I actually used to like to cook. Sometimes I still do. When I’m alone. Or maybe with someone who will eat my food. I’m sure almost every parent can understand this. Every night, well every night that isn’t a leftover night, I come home with the little pork chops (no they don’t like pork) and look in the fridge which hopefully holds something I have already taken out to defrost. That happens 3 days a week On the other days when it’s not leftover night or new dinner night, its chicken nuggets or spaghetti. The kids are sick of spaghetti. For the most part they will eat chicken. So that’s what we have. At least 4 to 5 days out of the week. or 6. So I make the chicken, then I make something starchy. Then some kind of vegetable and always apples. One kid eats the starch first and then the chicken. Then she will eat either apple slices or applesauce after some vague threats from me. Those are the ‘two’ fruits she will eat. The other kid demolishes the veggies and usually a fruit. I wheedle with her to eat some chicken and generally don’t even try the starch, unless its perogies, and who doesn’t like perogies. On weekends I’ll bake a chicken and we have it for a few nights. on the rare night we have cheese quesidillas or maybe a hot dog. even home made pizza when I’m not exhausted. Meatballs and hamburgers are still an iffy situation for the youngest.
After reading about my picky eaters, I am sure there are those superior parents out there reading this with a sad smile who get their kids to eat grilled vegetable kabobs or salad with feta or some nutritious thing simply by telling them too, but I have a suspicious feeling those parents are robots (no offense). I love to eat. I will eat almost anything, and try almost anything. To have kids who hate their food touching on the plate and turn their noses up at stew when I was wolfing down lima beans and eating sushi at age 4 is just plain irritating. When I thought about making dinners for my own children far in the future, I had blissful visions of yummy dinners on the table and everyone digging in. OK I didn’t actually think about that part of parenthood much but if I had I’m sure I would have had visions like that. I never imagined myself to be the mother of two such different and finicky eaters.
I am still trying to bridge the gap between these two redheaded appendages who live in my house and make me cook boring foods and my desire for more exciting dinners. After recently finding something with traces of veggies that my oldest likes, I am almost jumping for joy. But until the day when they actually eat a dinner that doesn’t consist of applesauce, chicken or hot dogs, I am hanging my head in the shame of not being the culinary whiz I hoped to be. Not even a robot.
berryprose 