Dear Picky Eater of Mine,
I love you dearly. But you’re going to have to bite me.
I’m done with the dinnertime drama. The passive-aggressive poking at your peas. The pantry full of bland, beige, carb-crammed kidnip that makes up your undigestible diet. Cereal and crackers, chips and tortillas, rice and French fries. What are you, a park pigeon?
The fact that your four-year-old body still has the energy to jump on the trampoline and the cognitive focus to work a jigsaw puzzle is, I’m certain, entirely due to the fact that I manage to get three to five soy beans into you every week by bullying you and bribing you with cookies.
I’m not supposed to do that, you know. I’m not supposed to use dessert as a reward. Or cook you separate meals from what the rest of us are eating. Or allow the family table to become a battleground upon which I demand that you nourish yourself, and you take cruel glee in reminding me that I can’t make you.
The experts say I’m doing it all wrong. And by the way you bellow “that’s YUCK!” at the sight of a bell pepper, I can see their point.