Picky Eater

My baby has been abducted by aliens and is now a pod-person. That is the only plausible explanation I can come up with for why she's suddenly become so picky about what she eats. This child used to scarf down anything she could, including, but not limited to, the following: cake, fruits, vegetables, dirt, puffs, bread, milk, dust bunnies, yogurt, cheese, pasta, etc. She would mooch bites of whatever I was eating, especially breakfast foods, even if the texture or flavor took her by surprise. I think it made her feel like a big girl to eat Mommy's food. One morning, I made myself oatmeal for breakfast. I like my hot cereal sweet, so I always put in lots of brown sugar. Evie came over and started begging for a bite. I gave her one, and watched her eyes widen and a huge smile encompass her face. She had several more bites, and was wired for the rest of the day. I also like to put granola into my yogurt cups to add a little more substance, flavor, and nutrition to my breakfast. Every morning, Evie would watch me stir in my granola and start eating, then she would start whining that she wasn't getting any. I'd give her a spoonful, and watch as she carefully sucked all the yogurt off of the granola, and then swirled the granola around her mouth with her tongue, not sure what to do with it until it finally dissolved enough for her to swallow. Then she'd demand more. Every morning. I was a little surprised that she couldn't remember from day to day that the texture was weird to her. She would also whine if she didn't get any of my bagel either, so I started toasting two bagels in the morning. I'd eat three halves and tear the last half into little bites in a bowl for her. She was thrilled! The last example was when I made chicken enchiladas for dinner one night. Todd LOVES chicken enchiladas; they're his favorite dinner! I had Evie in her booster seat so she could watch as I measured, stirred and cooked. I gave her tastes of things as I put them into the bowl so she could experience what was going on. I had Todd grating cheese for me, and he gave her little bites. She loved it! When dinner was ready, Todd proved his love for his daughter by actually giving her bites of his enchiladas. She was so proud of herself, sitting at the table and eating "big-girl food" with the rest of us. She would over-exaggerate her chewing so we could be sure to see it, and after she swallowed, she'd beam at us until we gave her another bite. That was the last night before the aliens came. The next day, remembering her fondness for those cheese bites, I cut some cheese into little cubes and put them into a ziploc bag for part of her lunch. Then I dropped her off at my brother-in-law's house while I went to work. According to John, she didn't even touch the cheese bites. We wrestled with her for the next two days, trying to get her to eat cheese cubes, but she refused every time, eventually not even tasting them, just throwing them straight onto the floor. The next week, I packed a baggie of her bagel bites into the diaper bag for her lunch. She ate them all, plus the slice of bread I'd packed for her, but the next day, she didn't touch the bagel bites. The day after that was the day I went to the doctor for my appointment. That morning, I made a double batch of oatmeal so I could share with Evie. I made sure to not put as much sugar into her bowl as mine, but hers still wasn't bland and gross! Halfway through breakfast, she started spitting out the oatmeal I was spooning into her mouth. Even showing her that I was eating the exact same thing she was didn't budge her. I fought with her for probably 20 minutes before giving up and eating while ignoring her whining that I wasn't giving her any bites of my food. During my appointment, Evie was a little hungry (shocker, I know), so I pulled out that same bag of bagel bites to keep her occupied while I talked with the doctor. After eating a handful of bites, she started throwing them onto the floor. She refused to finish the rest of the bag. I cried that day because we had very little food in the house, I was hungry, and my ungrateful baby wouldn't even eat the little food that I could give her. For breakfast on the first of this month, I made sausages and waffles for breakfast, and made some over-easy eggs for Todd and scrambled ones for Evie (I'm not much of an egg person anymore). I made sure that the sausage bites and egg bites were small enough for her to pick up and feed herself without choking. Only a few minutes into eating breakfast, Evie suddenly swept her entire plate onto the floor. Already emotionally overwrought, I cried again while Todd cleaned up her mess and put her to bed. Another time, Todd tried giving her some apple slices for lunch. She seemed enthusiastic, but then she started sucking all of the juice out of each apple slice, and leaving the shrunken apple behind. This past week, we bought some "Baby Cutie" Clementine oranges to give her because she's old enough to have citrus now, and the slices are the perfect size for her to feed herself. Todd gave her some slices the day we bought them, and she gobbled them up. The next day, I peeled an orange for her and gave her the slices. She ate about half of the orange, then she started sucking all the juice out of the slices and spitting them on the floor. When I reprimanded her, she started sucking the juice out of each slice, spitting the remainder on the floor, then carefully picking it back up and very politely handing it up to me. I had to struggle really hard not to laugh. When Todd got home that night, I told him what "his" daughter had done that day. He asked why that made her "his" daughter, and I told him, "No child of mine would ever do something as silly as leave perfectly good orange slices on the floor." He said that his wouldn't either, and I said, "I know, but I have to blame one of us, and I obviously can't blame myself!" Happily, Evie still loves her bananas. Every morning, I peel a banana for her, break it in half and give her both halves so she can hold one in each hand. The morning after the orange episode, I gave her the banana as usual, and then turned away to pour her a sippy cup of milk. When I turned back around, I saw a calculating look on Evie's face as she slowly chewed her banana. I could tell that she was trying to find a way to suck the flavor out of the banana and spit out the rest. Fortunately for me, bananas don't really HAVE juice that she can just suck out, so HA HA HA! I've finally won a battle over food: the Banana Battle! Even last night, we had issues. Todd made red beans and rice for dinner with a side of green beans. Evie eagerly stuffed her mouth full of green beans and then chewed on them for ages. Finally, instead of swallowing, she spit the drained and empty beans onto her overalls, and then picked them up and--yep, you guessed it--let them fall onto the floor. We both very sternly told her that no, that was not acceptable, and she looked at us with her huge innocent eyes, and then shoveled more beans into her mouth. When the second batch of beans joined the first on the floor, I turned to Todd, sighed, and said, "Well, I guess we should at least be grateful that she seems to like the taste of the green beans, right?" He growled something in response and kept glaring at her. I started feeding her forkfuls of rice, which she ate readily enough. But when she started screaming at me, Todd picked her up and put her to bed.
See, that's the thing. It's not like we just let her get away with random crap because we're afraid of disciplining our daughter. We have certain rules about eating that she knows she's supposed to follow: NO throwing food on the floor, NO screaming at us because she wants more food now and we're not moving quickly enough for her, NO clawing our arms while we're taking a quick bite in between feeding her so that she can snag our food. If she wants more food, she needs to ask for it in a nice way and then--surprise, surprise--she needs to eat it! And if she breaks the rules, she knows what her punishment will be: the first time, she gets a verbal warning to remind her that she's doing something she's not supposed to; the second time, she gets pulled away a few feet from the table until she's ready to be nice again; the third time, she gets put to bed so we can finish our meal in peace. Then, when we're done, she gets to come back out so we can see if she's "repented" and is ready to eat. If so, she can finish her food; if not, we decide that dinner is over and we put her on the floor to play while we throw away whatever she didn't finish. I think we're entirely reasonable about this, and our system seems to work okay so far, I just wish we didn't have to have this system in place at all. I want my sweet little garbage-gut back! (On the plus side, though, she doesn't eat dust bunnies off the floor anymore!)