I may stink at potty training, but I know how to make 'em eat!!

We all know I am in the middle of the great pee pee dilemma, but that is not the only thing I am dealing with as the mom of a toddler. Eating is a battle as well. He isn't picky so much as he just doesn't want to eat. Half a meatball and this kid is done. If you have read my tip of the week, you know I like to make dinner fun. In fact we like to make everything fun. But this has turned out


better than I dreamed. Bug has always been the kid who you can get to eat one good meal and that is about it. We aren't a huge breakfast family (I know, shame on me mama!), hubby cooks lunch most days, and I always cook dinner. If I am working through lunch, they often just grab a sandwich or whatever and keep on playing while they eat. But we always sit down for dinner. My son is very good at sitting with us and excusing himself, but never eating. We did it all. We were patient. We let him go hungry. I cried when I was postpartum. There was yelling on bugs part until I thought he was going to get sick. It was horrible. But, like everything else with bug, he needs calm. He likes choices. And he LOVES to be silly.  Yes, as a matter of fact we could be the family in all of those silly commercials where the parent is looking like an idiot but is really playing with their kid.

Anyway, back to the eating. The first thing we learned was how to make him eat veggies. He actually loves them. I am sure MANY of you do this. Broccoli is trees. Spinach are leaves, as in the tip-beans are silly beans. If we can't think of something it looks like, they become something else all together. Green beans are willy billy's.

Then, we started giving him his options. We know he likes "dip it", so we ask which sauce he wants (yes, I have seen some disgusting combinations.) I leave his noodles and let him dip them in the sauce. And then, instead of demanding he eat five bites, we would ask him how many bites he would LIKE to eat. And which bites HE wanted. Surprisingly, he usually chooses a number higher than we would have. And even more surprisingly, we discovered if we didn't keep counting the whole time, he would usually eat MORE than he was supposed to!

Then, to this we added some fun. Asparagus is a pirates sword, and when you eat it, it makes you say 'ARRGGGHHH. Chicken makes you cluck like a chicken when it hits your belly. Carrots make you hop like a bunny when you finish them. Only every couple of bites are the silly bites that make you giggle when they hit your belly. And at the end of the meal, that last lonely bite, is SO excited to join his buddies that he makes you run around the room giggling.

When we sat down for dinner tonight, my son was picking and not really eating anything. So we asked him how many bites and he said five. Then he said he wondered which one would make him giggle. By the end, he had eaten EVERYTHING on his plate. And I had given him more than I thought he should eat. No yelling, no fighting, no timers, no time out. Just a funny dinner with some giggling and wiggling!

What great ideas do you have to making sure your kids get enough to eat?