Eat it and Wear it

Pig's been getting picky as of late. She's a good eater but it depends on the day/mood/lunar phase/size of diaper wedgie up her butt...who knows...but one day she'll eat eggs and the next day she'll look at us like "what are you stupid, who said I liked eggs?"

Does anyone know how to say "you'll eat it and you'll like it" in baby babble?

I kid, we don't force Pig , we'll try a couple of times and if she keeps declining we'll just try again another day. But I wish I could see what's going on in that little dome of hers.

Luckily there are some things that she'll always eat. She loves rice and fish and will gobble tofu soup. Oatmeal and yogurt is always accepted and so is anything in a baby food jar. For the most part, she likes whole wheat toast and will eat cheese, if it's melted on bread. So far, linguine is ok, we've tried it coated with marinara and another time with a creamy tuna sauce. Turkey chili is tolerated, she ate a ton when I made it and made through half of it when I packed it for her lunch a few days later.

Pig's stance on fruit is a conundrum. She'll eat it pureed from a jar no problem. She'll have applesauce. But fruit chunks she'll spit out every single time. I've tried mango cubes, grape slices, pear cubes, banana slices in her lunches and the little container always comes back 3/4 full. However, when her dad gives her pieces of the whole fruit he's consuming she'll eat it. The other day she knawed on the pear that K was eating. She'll also eat pieces of apple if someone scrapes pieces out with a spoon.

Actually, it's the same with veggies. I have to chop them up and hide them in her meals. I smush up peas in with her salmon and rice or mince cooked spinach with her chili. I've tried steaming and cooking veggies for her lunch and like the fruit...rejected. We keep trying but in the meantime, I'm hiding them in her food to ensure that she's getting what she needs. It's not like she objects to the taste because she'll happily eat the Earth's Best jarred peas and carrots and spinach which looks just awful to me.

We're assuming that it's just pure cussedness at this point. So to be safe we don't plan to introduce juice into her diet until she can understand and respond to the words "drink your milk first." I frown generally on sugar, it's unnecessary and kids just go ballistic under its influence and it'll just rot her teeth. I don't think I'm being anal, food is important and kids should be getting their energy from protein, not sugar. It irritates me when others try to tell parents to relax when they're not the ones who will have to take the fructose frenzied kid home. An occasional treat is fine but sugary juices, soda and candy on a regular basis, no way.