Wednesday, April 30, 2008

By whatever means necessary

We call Bunny Bunny because she likes to hop around like a bunny. However, there is one aspect of her personality that is decidedly un-bunnylike. She does not like vegetables.

Now I don't mean that she'll eat some veggies and not others. She does not want to eat any veggie at all. This can be very frustrating when you are trying to get her to eat dinner. Luckily for us she has gotten past the throwing food stage but she will still take veggies off of her plate.

So what's a parent to do? I've made a big production out of eating vegetables in front of her, talking about how delicious they are. She's intrigued but when you offer her one - nothing. I've covered them in cheese, ranch dressing and hummus, all of which she likes. She will take them, suck the topping off and hand them back to you asking for more topping.

But I think Bubs has hit on a good idea, no its a truly fantastic idea. He was eating asparagus one day and told her how much the little tree wanted to play in her belly. He made a production out of eating one, saying it was going down into his belly to play. He then made silly noises of the aspargus playing in his belly. Well Bunny thought this was histerical (and so did I) so she actually tried one. And then another, and then another. Until she had eaten 4 pieces of asparagus (which I don't think I liked until I was 30).

So we've continued this game and it seems to be working. Yesterday we had broccoli at lunch. She wasn't eating much of it until I told her that the broccoli was friends with the watermelon and wanted to be in her belly when the watermelon got there. And she ate it.

I know it won't be long before she figures us out. But for now I can feel like a good parent who's child eats her veggies.

1 comment:

MamaCarter said...

Lapine's The Sneaky Chef is supposed to be a good cookbook for this sort of thing, getting veggies into their food. but why go for deception when Dad can talk her into it with humor!