The things we do to get our kids to eat

If you know Andrew, you know that he is funny about food. I remember when he was eating baby food, he could eat jar after jar after jar. Then when we started normal food, he could down 2 yogurts, 2 bananas and who knows what else at one sitting. These days things are a little different. Our staples with him are crackers, pretzels, yogurt, cheerios and any type of bread I can put peanut butter on. Unfortunately for him, his mom doesn't let him just eat those! Oh, and he is the most hydrated kid you will ever meet, he LOVES water. On occasion he will eat chicken nuggets, especially the dinosaur shaped ones. Some days he likes bananas and apples, some days he likes gross puffed wheat cereal, the kind with no sugar and no nutritional value. SO as you can see, this is our daily battle. To get him to eat the sweetest applesauce there is, the strawberry stuff, I had to stick a straw into the top and pretend it was applesauce juice. Derick and I have been trying to be really good at offering him what we eat at dinner. We just put a small portion on his plate and try and be as animated and excited as we can for it, even if it is green beans. At least we got him to open up the green beans because we told him there were little candies inside. He wasn't to thrilled when they didn't taste like candy though. We seriously try everything: Mater LOVES lasagna, can you eat your spaghetti like a straw, mmm chicken is so good, Grandpa loves it, etc. If someone were to video our mealtimes, I would be SO embarrassed at the things we say to try and get him to eat! Tonight we had lasagna, corn and green beans. After the battle to get him to even stay at the table had calmed down, we told him that Wesley loved corn and that he should try it. He had a long stare down with the corn, I don't know why, maybe he was telling it mentally that it better taste good or else, but he put one on his tongue. Derick and I were both thinking, wait, did he just do that? So, we got excited for him. Yeah! Now chew it up like a dragon, use your teeth to mash it up, drop another one into your mouth from way up high. It was working! At this point we try to give him attention, but then again try not to give too much so that he will just keep going. It is a big relief when we have a moment like this. As you can tell from the picture it was short lived, all the excess veggies ended up in his water, but as parents, we were ecstatic. He got a star, we called Grandma, took pictures, the whole works to let him know that we were so happy! So hooray for Andrew tonight!