Girl’s Life

Mealtimes at our house have recently become a trial of wills. A stand-off. With Chris’ and my wills being quite strong, along with that strong-willed kid of ours, it makes for a little bit of conflict from time to time. I’d love to say that I am all for “choosing my battles,” but when it comes to eating — C’mon, already. Just take a bite!!

For some reason, this week Sophia has begun displaying her independence anew with the introduction of the hunger strike. It looks something like this: I warm up her favorite food and spoon it into her favorite dish. Sophia purses her lips and jerks her head away, like I’m trying to feed her battery acid. This results in her hitting her head against her highchair back and erupting into a fit of tears. I try again, this time with the patented choo-choo pulling into the station method. Again, the eating-acid-pursed-mouth. Again, the tears. This goes on for another 10 minutes. I get a bite or two in when I make her laugh because of how funny my wiggly tongue looks hanging out of my mouth (they don’t teach you these things in the hospital parenting classes — the faces you need to know to get your kid to open her mouth. The details, people. The details are what I need to know! I can figure out all that diapering and bathing business myself.)

So, fine. No pureed baby food for you. I get it — you’ve tried mommy and daddy’s garlic flavored big people food and your strained green beans that you used to adore are now just not the same. So I move to the next step: the big people food torn into little bitesize babers bites. It’s a no go. She’s already mad that I would even suggest she eat baby food, so the hunger strike is in full force.

But no matter what, I can always get the girl to eat cucumbers. The refrigerator is now always stocked with the long green miracle veggie. And I think she is beginning to understand that the mommy milk machine never closes. She can just grab a snack at midnight or 2:00AM or 4:00AM, or hey — all of the above. Clever one, that girl.

OK, I’m off to go get me some more cucumbers!