His Favorite Part

Jonas sure gives me a lot to blog about regarding eating! When we had Caedmon we thought we were perfect parents, at least in teaching our kids not to be picky eaters. Even to this day, Caedmon prefers salads and vegetables to sweets. He often doesn't finish a dessert, and a special treat to him is fresh vegetables cut up, particularly raw tomatoes.

Jonas, on the other hand, loves anything with white flour, sugar, and fat in it. He will literally fast for days if all he is offered is meat and vegetables. Only recently have we seen him accidentally eat some greens and meat. For awhile we tried to force him to eat at least a bite of everything, until he developed the capability of gagging until he puked it up. That battle is no longer worth it!

A rule we have in our house is the kids have to ask before they're excused, carry their dishes into the kitchen, then hug and thank the person who made the food. I started making them tell the cook what their favorite part was, so they were at least thinking about what they were thanking the person for, and not focusing on the part of the meal they DIDN'T especially appreciate.

Jonas is hilarious at this. Often he just mimics Caedmon and says his favorite part was the same thing Caedmon says. Other times he just says the first food that he remembers from dinner. When he says, "Thank you, Mom, my favorite part was the salad...the rice...the beans..." I just want to say, "LIAR! Maybe you'd have a favorite part if you had actually eaten a bean!"

My favorites though are when he is honest. "Thank you, Mom, my favorite part was the chocolate milk. My favorite part was the dip-dip. My favorite part was the cookie. My favorite part was the sugar on top. My favorite part was please be excused." Fair enough.

Jonas dreams of a day when he gets pancakes, sweet rolls, and juice for breakfast, PB&J without the bread and peanut butter for lunch, maybe a cookie, graham crackers and a smoothie, and ice cream, pudding, and chocolate dipped bananas for dinner. Those would be his favorite parts!