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I'm Beth. I'm married to my best friend, and he's pretty awesome. We have two equally awesome kids, Gavin and Sophie.

Monday, September 5, 2011

They're just down there right now, shivering!

I was going to finally get around to making a post today about our family camping trip we took last weekend, but I had to instead write about this!

As many of you know, Gavin is one of the pickiest eaters on the planet.  Now, when I say that, its not like 'oh yeah, my kid's a picky eater'.  He SERIOUSLY is a picky eater. I mean, he has some sort of serious phobia about a ton of foods.  Getting him to eat healthy foods is a constant battle, and new foods -- forget it.  Its extremely frustrating and sad to me, because 1)I like to cook and 2) its so hard to get the nutrition into him that I know he so needs. 
Anyway, he had told Ernie he'd try some stuff from our garden, because we grew it ourselves, and I don't know if that's less scary to him or what.  Whatever the reason, I was very happy to hear it but had my doubts.  He says he'll try something and then he'll freeze up and just can't do it.  This past week we were having a bunch of vegetables, and he was eating cucumbers (which are one of the few veggies he will eat).  Since we had some cut up zucchini that I had just picked, I gave him a piece and told him it was pretty much like the cucumber he was eating.  And...

HE ATE IT.

Big deal, your kid ate a piece of zucchini.  No, really, its a HUGE deal.  I was so shocked I just stood there for a minute, speechless.  If we are successful in getting something new down his throat, its not before there is a big deal made, crying, threats of privileges being taken away, etc.  I was so excited that he willingly ate it, no problems. 
So I came up with an idea.  I told him that I would keep track, and when he has tried 5 new healthy foods, he will get a reward.  I'm not usually one for bribing kids to do stuff they should already be doing.  But this is sort of a different circumstance.  And he seemed pretty excited about the prospect so we're giving it a try.  I actually thought it would probably take the rest of the year or more to make it to 5, but yesterday at lunch, he tried a nectarine.  He was more apprehensive about this one -- it sat on his plate through our whole lunch, until he had no other food left to distract him.  He stared at it for a while, but the important part is, he eventually tried it.  It wasn't his favorite thing, but he also didn't die (something he seems to think will happen if he tries something different).  And I don't care if he LIKES what he's trying, as long as he gives it a good try before refusing it by saying "I don't like that".  He has to know he doesn't like it from experience, not just because it seems weird. 

Then came the biggest shock of all.  We picked several things from the garden last night.  One thing Gavin picked was two cayenne peppers.  We were eating dinner and somehow it came up that he would try one.  I totally believed he was just teasing.  I mean, I will not even eat those.  Ernie had them on his plate, and there Gavin went: he actually ATE a bite of cayenne pepper.  This kid that's afraid of homemade hamburgers.  Seriously!?  I was so freaking shocked.  And that is when I knew hell must have frozen over. 
The first bite he said was fine, so he took a second bite and got a seed -- okay so then he wasn't too pleased.  2 glasses of milk, a piece of bread, and a spoon of sugar later he was fine, and more importantly, he had tried something extremely different and made it through!
I am so incredibly proud of him! 

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