I’m not exactly sure why I don’t like white wine. I just don’t. I like white grapes. I like white bread. I like white cats. It’s just the white wine that I don’t like. I also wonder what the deal is with lima beans. I don’t like ‘em. I like baked beans, I like beans in the bean soup my mother would always make after Easter, I like black beans and kidney beans, but lima beans rank right up there with liver and brussel sprouts on my list of non-faves. Beets, now there’s another thing that I could never sink my teeth into. So to speak. I don’t know if it’s the texture, or their striking resemblance to cranberry sauce from a can, but I just hate the taste of beets. I love cranberry sauce from a can, so maybe it’s just a deep seeded sense of resentment that the beet doesn’t taste as wonderful as canned cranberry. Who knows?
Anyway, my topic today is children and their eating habits.
14 and 12 could NOT be any more opposite in their food tastes and sometimes it
makes me meshuggeneh. (it’s a word). For instance, 12 will eat almost anything
that I make. Does it hurt that 12 is a tremendous suck up? No, not at all. She
is my pleaser. She is my Bill Clinton. She feels my pain. She’d eat a fried
tennis ball if I told her it would make me so happy. She eats almost anything
that she is fed. 12’s favorite food is
broccoli. Now I don’t for a minute actually BELIEVE that, but it’s what she
WANTS grown-ups to believe, so who am I to say otherwise? However, 14 is a
totally different story. Let’s start with rice. Ew. Rice. Hates the
consistency. It’s awful. It’s so, small and…..ricey. 14 wouldn’t be caught dead
gagging down even a grain of rice. Why, then, can I not keep a box of Rice
Krispies in the house?? Same thing!! Rice Chex? GONE faster than you can say
Chex Mix Rocks. But when I make a dish that has rice, she’s always looking for
an alternative. “Mom can you make mashed potatoes instead?” No. “Can you make
mashed potatoes AND rice?” No. Can you get over your hatred of rice? “No”. Then
it seems we are at an impasse.
Let’s move on to anything that grows out of the ground and
starts with the letter V and ends in table. If it’s not corn, 14 won’t touch
it. I can make a can of peas (Peas!! Who doesn’t love peas?? They’re adorable
and cute and taste so sweet!!) and I’ll put 6 peas on 14’s plate. The Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should be alerted the next time 14 has 6
peas on her plate, because Meryl Streep has NOTHING on 14 when it comes to best
dramatic performance. She chokes, she gags, she spits. You’d think I actually
fried up something that came out of our dog Cosmo’s butt and made her eat it.
(To be honest, he used to eat his own poo, so if it’s good enough for Cosmo, I
don’t know why it’s not good enough for 14 but that’s a blog for another day).
How about tomatoes? They’re not really a vegetable, right?
They’ve got seeds. They’re fruit. Now while I will admit that I don’t
personally enjoy the tomato, I will eat it in a dish where the tomato is a key
ingredient. I make a delicious Pampered Chef recipe that my friend Jen gave to me called Zesty Ravioli.
The recipe calls for diced tomatoes but when I make this recipe, 14 always ends
up with a pile of little diced tomatoes that she picks out. When I make this recipe
and serve it with a bagged salad, she ends up with a plate of diced tomatoes
and a salad bowl with all the little teeny shredded carrots she’s picked out
and put to the side. I could probably feed a small African village with all the
colorful, healthy veggies 14 piles to the side. Call Bob Geldolf, we can do
Live Aid 3 and send tons of veggies to those less fortunate. It doesn’t bother
14 that there are starving children in Africa, she won’t eat a pea.
I’ve learned to just roll my eyes and accept it. But let’s
make one thing perfectly clear. I am NOT one of those GOOD moms. You know the
type. The moms who want to make sure that their children are well taken care of
and will make something different for their picky child if said picky child
won’t eat what they’ve made. No, quite the contrary, I keep wire hangers in my
closets, and I don’t make additional meals if I don’t have to. My kids are
lucky I have the time to make what I do make for them. With the sports
schedules, band, scouts, extra-curricular activities, they’re lucky they eat
anything at all! Now don’t go getting all defensive and calling the mom police
on me. My kids don’t starve. If one of my children (14) doesn’t enjoy the
delicious delicacies which I have prepared, they are free to open a can of
soup, or make some scrambled eggs or eat a hot dog. I’m okay with that. I’m
keeping it real. I’m like Jenny from the blog.
Ok, maybe that’s going a bit too far.
