Feeding the crowd

Heather, over at 2 Brits, 2 Yanks and 2 dogs, tagged me to play a picky food meme, "Just Three More Bites", and share some of my food battle stories. Over the past 12 years, my two chow hounds and my two picky diners have provided plenty of material for me to share with you. All my kids have "J" names, so I'll refer to them as J1, J2, J3 and J4. When I'm in a rush, you'll hear me calling them by that J nickname to get the crowd moving. Since they all have J names, I fall into my father's trap of mixing the names up. As a kid, I used to think it was funny when my dad would call us the wrong name. Now as a parent of 4 kids, I understand how easily that can happen :) Back to the food stories.

My firstborn, J1, does not give me any real trouble when it comes to eating what I put on the plate. He will try new foods, usually with no complaints. Like me, he can be obsessed with chocolate and sweets. I need to install a lock on the pantry some days. I don't want him popping Oreos into his mouth like popcorn. He is sneaky when he does raid the pantry. I think a spy camera may be necessary to catch him in the act. I have to watch my chocolate stash!

My second son, J2, is an extremely picky eater. If he could have pizza for every meal, he would be so happy. I'm always amazed that he'll ask for pizza the day after we just had it for dinner. Does he really think I'll go for the 365 day pizza meal plan? I think it would take him a long time to get sick of pizza. We have our battles every night about trying something on his plate. Anything! He will sulkily eat some vegetables, pasta, chicken and fruit. For some reason, he has a serious aversion to bread. I don't know where that came from. I LOVE bread! So you can imagine how creative I need to be when packing his lunch. He would fall over if he saw a sandwich in his lunchbox.

My third son, J3, is hungry all the time. He is a big eater. In his kindergarten, they asked all the kids to name their favorite food. His classmates are saying pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, etc. My son proudly tells the teacher that he loves meat. His all time favorite food is meatballs. If I didn't watch him closely, he would eat way too many meatballs at a sitting. Like my oldest son, he is open to trying new foods. He has a ravenous appetite. It seems like he is always asking for a snack. He tells me that he likes to eat a lot because he is training to be a wrestler. As he says, he wants to "beef up" so he can body slam the big guys in the ring. I have to watch that he doesn't try his wrestling moves out on my tiny little daughter. Even though she's small, she could probably hold her own in a match.

My daughter, J4, is by far my toughest opponent when it comes to food. With her hands on her hips, she will look me straight in the eye and say, "Mama, I told you. I don't eat that. It's too messy and princesses don't like to get messy!" Now when I give her something that is not messy, she'll say, "Mama, I only eat what I like. Please take this away." She is a true diva in every way. Unlike J2, she loves bread so she can go to town when I give her some Italian bread. She'll get messy eating the bread, but she'll just shake off the crumbs by doing a little dance. Her "messy" speech must be reserved for every other food group. It's a fight to get her to eat fruits and vegetables. She will eat waffles, pancakes, chicken and crackers. Everything else is an ongoing battle. I'm stressed about how much she eats every day. I take some comfort knowing that I was supposedly a picky eater and I grew up o.k.

Kim, the wonderful mommy blogger over at The child, probably has some cute food battle stories to share. So here you go, Kim! I tag you to play the picky food game too :)