Food Issues Version 2.0

It'd be comical if it wasn't my kid.  It'd be funny if it wasn't so damn frustrating.  But...I'm at my wits end here.  I'm about to lose it.

Last night, we sat down to dinner.  Another meal of "yuck."  As one friend said, her friend--a mother of six--has taken to calling every meal  "yuck".  Different tastes, different textures, but all "yuck".  When a kid asks what they're having for dinner she replies "yuck". 

Yeah, I totally understand. 

Anyways, we sit down and immediately, J. says "Ew.  Icky."  A. finds this very funny and repeats the sentence. 

Isn't that cute? The girl won't talk except to say "ew" and "icky" at a dinner I spent TIME making. 

No, I'm not bitter.  Why do you ask?

Then J. pushes his plate away and A. copies that as well and so begins round 1 of our nightly dinner war.

Sidenote:  It was never my intention to have World War III EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. I sat down to eat dinner with my darling husband and 2 children.  I mean, did June Cleaver and Donna Reed flip out every meal?  I would suspect not.  Do other people live like I do?  Is my home the only home in America enslaved in food wars?

Some nights are better than others, of course.  The nights we eat tacos, for example.  Or spaghetti.  But, last night was not one of those nights, so the artillery comes out.

We  spend 45 minutes trying to coax the kids into eating A BITE of their dinner.  Mind you, they won't get anything more for the night, but I would feel a little better about the amout of time I took to make dinner and the effort I put into making dinner if they'd would just TRY IT before condemning it to the "ew.  Icky!" pile.

Finally, we send J off to bed because A. would have most certainly eaten dinner had he not professed his hatred of my cooking so adamently.  A., however, still refused to eat.  So she went to bed too.

I wrapped up their plates in foil and placed them in the fridge for breakfast.  I meant business!  And overall, our evening was quite peaceful and relaxing.

This morning, we started up with round two.  At about 10:30, Team Kids took their first casualty.  J. relented and ate a piece of chicken (by which I mean a piece of chicken about the size of his pinkie nail).  It was all we asked of him and he was set free in the pantry.  A., however, didn't budge. 

Waging the war alone, she has battled all day, closing in on 24 hours since she's had any morsel of food.  She is only allowed to drink water and so far she shows no signs of breaking. 

As a reminder J.'s doctor told us to do this with him and after 10 tries he'd eat.  We're way past 10 tries now with A.  I think J. has found his match.  And that the doctor is an idiot.  But I knew that beforehand.

I'd be worried, except for that A. FULLY understands what we're trying to get her to do. I even caught her trying to feed the cat her chicken.

And she's not sitting comatose on the floor staring into space, so I know she's not starving to death. I wish I would have written down J.'s record, but I remember it was a thimble-size amount of rice he had to eat and he held out for 26ish hours.  A. might take the house record tonight.

So, little Miss Red-headed Curls--remember who you got that red hair from and don't mess with Mama Bear because you're going to lose!


I'll be damned if I have TWO kids who refuse to eat!