Day 523 - Cereal Stealer

Emma has become a picky eater. In the beginning, Emma would pretty much eat anything we put on her plate -- including the plate. But over the past few months, she has realized that there are certain foods that are tastier than others. She really enjoys eating meat, eggs, rice, cheese, and fruit. She does not enjoy carrots, corn, peas, plain bread, and fois gras.

There's really no use trying to force her to eat the things she does not like. We've tried, and it usually results in one of three things: 1) She throws the food on the floor. 2) She spits the food on her tray. 3) She tries to stab us with her plastic spork and cries "Don't you f*&(ing understand I don't like peas?!?"

Her finicky ways has extended over into snack time. Between meals, I fill up Emma's and Andrew's snack cups with an assortment of different cereals: Cheerios, banana puffs, and little Elmo crackers. It becomes a little game with the kids to see what type of snack they're going to pull out. Sometimes I'll even stick in a severed finger just for fun.

The problem is that Emma realized that Cheerios are rather plain tasting compared to the banana puffs and the crackers. She'll be very patient and pull everything out of her snack cup except the Cheerios. It's quite interesting to see her use her little fingers and delicately pull out the puffs and crackers. You almost imagine the game Operation and the sick dude being saved with Emma's fingers of life.

Once Emma is left with nothing but Cheerios, this is when she gets sneaky. When Andrew isn't looking, she'll take his snack cup and run away into the corner of the room or to the sofa. She knows the clock is ticking, so she quickly makes her move. Emma frantically sticks her hand into Andrew's cup looking for those tasty morsels of banana puffs and Elmo crackers. And when that doesn't work, she'll start flinging the snack cup up and down hoping to spill all of the contents on the floor.

Of course all of this eventually culminates into a screaming match between Andrew and Emma. Andrew is screaming for his snack cup back, and Emma is screaming and spitting banana puffs and Elmo crackers on Andrew's face. The end result is Andrew getting his snack cup back, and Emma's snack cup being refilled with a few more banana puffs and crackers.

Although it does get tiring having to figure out how to get Emma to eat , we have made sure not to give in easily to her whining. We still give her the same food Andrew eats, and we try to make her try new foods. And if you really think about, it's pretty smart of Emma to take Andrew's food away. I just hope when she becomes a teenager, she's not going to do that to my wallet when she runs out of money.