Bait and Switch

Dylan tricked me.

 He torpedoed into solid foods with abandon, eating anything and everything I carefully spooned shoveled into his waiting mouth. Much more quickly than I could have imagined, he was eyeing the food on our plates, eager to eat what everyone else at the table was eating.

With only a smidgen of the caution I used with Abbey, I let him experiment with food beyond purees, smashing and cutting and slightly overcooking foods to be sure that he didn’t choke. I was relieved to discover he was thrilled with just about any food offered to him.

Like I said, he tricked me.

Toddler pickiness is settling in, and trying to figure out meals that don’t involve a serious amount of wasted food can leave me frustrated. I don’t want to fall into a mac and cheese rut, despite the fact that I am fairly certain both my children part mouse, as evidenced by the amount of cheese they’re willing to consume.

So, I decided to trick them.

While not the most original idea, I’ve taken to using food coloring and cookie cutters to con Abbey and Dylan into forgetting they don’t like what I’m serving.

For some reason, a waffle isn’t appealing, but a purple waffle is the bee’s knees. Pieces of any sort of meat are met with looks of disgust, but if I let Abbey eat them with toothpicks, at least a few bites make their way into her mouth.

Today’s disguised lunch used to be a turkey and cheese sandwich on multi-grain bread. Behold the transformation into mini-butterfly and mini-chick delicacies. I will never underestimate the power of mini-cookie cutters.

mini-cookie cutters sent to Abbey by our very special Aunt Carolyn

I ended up eating all but one of Abbey's blackberries

Dylan's were thrown to the ground within seconds

I guess I can't win them all

This post was brought to you by Mama Kat's Writing Workshop.  The prompt was "What's for dinner? I'm starving." (I figured: dinner? lunch? use a cookie cutter and you can eat it anytime!)