Our finicky eater

Well right on the developmental track comes the new fight in the house - getting Matthew to eat real food.

It was only a few months ago that he'd eat practically anything in front of him, and I thought I was raising a kid who loved fruits and vegetables. Now he'll only eat a few things, mostly bread, and even that changes every week.

For a little while there he would eat practically anything if it had ketchup on it. However he had to see you put the ketchup on before he'd put it in his mouth; if you told him it was already on there he wouldn't believe you and refused to eat unless you put a dab of ketchup on the bite of food on his fork. Now he doesn't want ketchup. Babcia (Chris' Mom) tried to make him a hotdog a few weeks ago and put ketchup on it. Matthew starts whining, then crying, then I think he progressed to screaming and refused to eat it. After trying to explain to Matthew what the food was and that he ate it the other day and loved it, Babcia rinsed the ketchup off the weiner and gave it back to Matthew. He ate it.

He used to love Minigos, but now will only squeeze everything out of the container and fingerpaint with it on the highchair tray or squish it into his hair.

He will only eat pizza CRUST. He doesn't want any of those pesky toppings in the way. I tried to sneak a few toppings onto his crust the other day and as soon as it hit his tongue, he spit it out, and then picked it up from the tray and launched it across the room (we'll talk about his table manners later!). Only when I took away the offending pieces with toppings and sauce would he resume eating, because apparently the food he will eat shouldn't be in close proximity to the food he won't. Like the good stuff will be tainted somehow.

The other night he had a hot dog bun for dinner. With nothing on it. No ketchup, mustard, relish, or mayo. Just the bun.

And he only wants cereal for breakfast. Preferably the kind Mommy eats, like Mini-Wheats, but he'll eat Cheerios if he has to.

He'll also eat bananas any time of day, or canned fruit like peaches or pears. Oh, and he always has room for ice-cream!

He will also eat any sort of baby food jar food, I think because it's mushy. So I try to make him casseroles here and cut things up very small, but he still won't eat it. It's probably too chunky for him. God forbid he has to chew! Maybe what I'll do is grind it up in the food processor for 2 seconds and put it into a baby food jar so he thinks that's what he's getting. Just until he grows out of this picky stage...in 5 or 6 years!

And maybe we'll start buying him some of that Enfagrow stuff to mix with his milk so he'll at least be getting SOME nutrients into his body. But then again, he might be "off" milk next week!