Mommy Monday

True confession.

I never make my kids eat vegetables.  I have been "making" them eat fruit every day, but I never make them eat a vegetable.  I have tried "tricks" which has resulted in the following:

*After mixing sweet potato puree into mac and cheese, both girls boycotted mac and cheese for about 6 mos.  This was bad for 2 reasons - 1.  It is one of their main dinners that is easy to make and they both like and 2.  They actually eat the "healthy" kind of mac and cheese (whole wheat, organic - most of the time).

*Taylor has projectile vomited when I lied and said an asparagus spear tastes like a green french fry.  This really was one of my poorer choices, again for 2 reasons - 1.  She knows I'm part-liar and 2.  She was very wary of anything green...I don't know why I just wrote "was" - she still is.

*In including my kids in helping me make dinner, which the experts claim will liken them to eat more veggies, my kids later refuse to eat said dinner, because "I know what's in that, and I'm not eating it."

*We tried growing our own vegetables, which again the experts said will liken the kids to eating them.  Not only was our garden a flop, but Bailey especially was relieved, because she said it'd be really disgusting to eat a vegetable that grew in dirt.  I explained that they all do, and she added this information to the mental checklist she has, "Why I Hate Vegetables and Never Want to Eat Them, Ever.  Ever."

*For awhile, I was including a small serving of veg on their plate with dinner, saying they had to eat that small serving.  "Making" them.  This resulted in both girls dreading dinner time, which I really didn't want.  And by dreading,  I mean full-on screaming, crying, pleading when I started fixing dinner.

SO...I am not a "good" mom that feeds her kids veggies.  I don't put it on their plate, and I don't make them eat it "so they can have dessert."  I just put it on the table for Kevin and I to eat (I'd say enjoy, but my late-in-life-veggie-eating-husband wouldn't attach the word enjoy to vegetables ) and I offer it to them each time.  They do eat fruit - not all fruits but several, especially in smoothies - and I give them a multivitamin.  My hope is that if I continue to offer it, one of these days one of them (and then the other one, who wouldn't want to be left out) will say, "ok, a little."  Kevin, who never ate veggies growing up, now says, "ok, a little" when I offer him the vegetable...so maybe they'll be like their dad.

In the meantime, I'll keep cutting up bananas and scooping out applesauce.