A Rose By Any Other Name...

Like most kids his age, our 2 1/2 year old son hates vegetables. There's a few he likes, such as potatoes, but only after they've been frenched and then deep fried in oil, sprinkled with salt and served in a paper container of some sort, preferably from In & Out. Baking or mashing the potatoes seems to be some sort of abomination to him and he refuses them with nearly the same intensity as when we try to brush his teeth. 

Being good parents concerned with providing a healthy diet to our one and only precious we've worked tirelessly and diligently to work the green stuff into his diet. We found we can sneak some veggies in if we chop them up finely and mix them in with his normal food and we've been able to do this pretty successfuly with blanched spinach but he's caught on. It's at the point were there is a clear inverse relationship: the more vegetables we try to get him to eat, the less he eats. He'll declare, "All done!" and then hop off the chair and run off to engineer another great train crash involving his Thomas the Train and whatever other poor hapless toy that happens to be laying around.

This is followed 30 mins later with the sort of mind numbing repetitious pleas for food that only a 2 year old can manage. It usually begins with him standing in the kitchen, eyeing the hawaiian (whole grain) bread dinner rolls and then whimpering. The whimpering, if ignored will turn into out right pleading, little hands outstretched, fingers opening and grasping the air, "mine bread! mine!". The Wife and I still ignoring him, she off in a room furiously updating her resume and tracking down job leads and I, bundled up in a blanket trying to enjoy the Lakers game. Go Lakers!

By now, the Wife has closed the door and I've turned up the volume to drown out the sorrowful pleading bleats, "Mine bread NOW! Bread, Bread, Bread, Bread nooooOOOOoooow!" Our son fully fails to grasp our exasperated sighs as signals of our displeasure, or maybe he does and doesn't care. In any case, the wailing is a sign that the tear gates are about to be unleashed and big salty tears soon well up from his eyes and roll down his cheeks all the while he continues his mantra, "Mine bread now" but now they're interrupted by sniffling sobs. It's around this point where I break down and give him his bread, "Okay... papa gets you bread." but now he demands a hug as well. I'm sure as he's latched on to me like a little koala bear munching on his nutrionally void dinner roll that he's grinning to himself for yet another succesful manipulation of dear old dad.

This is all to say that one day, yesterday, we discovered that our son, the champion of vegetable rights, LOVES broccoli. Only, we call them "little tree" and he gobbles them down with a sort of rascalion glee. His eyes light up and shoves them in his mouth and chomps away. I think he imagines himself some great lumbering dinosaur having his way with trees, certainly when he declares, "Ainan eat tree!" I have cause to smile.