Right now one of my biggest frustrations, among several, as a parent is feeding the girls. This is frustrating on so many levels.
Do you know how hard it is to get another human being to eat when they are intent on NOT eating whatever it is you want them to eat? It is the most. frustrating. things on this earth. It is not possible to stuff food into another person and force them to eat it unless the child is about 7 months old and then you are likely to be eating the food yourself when they spit it back into your face.
The girls go in phases I’ve noticed. At times, one of them is a bottomless pit. And then others, they eat half a pop-tart all day and they seem ok with that. I get that. And yet, I don’t like that.
I can’t tell you the pleasure I have when one of my kids actually finishes a plate of food. It makes me want to buy them toys and take them to DisneyLand.
It’s not that I don’t fix them food and even healthy food at times. And it’s not that they don’t eat healthy food. It’s just that they never want what is put in front of them at home. That is why I have absolutely no incentive to fix dinner nightly. I can make a really good meal of chicken, mashed potatoes and sweet carrots–like real food–and they’ll eat two bites of it and say they’re done. And you can not force them to eat it. One time, I made Emma sit in the dining room for I think 45 minutes trying to force her to eat her food before she got up. She curled in a ball and cried. And then ran to her room and did the same.
And yet, if my sister walks in with take-out from, well ANYWHERE, they will eat as if they haven’t been fed in 3 weeks.
But take-out is not always the key. I can not count the number of times I’ve bought kids meals at McD’s to only have half a nugget and a few fries eaten.
I simply do not understand their logic about what they will eat and what they won’t and when. They seem to eat the most around 2-3 and 8-9. Maybe I’ll just bump lunch and dinner back a few hours.
Today I tried something new. I fixed chicken nuggets at home and cheese doodles and took them with me to pick them up. I mean, why wouldn’t they be excited about this? They always ask for chicken nuggets and they love cheese doodles. And they were excited about the idea of eating lunch in the car. Emma wouldn’t have anything to do with the cheese doodles and ate half a nugget. Lexi ate one nugget and a few cheese doodles. While I’m glad I didn’t spend the money on kids meals at McD’s. It’s still frustrating. Money lost and they are still hungry 2 hours later!
And of course no matter what they’ve eaten or not, they’re always hungry for the sweet stuff. Scott brought Rolos home today and after not eating that lunch I fixed, they were all over the candy. Surprised I should not be.
In fact, case in point, Emma and I JUST had this conversation:
E: I’m hungry
Me: Well, Emma you didn’t eat your chicken.
E: Well do you know WHY I didn’t eat it?
Me: No
E: Well, it’s not what I wanted and now I want something different to eat.
Me: Well, I don’t have much in there. How about applesauce?
E: Yeah! I want applesauce.
So, it’s not that I didn’t have applesauce or applesauce is candy and that’s all she wants. It’s just it’s not what *I* suggested. It’s too dangerous to say at each meal, OK, what do you want to eat? And yet, when I put something in front of them, for the life of me, I can not get them to eat it if they don’t want to.
I could go on and on but I’ll stop the ranting on this. If any of you parents have any suggestions, I will gladly accept them.
We’ve given up trying to get the kids to eat what we want them to eat. They don’t even eat dinner with us most of the time – Denis just feeds them something when he brings them home from daycare – whether it’s cereal and applesauce (a favorite in our house too) or waffles and corn. Whatever they are willing to eat, we’ll give it to them. Because if it came down to them eating what we prepare for OUR dinners, they’d never have dinner!
Good to hear we’re not the only ones. And a lot of times we don’t all eat the same thing either, especially during lunch. I have no desire to eat Dora Soup.