What are you eating?

Lately Bunny has become obsessed with eating. Not so much by what she is eating (unless its ice cream) but by what everyone and everything else is eating.

Whenever we have lunch together, unless we are eating the exact same thing, she has to eat whatever I am eating. If I have a different kind of sandwich, if I have a frozen dinner, even if I have a salad, she has to eat it. In evitably she will like what I am eating more than what she is eating and want it. But if I start off giving it to her she probably won't eat it. Sigh.

She is especially interested if she sees you snacking on something. Probably because she knows its chips or something sweet. She will follow you around hoping to get some. We don't really have anything in our house she can't eat so its usually not a big deal. But sometimes Mommy buys chocolate that is just for her, so I've had to learn to save it for nap time.

Bunny is also obsessed with what animals eat. She has taken it upon herself to help daddy feed the cats every morning and night. She carries their plates of food and gently (or no so gently) places them on the floor. She then yells for them to eat but they really don't want to eat when she's around. Something about a screaming toddler that makes them a bit skittish, I don't know what it could be.

She also forced us to get a bird feeder. Well not forced, but she constantly talked about the bird feeders at my parents house until I gave in and bought one for her. She loves to "help" me fill the feeder and tells me that its okay if we spill because birds like to eat off the floor. She has even found a terracotta dish from an old planter and converted it into a bird feeder too. She carries that one around hollering for birds to come and eat. But again birds eating and yelling toddlers don't really mix. She is also totally mad that the squirrel in our yard has figured out how to eat out of the bird feeder and yells at him a lot.

Finally she is obsessed with the food the animals at the zoo eat. We usually get there first thing in the morning when all the animals have their food. In the bird house she doesn't care about the actual birds but wants to make sure they are eating. Which of course is usually accompanied by yelling at them to eat. She has also discovered the cart the zookeepers bring around with all the food. She loves to see what is on it - the fruit, the veggies, the live worms and insects, the dead mice. She is fascinated, while I'm totally grossed out at the last part.

Her interest carries over into the monkey house. She knows they eat vegetables, including lettuce and the other veggies we pretend they eat like broccoli and green beans just to get her to eat them. She knows they eat monkey chow too and thinks that is hilarious. She wanted to know if there was people chow or little girl chow.

Now if only I could get her as interested in her own food or at least something that is not ice cream. Hmmm, maybe I could make up something and call it little girl chow . . .

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.