My Picky Eater

My son is a picky eater. He didn't start out that way, but by the time he turned three he was starting to exert his independence when it came to what he would or wouldn't eat. Thankfully there has always been a core group of healthy foods that he likes but I get bored serving him the same things over and over again. I'm also SO very thankful that he doesn't have any allergies that we have to work around.

In some ways he has improved over time and has learned to like a few new things, but he's still quite particular. In any case, I wanted to share some of the things that have worked for us when it comes to working with a picky eater.

The biggest thing to remember is that it does NOT work to force feed or turn this into a battle field. It's a battle you probably won't win. And who wants to make eating a stressful time? Not me. We've tried it in the past and it never seems to go well.

The second most important thing is to KEEP TRYING. Don't ever give up trying to introduce foods that they haven't liked in the past. Maybe making it in a different way will help them enjoy it. But always give them a chance to try things. They may surprise you and try it someday.

The times we have had success are when we don't make it a big deal that the kid doesn't like something. It's fine that they don't like something. I have food preferences too. Of course, these are children - and when they don't prefer 80% of all the foods your family eats, you need to try to expand their palette.

Here are a few tactics that have worked for us at one point or another:

• Put a bite or two of something new on their plate that the rest of the family is eating for a meal. Don't mention it's there, just proceed as thought nothing is awry. If they're feeling super picky they'll notice it right away and you have to try another tactic, but sometimes they'll just take a bite and realize they enjoy it. 
• When they do try a new food, the best way to promote additional excitement about eating more is to act completely surprised and shocked that they're eating said food. Throw in a little reverse psychology for good measure if you feel it suits. Things such as: "What?! I can't believe my eyes. Did you just eat that? No way!" or "I bet you're not going to want any more of that but I love it, so I'm going to eat yours." These often get them going and wanting to keep the shock factor going. It often helps them to eat more especially if they only sort of liked the new food and weren't sure they wanted to keep eating more. They'll sometimes keep going just to see you react with such amazement. 
• Have them try something new by putting their tongue on it. Sometimes they'll be more confident to try a bite if the first little bit on their tongue doesn't offend. 
• Have them try a bite and let them know it's okay to spit it out if they decide they really don't like it. 
• Bribe/Reward them. We offer our son a quarter to add to his piggy bank if he tries a new food. He doesn't really even spend his own money yet since he's only four, but he understands wanting to fill that piggy up with coins. You could also use foods that they already like or dessert at the end of the meal to encourage them to take a bite of something new.

Another problem with picky eaters is that you don't want to feel like you're catering to them when you eat meals together as a family. You want your child to be nourished and healthy but you can't fix everyone a different meal at dinnertime. Here's what we do:

I serve things I know my son likes and often let him choose (from healthy options) what he wants for breakfast and lunch. Then at dinner, I make what my husband and I like and let the kids eat the parts they like OR I sometimes will adapt the meal some to the kid's taste, but I try not veer far from the core menu. For example, when we eat fajitas for dinner I make cheese quesadillas for the kids. It goes with what we're eating and then they eat the rice and veggie that goes with our meal. Or when I make stir fry I keep aside some of the chicken and veggies that I cut up to steam separately since my son doesn't like the sauce. So he's eating mostly what we're eating, just in a little different format. Of course we continue to offer opportunities to try it with the sauce so that someday, we will all eat the same thing with no alternates needed. 

Baby Girl

Hey blog world. Thought that before I jump into posting again, I should update anyone who doesn't know me well to the fact that I'm now a mom of two! Karina was born last January and we are loving having her in our family. Big brother dotes on her and tussles with her and she giggles with glee whenever he's around (and not messing with her or taking toys away from her). Having two children is harder in some ways - with demands from all sides, but sometimes easier when they help to entertain each other.

Oh Joe's, won't you please open a store in Bloomington?

So I think pretty much everyone I know who has ever been to Trader Joe's has found a wonderful treat that can be found no where else. TJ's keeps you coming back for more and has you drive miles and miles to do so - unless you're one of the privileged people who live close to one of their stores. The closest store to us is about an hour and a half away, so when we happen to be up in Indy for another reason, we try to make a excuse to swing by.

