Dinner as Torture

Last night I found myself saying to my three year old daughter, "Deborah, this is not torture! It's dinner!"

It's hard to say who was being tortured... me, for trying to get her to eat something or her, with her dramatic this-food-is-horrible over-acting. She ended up in a time-out half-way through her meal for her behavior- dramatically throwing herself about in her chair, crying loudly... I asked Jake, Beth, and my mom if the food was really that bad, and all of them told me they loved it. Sometimes I really can't blame her for not wanting to eat what's in front of her, but last night I prepared something I know she typically eats- a chicken stir fry with carrots, broccoli, and water chestnuts. She loves the water chestnuts, or crunchies as she calls them, but last night she was having nothing to do with it. She's almost a vegetarian, but I can normally get her to eat three or four bites of chicken or other kind of meat, but not last night...

I have a picky eater. My doctor wants me to call her a choosy eater, not picky. However, I've got to say I just find her picky... Are there many three year olds that aren't? Most days aren't bad, but about every three or four days we have a sad three year old who just wants to drop through the floor.

I am completely in favor of bribing her. I don't care what people say. I bribe her with desert regularly (like ice cream or popsicles), so that she will eat the rest of her meal (in particular, her chicken or beef). She's surprisingly good at eating her veggies and pasta, potatoes or rice. It's only through the power of the bribe that we get her to eat her meals some days. I'm actually not worried about her getting too fat. (that's the concern most doctors express, because so many kids are obese now.) She's just not even remotely close to that.

Anyway, I'm hoping for some torture-free days... They're better.