Our son doesn’t eat much in the way of what the rest of us call “food.” He drinks milk, and eats pizza, pasta, string cheese, apples, grapes, occasional bananas, strawberries, and chicken nuggets. I think that may be it. His only source of non-dairy protein comes from Tyson chicken nuggets.
Considering he’s five and a half, this is getting old. We cut him a little more slack than we gave Unfocused Girl, because of his food allergies — he needs to be comfortable saying “no” to food that might put him in the hospital — but enough is enough. We’ve been pushing him harder lately, and tonight at dinner, we told him he had to buckle down and eat some chicken that didn’t come in a breaded nugget the size of a fifty-cent piece and the shape of a Shmoo.
He fussed, he complained, he even started to fake cry a little, until Unfocused Girl said, “I bet you can’t finish your chicken before I finish mine.” BAM! The race was on, he ate every bite, smiling and trash talking her, and she even let him win.
Time to raise the Girl’s allowance.
The Unfocused Life 
HAH!! Awesome!!!
My son is super picky about things too…I never cater to it though. There’s always a little bit of one thing he likes on his plate and if he wants more then he’s gotta eat the rest. End of story!!
Thanks for coming by, Plucky. That’s pretty much the way Unfocused Girl got used to real food — when she was four years old, she had to eat four bites of everything, when she was five, she had to eat five bites — and by then, we didn’t have to push her.
Will you please send Unfocused Girl over to our house? AJ is still a picky eater. We make him eat things out of his comfort zone daily, but that often means that dinner lasts for hours because he just pushes it around his plate. I think a race might be the answer — he loves races. But he lacks a helpful sibling.
I’m sure something could be arranged.
I never outgrew my picky eater stage. But sisters can be very helpful at times.
You go Unfocused Girl!
:D
Picky would be an improvement. It would mean that he would occasionally pick something to eat.
Man, I don’t even know where to start. I might have to write my own food pickiness entry. Red will sit down and say, “I don’t want X on my plate!” Tough titties. You liked it well enough yesterday……but for some reason X offends her sensibilities today. It takes her hours to (maybe) finish a meal but I’ve decided I don’t care. If she’s not hungry, why push it. If she is, and can’t be bothered to eat the food she’s been served, she can go to bed hungry.
My son used to be kind of picky about food. We tried various things, and all of them worked to expand his diet. But now that he’s 13, he eats everything!