Food Woes...

I decided to make grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner. Little J informed me that she doesn't like tomato soup or grilled cheese. Normally, I refuse to make different dinners for everyone and at least make her try it. She sticks her nose up at anything mostly unless it's total junk food. Well, she told me she'd eat a bologna sandwich if I put mustard on it. I told her that all I had was turkey lunch meat, but I'd make her that instead. She said that was fine. I give it to her and she eats a bite and says she wants candy. I told her not until after dinner. She said now that she doesn't like mustard. Maybe I'm mean, but I told her that she had specifically asked for it that way and I didn't put that much on there and that she was going to finish dinner before she got any sweets and if she chose not to eat, she wasn't getting any treats or snacks later. Magically, she ate the sandwich down...she seemed to forget about the candy for now, so I'm not going to remind her.

Andy's getting tired of her wasting food and so I told him that I was just going to start saving her plates and reoffering her leftovers before she can get other stuff. I just don't understand why you give her what she asks for and she still turns her nose up at it or when I do make something that she claims she likes, she will only eat a bite or two and then she says she's done. None of the other kids give me any problems and will eat 2 or 3 helpings, so I know it's not my cooking. It's just annoying trying to find stuff that she'll eat. Maybe she's testing me who knows...but I told her that she needs to eat healthily...it's not good to eat so much junk food and she slowly is starting to understand that. However, she still does have a sweet tooth and since I have one myself, I can't begrudge her for that.

What do you feed an extremely picky eater? We had spaghetti for dinner last night with garlic bread and corn and she claimed that she liked all that stuff...2 bites of spaghetti later...I don't want anymore, I don't really like this. We got dinner cleaned up and not even 5 minutes later, she wanted ice cream. She didn't throw a fit though this time when I told her that she hadn't eaten her dinner and so she couldn't have dessert. I was surprised at that. She's been very well-behaved yesterday and today and I've been praising her big time for that. She's even thought about other people's feelings too...so we are making some progress.