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No Grilled Cheese, Please!

April 2, 2008

Last night was a simple dinner of grilled cheese (made with shredded mozzarella, the boys’ favorite) and cut-up red pepper and carrots. A. came in as I was starting to make the sandwiches and was just despondent over what I was cooking. He wanted me to make macaroni and cheese instead. (I think he was upset that this was going to be another dinner he skipped — he hadn’t eaten a single bite of last night’s meal.) To his credit, he talked to me about it rather than just throwing a tantrum. I explained that one of my jobs was to help him learn about foods that he likes and that will help him grow and be healthy. So while the sandwiches were cooking we made a list together of things he likes for me to “cook” for lunch and dinner:

• macaroni & cheese (from a box only)
• cream cheese sandwich
• yogurt
• noodle soup (my chicken soup, strained, with noodles)
• plain pasta with Parmesan or shredded mozzarella

Then we looked over the short little list and I asked if he could see now why it would be fun to be able to add more foods into rotation — especially something like grilled cheese, which has the bread and cheese he already knows he likes. My sweet 4 year old just looked at the list, and giggled. “You’re right mom, that’s not a lot of stuff,” he said. But he still ate nothing for dinner.

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Filed under: Meal Planning,Who ate it?

Tags: cooking, dinner