Operation: Covert Comestibles

My wife and I have established a bit of a routine when I come home from work these days.  ('These days' being the time between getting her knocked up and, basically, now.):

She will sit and watch CSI on SpikeTV while I drop everything to make dinner for our son and, time permitting, ourselves.

While this may, on the surface, seem like a thinly concealed criticism of my darling dear's apparent disinclination to fend for her family in any way, given her role as a SAHM*, I assure you with the utmost sincerity that it is not.  (Neither am I, in any way, attempting to define any of the responsibilities of the SAHM / SAHD** role.  That's opening myself up to a tarrin' and featherin', that there is.)

I did, to be frank, openly criticise my wife for just that reason alluded to above approximately two years ago during her first pregnancy.  I quickly and volubly learned just how much of her day was spent confined to bed & sofa due to her chronic fatigue, and how this unwilling repose was interrupted by even more unwelcome scurrying to the water closet in order that her innards could reaquaint themselves with singing into the porcelain microphone; which was strange, since they had just completed an a capella number not 20 minutes ago and Amy hadn't been looking for an encore.  And by the way, did I notice how she wasn't even in bed for most of the night last night?  NO!?  So glad YOU could sleep... Dear!  Well, to enlighten you, that's because I was sleeping on the floor beside the effin' toilet in my bathrobe to conserve energy so I wouldn't have to run back and forth so much!!

Ahem...

You get the idea.  And so did I.  Now, she also babysits a two year-old girl for two to four days per week.  So this simian ain't bitchin' 'bout nuthin'!

I come home with energy, a settled stomach and an exuberant glee to cook for my nuclear family.  (Sometimes, yes, PB&J is cooking.  Look it up.  And for gawd's sake, don't let your toddler eat it with clothes on!)

The biggest challenge here is to somehow, some way, get Declan to eat.  his.  vegetables.

Meat?  Yup.
Breads and cereals?  Yeah.
Milk and milk products?  Hello!  Bewbies anyone?  Duh!
Fruits?  YUM!  More please.
Veggies?  sigh...

Declan could suck the good stuff out of a mouthful of corn kernels and spit the empty husks right back out with a twinkle in his eye.

I have now got him figured out and totally own his veggie-spurning ass!
Check it:
Dad - 1
Dex - 0

Operation: Covert Comestibles simply requires disguising that which he doesn't like as that which he does.  These days, Declan eats a lot of pasta.  Or, he thinks he does!

He loves pasta and spaghetti sauce, so this constitutes the base of many of his meals.

(Cute aside: he quite often sits in his high chair and eats a cracker while waiting for the main course.  Courtesy being as important as it is, Amy and I ask him to say please before we give it to him.  He stretches both hands towards the cracker and emits a piteous, "Meeeeeeee!"  And then, almost completely unasked for, comes the unexpected, "Day doo!"  To which we reply, "You're welcome."  And then we look at each other and gush about what an adorably cute boy we have.  It's rather disgusting.)

(Not so cute aside: I sometimes hold the cracker just out of his reach to see how far he's willing to strain and what sort of contortions his face will make in his valiant but futile efforts at retrieving the food item.  I figure that I do a fair bit for him as his father, so the least he can do is provide some entertainment for me.  This ends when I start laughing too hard to keep it away from him or when Amy comes over and smacks me.  It's about 50/50.)

But anyway.  Pasta.  Veggies get shredded up as finely as possible, raw, while the pasta's boiling and mixed in with the sauce.  Much more veggie than sauce.  A token amount of noodles get lobbed into the mix, just enough to ensure one noodle with each spoonful.  And he eats that right up.  Carrots, cucumber, peppers, broccoli(!), celery, peas, corn... he takes them all and comes back asking for more.  And I give it to him.

We then both settle down on the sofa afterwards, he with a bottle of milk and me with a smug smirk, having finally outwitted a 16 month-old toddler.

---

* - stay at home mom
** - ditto 'dad'

Comments

[Tina]

I always say .."whatever works", and this certainly applied to my kids. Odd kids that I had, they liked veggies, and hated fruit ... go figure. So, I added a wee bit of Cool Whip and some walnuts, and they had fruit salad. Sometimes we can actually outsmart our kids. Tina

[wil]

He'll catch on soon enough and thwart you -- say, when he goes into his "macaroni and cheese" stage, or the dread "toasted cheese sandwich" stage. The comes the "hot dog stage" followed soon thereafter with the hamburg stage and the first chance in a year to get veggies into him -- via Veggie Burgers!

[elizabeth]

I thought I could outsmart my second child, who had a severe aversion to the color green. Kid wouldn't even eat green lollipops, for cryin' out loud. So one day we're eating tri-color rotini with our veggie-laden bolognese sauce and the sprog is refusing to eat the green-colored ones. So, at one of those moments when he's not really paying attention to what's on the fork, I slipped in a green rotini with two 'other-coloured' ones. He starts to chew. Then....wait for it....yes, there's a pause in the mastication....PLOP! Out spits the green one, the other two have been accepted and soon meet a grisly end. Dude, he COULD TASTE IT! In defeat, I buy children's multi-vitamins and hope for the best.

Oh, and Si, as a fellow sufferer of pregnancy induced debilitating fatigue, kudos to you, buddy, for a positive and helpful attitude. May you never know the frustration that is being unable to care for your family. It really undermined by self-esteem as a mother and wife, despite my own DH's superlative reaction.