Do all parents have this much trouble feeding one year-olds? Getting Quinn to eat some days
can be extremely frustrating. He recently went through a phase where he wouldn’t
let me feed him, but he can’t wield a spoon on his own very well yet. So finger
foods were our only option, and there are not many finger foods Q is willing to
eat.
Over the last few days, he’s decided that he’ll let me feed
him again, so at least I can get some food into his mouth. How many bites he’ll
actually take, though, are not predictable. So I always need to have something
on hand that he will eat and can feed himself.
This poses a problem since the only foods he will
consistently eat with gusto are string cheese, Cheerios, steamed carrots and
blueberries. (Seriously, Q shovels this
stuff in.)
He’ll decide he likes something one day and chows down like
there’s no tomorrow. So I give it to him again the next day, and he won’t even
put one bite in his mouth. Toast is a good example. The first few times I made
him toast with cream cheese, he loved it. Now he just throws it on the floor.
So I tried putting jelly on it, and he liked that at first, too, until he decided
he didn’t anymore. So now I just put butter on it, and that’s his current toast
topping of choice. Who knows what he’ll be willing to eat tomorrow.
I’ve tried a few recipes from this baby cook book I bought,
and so far it’s been a horribly disheartening experience. Q’s hated everything
I’ve tried to make. (Oh, how I miss the days I could just open a jar of Gerber
baby food and call it dinner.)
On Saturday afternoon, I decided to try two new recipes.
First, mini banana muffins. Q likes bananas and bread, so there’s no reason why
he shouldn’t like these little muffins, right? The muffins came out exactly the
way they were supposed to, and I thought they tasted quite yummy.
*Disclaimer: Some people
can take pictures of food, and it looks amazing. I do not have this talent. The
following food photos are not great. I didn’t arrange the food on a pretty
platter. I do not own a pretty platter. I have plastic storage containers. However,
I do promise that the food tastes way better than it looks in the photos. (By the way, how unfair is it that these people have awesome cooking AND photography skills?)
I was very excited for Q to try my yummy banana mini-muffins.
When he woke up from his nap, he ate two of them for a snack! He loved them!
Whoo-hoo!
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| See, don't they look yummy? |
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| No suspicious looks so far. |
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| He actually tried a bite! |
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| Oh yeah. Now Q's chowing down. |
Feeling quite proud of myself, I gave the muffins to Q again for breakfast on Sunday
morning. He picked up one piece, examined it closely, put it in mouth… and spit
it back out onto his tray. Then he threw all the pieces of muffin onto the
floor. *sigh* Oh well, I guess I will
eat the other twenty muffins. Good thing they’re mini.
I also made cheesy rice balls. Quinn LOVES cheese. He even
says “cheese” now. It’s really cute. He also really liked this chicken and rice
dish my mom made when she visited afew weeks ago, so I thought this would be a perfect recipe to try.
I tried this recipe a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t get the
rice to form into a ball. But this time, I used risotto rice, and I got it
right. I was so excited! There was no way Q could find anything wrong with
these.
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| Ugly, but delicious. |
I gave Quinn some rice balls with dinner that night. As soon a piece touched
his tongue, he spit it out and threw the rest on the floor. *sigh*
I thought Q might like them better after they’d been
chilled. I gave him some rice balls again for lunch the next day, but I got the
same result. Spit and throw. GRRRR!!!
I’m at a loss. This weekend’s misadventures in cooking for and
feeding Quinn have left me very frustrated.
Okay, mommies of picky toddlers. I need your help! What the hell are we supposed to feed these kids?
The boy can’t live on Cheerios, string cheese, carrots and blueberries.
Now I know why chicken dinosaurs exist…
