Baby Steps

As most of you know, my middle child Drew has some serious issues with food. It seems weird even to me that I am so into health and nutrition and I have a child that once ate fish sticks every single day for more than a year. Why do I let this happen? Where did I go wrong?

I remember serving Drew a plate of chicken, potatoes, and green beans at the age of two. He took the plate and threw the food in the garbage. He has a list of things that he will eat...mainly pizza, spaghetti, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, a few more things...even with his candy he is picky. He has a sweet tooth, and he fixates on certain food items. On days that I have been too busy to notice (and those are very frequent, I must admit), I have walked into the living room to find that he has eaten a ton of chips/saltine crackers/Ritz crackers/granola bars/GoGurt/ whatever. If I don't resort to drastic measures, the package of whatever I just bought will be gone.

He has also been adamant about not trying new things. SERIOUSLY ADAMANT. At family get-togethers he is usually seen eating a plain bun. And then sneaking some more. And more until I catch him. Todd and I once spent over an hour trying to convince him to eat a bite of lasagna. I mean, the kid loves spaghetti and he loves cheese. He finally took the tiniest of bites and said he liked it. He loves pizza, but only certain kinds. And he won't eat leftovers the next day heated up in the microwave. The only fruit he will eat is red grapes. No veggies, other than the tomato in the foods he likes.

But slowly....oh, so slowly...things are starting to shift. Within the last year he finally tried a taco and now he loves them. I recently ran out of his regular peanut butter and replaced it with my all-natural sugarless peanut butter and he never noticed. When he did notice, he asked for the other kind and I told him no. "This stuff is better for you, so that's what you're eating." He groaned a little but ate it. I also recently got him to eat wheat bread, and he said it was good.

One day I actually paid him a dollar to try a bite of a carrot. When I told a co-worker this, she thought it was the most terrible thing. "You should just tell him he has to eat it!" she said. Yeah. Cuz that has worked SOOOOOO well up to this point! For eight years I have been stressed about his eating habits and trying to change them. I know that when he was younger I shouldn't have catered to him and made him a separate meal every day. But there's nothing I can do about that now. The thing is, he took a bite of a carrot and said he liked it. Anyone who knows him understands that this is nothing short of a miracle. In the earlier days, he would have starved himself to death before trying something new.

I have started telling him that he eats what I am making, or he eats a peanut butter sandwich. And it is working. Tonight I made my favorite beans and rice recipe, then made a quick Spanish rice with some hamburger in it for Todd. Drew asked what was for supper. He wanted corn, and nothing but corn. I told him he had to try the rice or he got not corn. So he tried it. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up, and my heart soared. "You should call that 'Ultimate Goulash,'" he said. I laughed and gave him some more. There is hope!

By the way, he hasn't touched a fish stick in a couple of years now. But we have a bag of chicken nuggets in the freezer that he will not eat because they are a different brand. We'll get there someday...