I’ve posted before about the picky eater problem I’m having. Z, the SO’s daughter, will not eat anything that is not either:

1. Purchased from McDonald’s or Wendy’s
2. 100% sugar

I’ve tried a few strategies to encourage eating. I’ve tried to get her to help out in the kitchen. She will but it doesn’t make her want to eat the results. I’ve tried offering her things that she mentions she likes. That can backfire like the time she threw a temper tantrum in a Mexican restaurant because the rice was red and not white “like my mommy makes it.” She also says she likes carrots but will not eat crooked ones. I realized that the kid has never seen carrots that are not the machine made baby carrots.

By this weekend I had had it. I’m not a relative of this child (and I’m just plain mean) so I am not really concerned if she decides to try to starve herself to death. I am not making her an extra meal. I am not cooking a meal and then driving to a fast food place to buy her food. She just needs to learn to deal until she is old enough to buy her own food and cook it herself. Being a kid sucks sometimes.

For dinner I made Skillet Gardener’s Pie. By the way, this is scrumptious and easy. I’m eating leftovers as I type. I knew she had to be hungry since she had refused to eat any pizza at lunch since there were vegetables on it. She demanded that we buy her a cheese pizza. We removed the veggies from a slice but she still wouldn’t touch it. We ignored her and let her sulk. She demanded treats all afternoon but we told her every time that she must not be hungry since she decided she didn’t need to eat lunch. We let her have an apple which she did eat most of.

She had said that she liked green beans. I had green beans for the Gardener’s Pie and it is topped with mashed potatoes. She helped me break the beans into pieces. I set some aside and cooked them with none of the seasonings I used for the pie. When dinner was ready I put a spoonful of mashed potatoes on her plate.

She freaked out. From the screaming you’d have thought that a badger was chewing off her leg. She grabbed her plate and ran towards the garbage can screaming, “Yucky! Yucky! I’m throwing this out.” I said, “No, you aren’t.” I didn’t raise my voice or anything and she stopped dead. Then she turned around and brought the plate back. I put her green beans on it. She declared that she wouldn’t eat the potatoes. I said that was fine. Her dad said that she could have a small piece of the fudge we bought earlier in the day if she ate all her green beans.

I was still spooning out our meals when she said she was finished. I wasn’t born yesterday so I went over and collected the remaining green beans that she had strewn about the table and told her to try again. She ate them and I gave her a small piece of fudge. Baby steps.

She is a human example of my Angel Baby theory. I worked once with a horse named Angel Baby. He was a 5 year old stallion who had obviously never heard the word no in his life. His human cooed “Angel Baby, stop sweetie” to him in sickly baby talk when he misbehaved. I’ve never seen a horse look at me as viciously as he did. I so badly wanted to take him from her and have an about 5 minute “discussion” behind the barn. It would have done wonders for his behavior and everyone’s safety. The canine equivalent of Angel Baby is the Chihuahua who is so spoiled that when the vet tries to do something that they don’t like they attempt to maim everyone with reach. This kid looks at me with absolute disbelief anytime I tell her no. It is like she can’t belief I have the nerve. But she listens so far. She needs to realize that she isn’t going to win every battle.