A Little Sketchy Before Your Weekend
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So frustrating. I waffle between cooking everything and no processed food in the house to I’m so tired let’s just go to the drive through on the way home. And I really am at a loss as to how to make Isabelle eat vegetables. Or just try them. Oh, correction, make that Isabelle AND Alan. I have two picky eaters. This feels like my big failure as a mom.
Sometimes it feels like my lofty plans of everyone eating healthy is sabotaged. I know Alan isn’t sabotaging me or my plans. Sometimes he’s just in the mood for a candy bar.
I wish I could teach Isabelle Cantonese but I don’t speak it frequently enough. I’m sure my Cantonese sucks. She asks me to translate lots of names of things in the kitchen and I’m like, I don’t know.
Ok, everyone, enjoy your weekend. Let’s see if my goal of posting everyday to get caught up is wrecked by the weekend.
Man, the food thing is tough, especially if Alan is a veggie hater too! They say you have to keep offering foods to kids, even if they won’t eat them, that the more you offer them (but don’t push them to eat, just offer) the more likely they are to eat them eventually. I can’t really offer any advice (other than the standard, try sneaking extra veggies into things she will eat, like cake and spaghetti sauce; or make smoothies with that green juice from Trader Joe’s [http://alphamom.com/family-fun/food-home/dealing-with-a-picky-eater/]) because I was blessed with a kid who will eat a ridiculous amount of vegetables.
But! I was EXTREMELY picky as a kid and wouldn’t eat many veggies. My mom just made sure I had access to the ones I would eat. But in general I didn’t eat a very balanced diet as a kid, because I just refused to. Then when I was about 18 or 19, I realized that many foods I used to hate were actually quite tasty. My mom says she still gets startled at the things I will eat and cook, because she still half expects me to be that picky kid, even though I’m 35 years old.
Veggies are a tough one! Have you tried frozen peas? My kids like those.
My kids will NOT eat potatoes. Not even mashed with butter and salt. I can’t even imagine how they can not like that.
I like the real photo in your journal. It is very “Charlie and Lola” which is my favorite and my best.
I realize Mandarin is different from Cantonese, but maybe Isabelle would enjoy this website?
http://languageguide.org/
Click on the the different languages, and it takes you to a page with different categories, click on the categories and you can run your mouse over the different pictures to hear the audio. We’ve been using it for Japanese for a while.
Jessica Seinfeld wrote a cookbood called “Deceptively Delicious” that my sister in law swears by. Ive never gotten it because Im usually pretty successful making things with veggies. I make homemade fried rice and pack a ton of veggies in it. I also make shepard’s pie which is basically groundbeef with a ton of veggies in gravy covered in potatoes and topped with cheese lol. My kid has never turned down ANYTHING with gravy on it.
My problem is trying to get her to drink milk, shes not a fan. Even with chocolate or strawberry syrup she only barely tolerates it. So she has yogurt and pudding daily.
I always start dinner by steaming a vegetable and putting it out on the table as the kids are setting it. They almost always end up clearing the bowl before the rest of dinner is actually ready. I’ve been doing this since they were babies and they are not picky eaters. Although given a choice they would subsist on nothing but yogurt tubes, popsicles and fruit leather.