Remember the old Life Cereal commercials about Mikey who wouldn’t eat anything but loved the cereal? (Am I dating myself?!)  If you don’t have a clue…ask your mom! Anyway…I was reading some of the comments recently about getting kids to eat and we can relate! 

First…I have to say that children 1 and 2 will eat anything and have since they were small (they are 16 and 18 now).  Child 3 will eat most anything and #4…well, he is my ‘Mikey’.  My little Micah is 11 and has been a challenging eater as long as I can remember.  But he is all over the board on what he will and won’t eat.  For example…shopping with him the other day he runs up and puts a bundle of asparagus in the cart and asks if we can get it.  That’s a request you don’t have to think about twice to answer!  We served it with our Garlic Lemonn Pork chops and while he was sure there was too much ‘fat’ on the pork chops and picked his way through his portion…he devoured 3 helpings of asaparagus and ate all of his salad. 

Last night we served the steak and potato bake casserole (yes…the one that took me nearly 2 hours to bake in my dysfunctional oven the other night!).  I also served a side of pineapple tidbits and decided to sprinkle them with shredded cheddar to ‘liven it up’.  Our precious little Micah then picks through both the pineapple and the casserole because he has decided he does not like cheese (since when?!  one of his favorite meals is a cheeseburger!)  To his credit…he devoured a large portion of HG coleslaw though! 

 So here is my question…do we create challenging eaters or are they born that way?  I think I created mine.  Our Micah was 2 when Homemade Gourmet was ‘born’.  Starting and running the business required a lot of time and energy.  I think I gave in too many times to his picky eating requests during that hectic time in our lives.  The others didn’t get a choice…and now they don’t really expect a choice.  (well…#3 kind of fell on the cusp…so he is a mix of the 2 extremes). 

It could be worse…our picky eater LOVES HG Taco Soup…and chooses it as a preferred meal when given the chance.  He loves asparagus and salad and will at least try things most of the time.  But I am curious how others address this meal time delimna.  What is your story?

God Bless,

Tami

This entry was posted on Friday, October 6th, 2006 at 11:47 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.