This post was inspired by one of my FB friends lamenting how hard it is to get her daughter to eat dinner.
I guess the changes have happened slowly, but they've happened. Noah still eats basically all the same things he's always eaten. His current favorite thing to eat any time we'll let him are the crunchy Nature Valley granola bars. So, that's what he starts his day with, apple juice diluted with water and one of the two granola bars in a pack. I still make his oatmeal with apple sauce and there's usually blueberries to go with it. That's slowly morphed into an early lunch. Which means most days he doesn't eat much lunch and therefore wants an early dinner.
I guess about three months ago he gave up his high chair and insists on sitting in a regular chair which we put a booster seat in for him. I make him sit in that chair to make sure he's really hungry enough to sit down and eat. If he won't get in the chair, he's not that hungry. And when he's done, he's done. There is no "one more/one last bite." When he's done with something, when you try to feed it to him he just turns his head away. If it's something he's feeding himself, he'll throw that bite.
Poor Ramen, Noah loves to feed him, and of course, he loves Noah's snacks, so I often end up putting him outside when Noah's eating.
So, his early dinner is still usually fruit, string cheese, cottage cheese, and/or yogurt. Him and Nerdstar love the Fage yogurts that have the fruit stuff you mix in. He also loves crunchy/salty stuff - even pork rinds Nerdstar shared with him on our road trip!
Unfortunately, his early dinner means he doesn't sit and eat with us anymore. He's also too wound up from Nerdstar getting home to want to sit still. The only way we can get through eating our dinner, when we cook at home, is to put on Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends dvd and hope he sits and watches it - sometimes while eating cheerios or fortune cookies.
Later in the evening, after playing with Nerdstar and watching "annoying orange" videos on you.tube, he finally wants more snacks. This is when he eats whatever of those few items he didn't eat earlier in the day. And when she doesn't make him sit in his chair to eat them. (ahem.) And this is when he still drinks some milk, which he doesn't like to drink in the mornings.
Now, this brings us to those nights we don't want to cook or do dishes and just want to go grab some dinner. I won't lament, once again, the total lack of restaurant/fast food choices in our neck of the woods.
Noah still loves people watching and restaurants. But, being a two year old boy full of energy, it's getting harder for him to sit in a high chair at a restaurant long enough for us to get through the meal. It takes just the right conditions - he has to have literally run around somewhere enough to be able to sit still, and he has to be hungry, really hungry. You'd be surprised how hard that can be to achieve. The one place we can take him where he'll eat the food there is Hometown Buffet. They have all his favorite things, apple sauce, cottage cheese, some carrots, red jello, peach slices and ice cream. We were there the other night with one of Nerdstar's co-workers, and Noah was done before we were. He would NOT sit in his chair and wanted to run back and forth in the isle. I never thought I'd let my kid "run around" a restaurant, but yep, I did. Any other place we go to eat, we still have to pack his snacks. We might have the only two year old who absolutely won't eat french fries, chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, or other "kid" foods. We wouldn't mind if he did, he just won't put them in his mouth.
Do we wish he'd eat more different things? Yes. But we're happy he eats healthy stuff and is growing just fine.
