanted to be that mom to trick her kid into eating veggies, but I will stoop to shady methods to get my kid to eat veggies.  I haven't made spaghetti and meatballs in a while, but when I do, I always blend veggies into the sauce.  I still can't get her to eat more than a few bites, but at least those bites are packed with veggies.

The other tool in my veggie arsenal are spinach bars.  I found this recipe on Pinterest and the first time I made them, I made balls like the recipe said and Sofia totally turned up her nose at them.  I scrolled down and one commenter suggested pressing them out into bars instead of balls, so I tried that and Sofia ate five in one sitting.  Exact same ingredients, same cooking method, different shape.  This is further proof that kids are weird.

All you have to do is prepare everything just like the recipe says, get a big cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper.  Press the mix into the cookie sheet with a rubber spatula and bake it at 350 for about 30 minutes.  Use a pizza cutter to make bars and freeze half because you'll get quite a few.  I have made these with spinach and broccoli, spinach and kale, and I want to try doing other veggies like cauliflower and carrots.  I imagine you could use just about any veggies to make these bars.  I don't know if it's the butter or the Stove Top, but any time I get antsy that Sofia isn't eating enough veggies, I'll make a batch and serve them with spaghetti sauce for dipping.  She's major into dipping stuff right now, so I try to capitalize on that. *I forgot something:  The recipe calls for six eggs if you make balls, but I found that made my bars a little dry, so I use seven eggs.  

I certainly don't have the toddler food thing figured out and my kid definitely doesn't have ideal eating practices.  Just this morning she had popsicles for breakfast.  She's had a scratchy throat and a cough and I couldn't come up with a good reason *not* to give her popsicles so that's what she had, along with about five slices of cheese and two big glasses of milk.  Technically, I guess she had her fruit and dairy for breakfast because they were more 'frozen fruit bars' and less 'popsicles', so at least there's that.  I had scrambled eggs and broiled grapefruit and I would much rather she ate what I did, but all I can do is offer.  One of these days she'll take me up on it and until then, I'll give her what she asks for.

Plus, there's always lunch and dinner and I'll try and sneak in something healthy then.