Feeding Kids...a Neverending Battle

Have you met my kids yet? Here they are:

OK, maybe that's not an actual picture but it's a damn close representation.  Every time I read  "Cat in the Hat", I can't help but see the similarities between the cat's two trouble-making helpers and my two kids.  All it takes is one look at my living room at the end of the day and you'll know what I mean.  ;-)

These two have gone through all the usual food phases that kids go through.  My three-year old son is in the throws of a "carb-a-thon".  The only protein he's interested in eating is peanut butter.  Eggs (which he loved a month ago) are left on his plate, all cold and unloved.  And dinner...  Well, let's not even go there.


I spend many many a dinner repeating to myself, "He'll eat when he's hungry...he's not starving to death...It's just a phase."  I find myself biting my tongue a lot these days when it comes to meals.  I know if I make a fuss about him eating or not eating, he'll keep doing it just to get attention.  So, I shut up and eat my dinner and ignore him.

Of course, with him in a "carb mode", it makes meal time more interesting.  There aren't a lot of "carb" options in our house these days....mainly to protect me and my diet from myself.  The few we have are "paleo friendly" so that my daughter can eat them too (her system doesn't like a lot wheat either) - but sometimes I find myself standing in the kitchen wondering, "What in the heck am I going to feed them today?"

I had another mother  recently ask me, "Why don't you just let them eat 'regular food' like all their friends?"  Once I was able to pick my jaw up from the floor, I told her, "I am feeding my kids 'regular food' - I'm feeding them 'real' food...food not created in a laboratory and not filled with chemicals and preservatives." 

She huffed at me and walked away (ah, the joys of play groups!)...and I was happy to watch her go.  If she wants to let her kids eat whatever they want and get addicted to junk food, which they'll later pay for with their health, she's welcome to it but that's not going to happen in my house.