From unpicky to picky and back again
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- August
- 23
Having been on “vacation” this week, I’ve been around my children far more than usual and, therefore, have observed their eating habits in far more situations than I generally do.
What I’ve realized is probably incredibly obvious to most people, but sometimes you need to hit me over the head with an obvious stick for me to get the point.
Eating habits evolve incredibly over time.
When Rafael first moved to solid foods, he ate just about anything. He had to have a book to look through while we were feeding him, but other than that he wasn’t picky at all.
He ate black beans, steak, chicken, rice, spelt, eggs, yogurt, cheese, hot dogs, pasta, olives, asparagus. Really, we didn’t consider him at all when we were making meals, because we knew he’d eat whatever we were eating.
Then came the (cue the music: dun-dun-dunnnnnnnn!) Terrible Twos.
Rafael began to exert his independence something fierce. Very much like his mommy, he has a stubborn streak a mile wide. Add to that the fact that his tiny baby brother was born and the green monster reared its ugly head, and Rafael became almost impossible to feed.
There was a time where he basically only ate grains. Bread, crackers, pasta. With butter, sometimes cheese, but that was it. He wouldn’t even eat macaroni and cheese.
Markus, meanwhile, moved to solid foods with relish. He ate anything and everything and all of it. And then some.
When Rafael wouldn’t finish his oatmeal in the morning, Markus would gobble it up.
It became almost a chore to feed Rafael; Markus was a human garbage disposal.
Fast-forward another couple years and now Rafael’s 4 and Markus is 2.
Our happy-go-lucky, laid-back, nonpicky baby has turned into a defiant toddler.
He’s still less defiant than Rafael ever was, and less picky than Rafael ever was. But Markus often rejects food a couple times before eating it. And some foods he won’t even try anymore — olives, chicken.
Meanwhile, Rafael has become somewhat adventurous and will even try new things. He starts pre-school in a week and a half, and we don’t worry at all that he’ll get enough to eat while he’s out of our grasp for the first time ever.
Here’s hoping that another two years brings us full circle and Markus becomes the eater he once was. It’ll be nice to go to any restaurant we want and to skip the diners.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm by Amy Vernon.
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Amy hope you had a nice holiday
And I’m sure Markus will come around eventually
Having said that the last I checked my friend’s baby is still heavily into bread and pasta 
My 12 year old just left a very annoying pastafarian (ya mon, he would eat nothing but pasta) stage. It was preceeded by a “chicken caesar salad” stage. You can’t let it drive you crazy. You can, however, refuse to buy cookies/ice cream/chips/lemonade until the little darling sees things your way… LOL. Me? I drink wine with dinner!