Picky Pants

Elijah is the a super picky eater... and not in the way you probably think. He will eat basically any raw veggie or fruit. But offer the kid mac & cheese or mashed potatoes and he freaks out. He eats absolutely nothing wet or mushy. Raw spinach - yes. Spaghetti - no. Hands full of cilantro picked from the garden - yes. applesauce - no. He's a strange bird.

Up to this point in his life (except his very early stages of trying table food) the only meats he will ingest are: grilled steak, grilled chicken breast, chicken fingers/nuggets, fried chicken leg, grilled pork chop, and kielbasa sausage - cut into round pieces and "blackened" in a skillet or grilled. The end. He won't try a single bite of other meats no matter what.

Oh my gosh and soup? Forget about it. Pasta? Are you crazy? Casserole? NEVER in a million years.

The part that makes this so difficult is that Elijah hardly ever feels hungry. I have to coerce him at each meal time to sit down and take one or two bites. He would be perfectly happy to just not eat. Then every 3 days or so he gets famished and eats all day. But that's very hit or miss. My mom says she was the same way so she understands how he feels.

I should also add that we've had MANY dinnertime battles over this very issue, but I'm tired of fighting. Most nights we eat regular meals and Elijah has PB&J. And he's happy like that. I joke that if it weren't for peanut butter he would have starved 3 years ago. He lived off spoons of peanut butter for about 12 months straight.

So tonight for supper I made what I call Hobos. I don't know what they really are. It's a meal my grandma used to make on her fire pit, but I do it on the grill. You put a hamburger patty in the center of a big piece of foil, top with sliced onion, thinly sliced carrots and potatoes, salt & pepper all of it, seal the foil shut and throw it on the fire until it's all tender and caramelized (and amazing!). It's like camping food.

Anyway, this afternoon I didn't let Elijah have any snacks at all. Then I made supper and filled plates and told him to sit at the table. I didn't offer him another option. He had told me he was hungry so I knew I had a fairly good chance of getting him to try a bite. Then something unbelievable happened {the heavens opened up and angels began to sing}. I offered him a bite of hamburger and he took it. He liked it and asked for more. Then more. Then seconds. He ate an entire hamburger patty! (not a single bite of anything else, but baby steps.) This is monumental in my book!

MONUMENTAL, I tell you.

I didn't want to jinx it by telling him what he was eating. I thought maybe he thought it was steak. But when he was done I told him I would let him in on my top secret recipe. When he heard what it was he didn't freak out. He said he wanted to call Grandma because she would be so proud of him. He was proud of himself too.

Oh and then, later I tricked him into eating yogurt for dessert. I found an idea on Pinterest to pipe yogurt into dollops on a cookie sheet using a zipper baggie w/the corner cut off, and freeze them. They turn into kind of little ice cream bites. I named them ice cream dots and told him it was his special treat for eating supper. He loved them! We made another batch for tomorrow night! Milestones, guys. This is big!

So, it appears that maybe Elijah's taste buds are maturing. If not that he is just growing up enough to try new things every once in a while. I'm so excited!!!