I usually go in with very few specific recommendations and most things are not found in your regular grocery store, so it's a bit of a guessing game as to what's going to be good. The great thing is, it's almost always wonderful. Pick something up in the store. If you think you might like it, you probably will! The added bonus is that everything in the store is chosen from manufacturers who use only organic or natural ingredients. So you can feel good about everything you buy. Of course, a lot of the things we bought have all-natural sugar and butter so you still have to use some moderation if at all possible in your consumption of their delectable goods. Oh wait, but there's more. Somehow, the prices at TJ's are not completely outrageous for the quality of food they provide. Our natural foods store here in town always seems so pricey that I hardly ever shop there. I know it's probably better for me, but my budget just doesn't allow for it.

This past week we went up to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. We have a membership there this year, so try to make it up there often enough to make the membership worthwhile. It was a great time to go, a Thursday afternoon - we nearly had the place to ourselves. Just a smattering of other people. Compared to the Saturday of our original visit... which was packed. You can see my husband's blog post about the line ride here. Anyway, since we were in the middle of Indianapolis, it was only a few extra minutes north to the Trader Joe's. So we decided to go for it.

We found some gems this trip. My favorite turns out to be something Scott picked out. These beautiful and delectable Almond Windmill Cookies. I'm kind of a sucker for anything almond flavored. These taste a lot like the Spritz cookies my mom always makes/made at Christmas, but more crunchy. I prefer the softer spritz cookie, but these are so yummy and I don't have to make them myself or see how much butter actually went into them. Just the smell when you open the box is enough to make me swoon.

The other thing that I really liked even though it wasn't quite authentic was the Garlic Naan. It had really great flavor and was super soft and fluffy. Not soft and chewy like naan usually is. I'd say it's not bad for pre-prepared naan. It motivated me to make Chicken Tikka Masala and didn't add any pressure to make my own naan, so I was happy about that. Not that I've made my own naan very many times, but we always like to have some with this meal if we can.

We are also enjoying a pound plus bar of 72% dark chocolate, cereal bars, ginger candy, pistachio nutmeats and Scott is enjoying some Costa Rican peaberry coffee and black licorice (Scottie dog shaped). I also found some polenta. I had been wanting to try a new recipe - Polenta Lasagna, and thought I'd seen polenta at the store around here, but when I went to go look for it, I couldn't find any. Scored some at Trader Joe's. Hooray.

As you can tell, we don't end up eating very healthy as a result of visiting Trader Joe's since we buy candy and cookies, BUT if we lived closer and could go more often, they have a whole ethnic frozen food section that I'm dying to explore and other things I could work into my regular shopping rotation. So... if Trader Joe's would like to open here in Bloomington (if Bloomingfoods will allow it), I'd be one of their first and best customers.

A delightful healthy treat

When bananas get too ripe it's time to make banana bread right? Sometimes yes. But lately we've been enjoying a different kind of treat. One that has a bit less sugar and fat. When bananas get a little over-ripe it's time to make a banana smoothie.

I used to make them with just bananas, ice, milk and a little sugar. I don't know how it took me so long to figure this out, but just recently I've started adding some chocolate drink mix instead of the sugar and it makes it even better.

I find it a little hard to eat a banana by itself. Especially once it's past it's prime. Too mushy and blech. But in smoothie form pretty much anything is edible. Ok, maybe not anything. But if there's a texture problem, it sure helps.

Does anyone have recommendations for using a blender and getting all the ice blended in really nicely and staying icy but no big chunks of ice? I end up over blending to get everything smooth and then have to put my smoothie in the freezer for a bit to ice it back up. It takes a little extra time but I'm actually ok with this extra step because it my opinion more icy cold = more awesome.

Potty Training

If I know one thing about parenting these days, it's that I really don't know anything about parenting. I have general concepts and things I try to do to be a good mother, but I'm just taking it one day at a time. Praying I don't mess my kid up. This is what you should keep in mind while reading my thoughts on potty training. I don't think there's a right or wrong way. It's just what we did. Maybe it will be helpful to you in your 'journey', maybe not. Or you can just laugh at my mistakes if you've trained numerous children already.

My whole approach to potty training was to get my child interested in using the potty as early as possible. People talk about waiting until their kids show signs of readiness. While I didn't try to push the issue too hard, I definitely didn't wait until he was begging to go to the potty. But I'm not one of those elimination communication people either. I thought about it... and I kinda sorta tried it... We sat him on his little potty for the first time when he was six months old. I'm not sure what my thought process was exactly, but I remember wanting to be sure my child wasn't scared of the potty. Gotta introduce it as soon as possible. A few tries of that and I decided I was up for waiting at least until he could walk to the potty by himself.

