Family Dinners

All of you who've had experience with feeding Oliver know that he eats a lot. (I mean a LOT.) And he isn't too picky about what he eats. In the last couple months, though, he's changed. He has been spitting out his food. And he's decided to not eat meat. Or most vegetables. Or, sometimes, anything but bananas.

I've been expecting this to happen, because supposedly even the best eaters can turn into picky toddlers. I just shrugged and tried to find new ways to sneak vegetables into his food.

Lately, though, we've started eating dinners together at the table, and guess what!? He'll eat anything we're eating. I used to make him a separate dinner and feed him first so that Jared and I could eat "in peace." We usually ate grown up dinner after he was in bed and we could watch a show on TV. I've always felt that family mealtimes are very important, so I decided he was old enough to stop that. I set him up in the booster seat at the table, and I cut our adult food into pieces for him. I hand him a fork and say go for it. I figured he'd either eat it or not eat it, and I prepared myself to be okay with either outcome.

So many times I've offered him broccoli, and he has refused it. It was one of his most hated vegetables. Then this week, he saw Jared and me eating it, and he wanted some. He asked for it.

I gave him a piece, ready for him to scrape it off his tongue with his fingers. But he didn't. He chewed it and he ate it. He asked for more. Since then, he's eaten eggs, pork roast, a bit of salad, tuna... almost nothing has been refused.

Dinnertime is now my favorite time of the day because we all get to sit at the table and be together. Dinner talk mostly revolves around, "Oh... you read a book today about ducks? That's great!" But still. At least we're all sitting there doing something together.