Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Cheese

Kate likes dairy products. She eats yogurt, cheeses of all kinds, milk and more yogurt. Gone are the days I could plop anything down in front of her and she'd eat it. I knew that time to be fleeting but I long for it. They include something leafy and/or green with her meals at daycare, but it came to my attention the other day she was avoiding those bits of her meals and going for the pale yellow to white foods. Desperate, I got artistic on her last night. I was impressed with my work. Here it is to the right, nice, no?

The sun is, of course, cheese. The grass is spinach sauteed in garlic and olive oil (and old favorite of hers), the tree trunk is turkey kielbasa and the leaves are broccoli. Naturally, she went immediately for the sun. But I'm pleased to say she ate nearly all of it. To my chagrin, it was not my artistry that convinced her to eat it, but the fact that I sat on the floor in the TV room with her while she watched the Muppets and fed it to her bite by bite. My desire for her to eat something green outweighed my desire to teach her that we eat at the dining room table.
Later that evening she surprised Jeremiah and me by saying with perfect clarity "I could go for a smoothie". For those of you without 2-year-olds, I can see how you might not find that impressive, but really, it's like having your cat suddenly start talking to you. It was a stall tactic, it was bedtime, so no smoothie followed. Still, that was something.

In completely unrelated news, here's a shot of the girls together. Oh, and my arm.

3 comments:

Lady Epiphany said...

Eating, along with toilet behavior, is small person control. They really are so much more charming when they don't think for themselves ;)

The Plaid Sheep said...

You could have a career in food styling for the nursery school set. The dinner sounds yummy. I would eat it all in a minute.

Keith said...

"I could go for a smoothie." Ha! Keep a list. We did.
It's like a muffin in here.
I hate that place that I love.
And in response to a parental complaint that her underwear was left in the front room: Well, it's a crazy mixed up world.
I forgot most of them, which is why you should keep a list. Ellen did, bless her.
As to the food; we got the best advice from our ped. dr. He said put all the food groups in front of her and she'll take what she needs. And don't worry about it. Sometimes she'll go on a carbo bender, but if she needs greens, she'll eat greens. Worrying over it is picked up by the kid and translates to food weirdness later on. Let her learn to make choices and be in control. Just make sure it's all in front of her. Also, don't get a full serving for yourself, because you'll likely be finishing off a lot of her food.