We took it up again a couple months before he turned two (he had been walking for nine months or so, but it was around the time that he showed some interest).

We used the little Baby Bjorn potty as well as sitting him directly on the big potty so he would be able to use either one. The little potty was most comfortable for him, but we only bought one little potty and weren't planning on moving it all around the house. Nor did I want to have to carry around a little potty seat adapter to public restrooms. Teaching flexibility is as important as the actual potty training.

We got as far as him knowing what to do on the potty and being able to get something to happen by us making psss-ing or grunting noises at him to show him what to do. He gradually learned how to gain some control. I forget when he started consistently going poop in the potty - but pretty quickly we were able to catch him starting to poop and put him on the potty to finish. I do remember the last time he did a full on poop in his pull-up without letting us know he needed to go.

It was about a month after he turned two.

Scott, my brother-in-law, and my cousin went backpacking and I drove out to the pick-up point to get them a couple days after I had dropped them off at the trail-head. I took Xavier with me and he napped most of the way. We picked up the guys, Xavier woke up, and we were less than 5 miles from home when I smelled something. Knowing Xavier was only wearing a pull-up, and those aren't made to hold much, I opted for damage control for the car seat and decided to stop and change him into a new diaper. We weren't near a public restroom so a parking lot would have to suffice. We got him out of the seat and I was relieved that the car seat was still clean. But that's about as good as the story got. Most people would probably have just thrown the pants away, but I'm way too practical (*cheap*) to do that. Poor kid. Poor guys in the back seat. Xavier was a little horrified and I have a feeling it placed a keen desire in his heart to not let it happen again.

The last and longest struggle was to get him to keep a pull-up dry. If I put him on the potty to try to go, he would usually pee what was available, but sometimes he had already gone a little in the pull-up before that. We would go for a few days all dry, but it wouldn't stay consistent. We tried a sticker chart and M&M rewards, but neither resulted in being fully trained. I tried to put him in underwear a few times when we stayed home, but ended up cleaning up after him more often than I saw any progress toward it motivating him to keep dry. I would usually revert back to a pull-up once there had been an accident. Maybe he would have learned sooner if I had been more diligent. Or maybe he wasn't quite ready. This went on for several months.  A few weeks ago my husband recommended I go back to the underwear technique and try it again. Something clicked after getting wet a few times and he's now pull-up free! I carry around extra clothes and make sure he's emptied out before we go anywhere, but it's been about a month of successful underwear wearing now. I'm feeling pretty confident in his ability to stay dry. I realize there could be a relapse or accident anytime, but for now, we'll call it a success at two and a half. I still put a diaper on him at night, but most nights that's dry in the morning too. We've had one accident during a nap.

Again, not trying to brag, just excited that I don't have to buy diapers and that this life lesson seems to be mostly learned. I know there are some who train earlier and some who wait until three years old and train in a day. I'm not sure which method I'll take with any future children, but I kind of like starting earlier even if it takes a little longer. I feel like we saved quite a few diapers in the process of staying mostly dry for the past six months. Not having to clean up poop from a diaper for the last six months has been super great. Of course I had the time to do it since I stay home with him. Some don't have this option, so it makes the process different. Or there's a second or third child in the mix and there's not enough time to wait around and see what their toddler is, or is not going to do on the potty.

I guess I just want to encourage parents not to be scared to try early. If it's not working, pick up again later. But don't stress. It's like people say about most stages our kids go through, "you don't see any college students still ... wearing a diaper". I mean, don't TRY to set your kid up to fail, but there are definitely worse parents out there - and they raised children who are managing their bodily functions just fine (most of the time).

I'm always curious to hear stories from other moms and glean any helpful information I can for next time. I'm reading an interesting book called "How Eskimos Keep their Babies Warm - And Other Adventures in Parenting". It has a whole chapter on how the Chinese potty train their kids. People raise kids a little differently all over the world. They all grow up and function in society. Let's not stress so much about what the child psychology books say. It's nice to find helpful suggestions for when we're frustrated or unsure of what to do, but a mother's intuition is valuable too.

