When Hudson was 3-1/2, I wrote: “He’s a very picky eater right now. He’ll turn his nose up at the silliest things. Just last week he totally lost it at a restaurant where he was given a peanut butter, banana, and jelly crepe for dinner. Basically someone took all of his favorite things and wrapped them up in a pancake! How could we go wrong? But there was a decorative line of jelly on the outside, and he didn’t want it cut, and when we rolled it up he couldn’t tell where the peanut butter was, and… Oh for goodness sake!”
I smiled in recognition last week, when I read Kristen Mulrooney’s piece for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, “Top Dinner Suggestions According to a Three-Year-Old’s Eating Habits,” which includes specific items such as “Cheerios and milk eaten from the Lightning McQueen cereal bowl, and if you can’t find the Lightning McQueen cereal bowl you might as well go kill yourself.”
Among the items on her list, my preschooler’s menu would definitely include:
A French Baguette, but only the inside
One bite each of three apples
A $4.99 half-pint of organic blueberries
Chicken noodle soup with oyster crackers, minus the soup
and
A bite of whatever you’re eating, even if you’re both eating the same thing.
I would also add:
One (and only one) sip of the second glass of milk requested
Colorful food, but really only if the color comes from sprinkles or the tint of food dye.
Bubble gum ice cream, but not really (since it’s gross), and only as a means to extricate soggy gumballs
Anything on a stick
What would be on your list?
P.S. Table manners for kids; Simple parenting tips; And the secret lives of 4-year-olds.
[Photo from our stay in Copenhagen. Where, coincidentally, Skyler ate duck hearts because they were… on a stick.]
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