If Only It Were THIS Difficult To Get ME To Eat!

Feeding time is so annoying around our house. First of all, Sylvie-Faye just doesn't want to eat anymore. Well, I shouldn't say she doesn't want to eat at all. The truth is, she wants to eat, but only if she can walk around the house and also it has to be either chocolate, candy, ice cream, pockaple (popsicle) or pop.

I have tried so many different tactics to get her to eat and I finally found one that works. Sylvie-Faye is really into monsters and being scared lately, so if I pretend like the food is a poor, innocent little creature and she's the monster, she'll eat it and growl afterwards. I have to scream in a high-pitched voice and say, "No. Please. Don't eat me. Don't eat me" and then Sylvie growls, "I monster. I eatchoo." She then bites the eating utensil as hard as she can, takes the food from it and growls like a monster. It's....lovely that my little girl acts this way at the table.

Then there's Chloe who doesn't need me anymore. She thinks she's all grown up and can do it all herself. She likes to feed herself and I know, she's 14 months old now. I should let her learn these things, but it makes such a mess. It's a battle every time, so I have to put the food on a spoon or fork and hand it to her. She feeds it to herself.

Today at lunch, the monster tactic wasn't working anymore, so my sweet boy, John, stepped in and said, "Mom, I can get her to eat". He ran to his room and pulled out a book about elves. Then he sat down and read the first page to Sylvie. My girls LOVE having stories read to them, so she was excited and listened to the first page. Then John turned to her and said, "Do you want to see the next page?" Sylvie said, "Yes!" So John said, "OK. Take a bite of food and I'll read the next page." Sylvie said "No." John said, "OK. No story then". Then Sylvie screamed. John said, "You want a story?" Sylvie said, "Yeah".

So John fed her a bite of food and proceeded to read the next page. This continued on for the 13-page book. A very long and painful process, but hey - she ate - the whole bowl of food. Hooray! It's ridiculous the hoops we jump through to get her to eat. I really wish it were this difficult for me. I'd look fantastic!