Knuckle Sandwiches Aren't Real Sandwiches

Last week an article caught my eye, something along the lines of "You Know You Have a Toddler If He's a Picky Eater". I laughed. Honestly, my first thought was, "Is eight still considered a toddler?" Because that's how old he is and yes, he's still a picky eater.

Sadly, most people assume we just haven't exposed our child to enough foods. Surely if we had, he'd eat things like arugula salad and tilapia, right? Wrong. We expose him to various foods constantly. Against his will even. You'd think we were flaying him alive just trying to get him to try a bite of a new and different food. Sometimes, they aren't even weird foods like crocodile bites (which my oldest was adventurous enough to try the first year we went to Florida) but tame things like a cheeseburger. Gasp! The horror! Now, he will eat ground beef in the form of a meatball, but change the shape and throw it on a grill....nope. Not so much.

And when we know in advance that we're going to make him eat something that he purports not to like, (Sometimes we're less inclined to believe him, like if he has eaten the same thing before without any problems. Just this second though, that's when he realized he hates it and will totally throw up if we make him eat it a second time.) we have to gird our loins. We strap on that thick skin and gather our cliched sayings: "It's good for you", "It'll put hair on your chest", and all the other inane bull crap that parents have thrown at their picky eaters for generations. Because we know this is coming:

Child: But I don't LIKE it.
Parent: You haven't even tried it. It's pork, it tastes like chicken.
Child: But it's NOT chicken. I don't like pork.
Parent: You're not going to get big and strong if you don't eat all your dinner. You want to get big and strong, don't you?
Child: No.
Parent: Listen, there are starving children in Ethiopia who would love to have your dinner.
Child: They can have mine. I don't like pork.
Parent: You're going to eat it, kiddo, and it tastes a lot better warm than cold.

This conversation is usually followed by the following scenario:

Child glares mutinously at parents, hoping they'll cave and let him throw out offensive pork. All four offending bites. Parents don't cave. Child tries soulful, sad look. Still the pork sits on his plate. Child stabs piece of pork violently with fork, lifts to nose, makes most awful, repulsed face he can muster, hoping to soften parents stance. Nothing. Child licks tentatively, again offering horrified face. Nada. Child places pork in mouth, begins to chew, starts gagging. Parents shoot irritated glance and warn child to knock of theatrics. "Just eat it." Child ups ante by making the "I'm almost going to throw up" gagging noise. Another irritated glance from parents. Child sighs and swallows. Asks for ranch dressing to dip remaining three whole pieces of pork in. Parents see this sign of acceptance and resignation and allow dipping sauce. Parents silently high five when child isn't looking.

What other people fail to understand is that having a picky eater is HELL. Seriously. We dread restaurants and cookouts and family dinners because we know that look we're going to get. The one that says, "How could you let your child get to this state of pickiness?" Truly though, it's as torturous for us to have said picky eater as it is to try and figure out what you can feed them that they'll eat. And each suggestion that we have to turn down increases our embarrassment factor. We feel like failures as a parent since one of the basic components of parenting is feeding the kid and obviously, we aren't doing it right. It makes us want to say, "Hey, you should have seen him two years ago! At least now he eats lasagna and tacos!" (Yes, he will eat tacos AND meatballs, but a hamburger is the scourge of the Earth. I don't get it either.)

Another type of irritating eater is a particular eater. My daughter has never shied away from trying new foods. She'll try anything once. She also eats plenty of foods. Except she has to have things a specific and certain way. Oh, yeah, she'll eat a deli meat sandwich. If she has ranch dressing instead of mayonnaise. And toasted bread. And no lettuce. She'll eat a cheeseburger. If the cheese is sharp or colby jack because she doesn't like warm American cheese. We've worked around these culinary eccentricities for years. Between her and the picky eaters, dinner has become the dreaded daily chore. It's a lifetime sentence with no sign of parole for the next 17 years.

So this is a shout out to all my fellow parents who have a picky eater. Hang in there. It gets better. My oldest son was also a picky eater and now eats almost anything. (Except pickles. He draws the line firmly at pickles.) And as far as I know, no child ever died from only eating grilled cheese, chicken nuggets, and watermelon.

Story of my life kid.