There is hope

Muffin is not a very adventurous eater, as apparently is typical with most kids her age. Long ago, like 2-3 yrs ago, she used to love kiddie foods like chicken nuggets, meatballs, soup, and mashed potatoes. Somehow along the way she started disliking foods, one by one. Her typical daily menu nowadays is:

Breakfast: dry cereal (pancake, french toast or muffin whenever I make them)
Lunch: peanut butter & jelley sandwich
Dinner: plain pasta (not even butter on it), rice and black beans, or fruit salad. Pizza if she can get it.

This has been driving me batty for months. We've tried introducing other foods but so far she's rebuffed all efforts.

Until yesterday.

On Sunday, Muffin and I went to the mall shopping for some summer clothes for her. I asked her if she'd like to try chicken nuggets for lunch as a treat at the mall… and she said … YES! After picking myself up from the floor and making an emergency PBJ sandwich (in case she hated nuggets), off we went to the mall. Would you believe she LOVED the nuggets? We got the 'Tyson' dinosaur shaped nuggets from The Great Steak & Potato Company. Given her acid reflux, she only got to eat a handful of fries with her nuggets.

Then she asked for nuggets for dinner.

I asked her, now that she likes chicken nuggets, would she be open to trying meatballs? To which she answered "NEVER!" with her usual dramatic flair. So I'll have to try again in a few months… but there is hope that she'll grow to eat more foods!!

Picnic in February?

Sunday morning Muffin woke up asking for a picnic. My response was, honey, its too cold to have a picnic! But that didn’t deter her, she just suggested we do it at the mall. And being true to herself, it was just not any picnic, she asked for tablecloth & flowers & an an umbrella. I was able to dissuade her from the umbrella and we used placemats instead of a tablecloth. It turned out great! I packed up simple sandwiches for everyone, brought some water & some chips, and we had a wonderful little picnic in the middle of Woodbridge mall.

Later that day while we were chatting, she suddenly asks me about talking in Spanish and she says, mami, I'd like to learn Spanish. I almost hit the floor! So now I'm trying to talk even more Spanish with her, which is hard b/c she speaks English so well its automatic to respond back in English. When I catch myself, I'll repeat my response in Spanish, repeating in both languages whatever word or phrase might be new to her. Hey, she just might still turn out bilingual!