International Influence

For all the complaining I do about how my son has started to become a more picky eater, he is still pretty adventurous. He occasionally suddenly decides that he's not going to eat certain things but thankfully most of that turns out to be a phase. Consistently re-approaching the offending food usually results in him eating it again. Or I'm not opposed to bargaining tools like, "if you eat a bite of broccoli, you can have some soda". It works. Sometimes it gets him to take a bite and realize he doesn't hate it and will eat the whole serving.

He never seems too phased by spicy foods. He's up for some salsa on his chips no matter how spicy that salsa is. He might make a face, but he goes back for more. I make curry or stir fry and don't make it spicy hot, but the spices and flavors used sometimes offend little kid taste buds. As a general rule Xavier eats it up. These days one of his and my favorite snacks is this yummy Asian cracker mix imported from Australia. It's a mix of Indian crackers/spices and Asian rice crackers. The best of two worlds joined together in a delightful combination. In Bloomington, you can find it in the organic/health food section at the College Mall Kroger. It might be at the other stores as well, but I haven't looked carefully. Kroger, you can thank me later for the free advertising to my handful of Bloomington readers who probably aren't even interested in this product... :)

Since we're raising our child in the United States for the foreseeable future, I hope to instill a good amount of appreciation for other cultures and foods so that he can be ready to travel the world and adapt well wherever he goes. It does my mommy / third culture kid heart proud to see him enjoying some of the things that I grew up enjoying. I'm thankful the world is growing ever smaller in that you can find international flavors and influences all over the world. There are surely some negative aspects to this one-world culture, but I appreciate the ability to have easy access to a variety of options and an ever expanding worldview for us all. Appreciating international cuisine may seem trivial, but food always brings people together.

Yogurt - the wonder ingredient

So, maybe everyone else already knew this, but greek yogurt works as a great substitute for mayonnaise - or at least it helps to cut back the amount of mayo you use in several recipes. I've been using yogurt (and maybe just a small dollop of mayo for a flavor boost) to make tuna or chicken salad. By the time you get it in a sandwich, the mayo's main job is to add moisture, so why not make it healthier and use yogurt instead? Greek yogurt is a lot thicker than regular yogurt so it even works as a sandwich spread for a deli turkey sandwich or turkey burger. Unless of course you're looking for that mayo taste. Most of the time, I have enough other stuff on my sandwich that I don't miss the mayo flavor and I never used to slather it on enough that it's been a predominant taste for me to miss. I'm sure you could add some spices to your yogurt too, but I haven't experimented much with that yet. I don't make potato salad very often since my husband doesn't like it, but the next time I do, you can bet I'm going to be adding some yogurt and cutting back on the mayo.

There are also a lot of great recipes out there that use plain yogurt if you don't want to eat the rest of the container of yogurt on it's own.

Making a smoothie is a quick and easy option. (Except for the part where you have to clean the blender.) Use whatever fruit you like, yogurt, milk or juice, ice cubes and maybe a little honey or sweetener - blend it up - yum! Another great idea (my son's favorite) is to turn that smoothie into a popsicle!

Here are a few more of my favorite uses for plain yogurt:

Whole Wheat Molasses Bread
This bread is amazingly good! Only six ingredients and no yeast. It's sort of a cross between sweet bread and regular bread. Definitely more moist like a zucchini or banana bread, but not as sweet. That's why the Nutella that Joy mentions using as a spread puts it right over the top. Kinda stops from being as healthy of course... Another thing that is delectable on top of this bread is that new white chocolate cream cheese.

Tzatziki Sauce
I haven't tried this actual recipe, but regularly make Turkey Gyros from a Pampered Chef cookbook that uses similar ingredients. I've never added dill, my recipe calls for fresh parsley, but if I can find it, I'm going to try dill next time.

Chicken Tikka Masala
This recipe may not be totally authentic Indian food, but it is definitely yummy. I make it with a few tweaks. The most important being that you don't need a whole tablespoon of turmeric in the rice - a half teaspoon will color it just fine. Nor do you need four tablespoons of butter in the rice - one small pat or a tablespoon of olive oil will suffice.
And for the sauce, I usually use a little less chicken and butter than is called for. I use half and half instead of heavy cream, and usually a bit less than the recipe states.
The yogurt in this recipe is used to coat the chicken before cooking under the broiler, making for some very moist and juicy chicken.