food wars :tales from the south

Son is a picky eater. he has his favorites few, and will try to refuse anything else. At home, what is made for dinner, is dinner. If it isn't eaten, or at least tasted, the punishment for not eating it being no dessert.
Son likes dessert.
So he eats most of his meals, though he does complain a bit..

While we were at his grandparents', of course, this was changed on me.

Nana knows he's particular, and asked me before we got there. " I know there are some things they can't have, and Son is picky, so what DO they eat? I'm going to go to the store before you arrive so we don't have to later."
yeah. . . I fell for it, hook , line, and sinker.
She can't have too much citrus, he will eat spagetti and pizza every day if we let him.
her reply ," oh, I'm not eating pizza every day for two weeks. We'll surely have something else he likes."
And again, I fell for it.

the first night , She had chicken. . .
Son? Eats

the second day , we went shopping. and the kids got hungry as we finished. Pappy spotted a pizza place. we ordered one slice each,which turned out to be about 1/4 of a pizza each. these 'slices' were huge. We ended up cutting the kids' slices into 3's. they each ate two- which meant they had a slice to take back to the house.

Somehow, at dinner that evening, those extra slices made it to the table.
son? eats.

My sister made spagetti the following night.
Son... eats.

Miraculously, she had made enough spagetti to put a bowl on the table for the next 2 nights as well.
guess what my Son ate?

We took the kids to a chinese buffet, where, out of 5 full buffet tables, my children both took the pizza. Son also tried the chicken, which he vetoed after a single nibble.

We take them to a greek place, he wants chicken nuggets. (pasta wasn't on the kids menu, but chicken is a universal fallback for kid-friendly)

It seemed to be a conspiracy.

Every night we'd sit for dinner, and there was always some form of spagetti or pizza on the table. coincidentally, also placed in front of Son.

Every night, I put some of the spagetti, or pizza onto his plate, ALONG with whatever else was served. Not heaping amounts either. a teaspoon of peas, a few bites of pork chops... and told him the same rules apply. eat the dinner or no dessert. If he cleared all the spagetti, and at least tried the rest, it was approved. if he didn't touch the rest, it was no snack.

My Mother tried to get him out of this.

"No wonder he doesn't eat it all, you give him so much"

oh hardly Mother. Knowing she is partly picking n me, and partly appealing for her grandson's right to eat whatever he wants at Nana's, the following night i give him just a bit less of the rest of the meal. .. with his spagetti.

She sees its not working, and attempts another method.

" wait until you see what we have for dessert!"

oh no..

She's got the big guns now. Of course, Son ate with no more problem than he had before.
Why would he possibly have a problem anyway? he's getting his favorites every night. He has yet to have complained.

But, being Nana....
You know those snacks were big time.

When we get home, this child needs to be retrained. we do pizza or spagetti once a week.
The boy is asking for leftovers instead.

He isn't getting them,but I found it amusing how easily he slid right into the habit of getting what he wants for dinner.

and of course, the nightly complaints have restarted.

how have i solved this issue?

Also every night, there was spinach on the table. I, myself, refuse to eat the stuff, so can't possibly force it into my kids.
The joke was trying to get one of us to eat spinach.
the joke failed miserably. none of us even got close to doing it.
Peer pressure will get you nowhere in the nuthouse.

my solution to Son's complaints about home dinners not being up to Nana's dinners, was to buy a can of spinach.
I place it on the table, and tell him if he doesn't want to eat dinner, he has to have something nutritious, and i can easily open that can.

HAha!

son... Eats.

CheetahFish :Tales from the south

Playing in the pool, my 8 yr old daughter decided she was a fish. “ what kind of fish are you?” I asked her.

“I’m a Cheetahfish”
A what? There’s no cheetah fish !

Her reply was full of reason, and ever hard to argue.
“ I am a cheetah fish. I am related to the catfish. I am from…. Antadonesia, (complete with spelling) that’s in… um.. Africa or Australia I think. I am the fastest fish in the water, and have great big teeth to eat whatever I want. “

Ok honey. You got it… like I said, she had a name, an animal category, a homeland location, and her survival skills all lined up and ready. How to argue with such a sufficient species ??

When we went out for dinner, we took the kids to a Chinese buffet. This buffet had foods I have never seen in any buffet style Chinese restaurant. We all found it great fun when my Father, known to my kids as “pappy” returned to the table with a bowl of Wasabi.

For those of you who don’t know, wasabi is a flaming spicy hot sauce. It is also a very unappealing shade of green.

My children’s experience with wasabi is humorous- they heard it on a tv reality show- the contestants had to survive a Japanese game show- which included the contestants being forced to eat 2 huge sushi rolls, stuffed with wasabi. If they couldn’t eat it in a specific time- they had to start over. These poor folks were 4 shades of flaming purple. The kids’ amusement came from the Japanese game show crowd. “EAT THE WAAAASAAAABIIII” my kids found dozens of ways to have fun with the word “wasabi”.

So, when Pappy comes to the table with said wasabi, my kids are overly curious. ( and also giving the grandparents every version of their love for the spoken word itself) I ask them to try it. Noooo way. They both were able to smell the wasabi- but weren’t brave enough to try it. ( my father loves hot n spicy- my daughter does as well, and can generally keep up with Pappy, but when she saw Pappy’s head turning red, she refused quickly.)

That evening it was announced by daughter, back in the pool expanding the Cheetah fish’s biology facts, that the Cheetahfish eats wasabi meatballs. When asked HOW the cheetah fish would find these wasabi meatballs in the water, she said, they grow in the grasses. When you pull up the sea grass by the roots, the wasabi meatballs are waaay at the bottom. Ok.

So then how exactly would a cheetah fish go about pulling these sea grass roots?

With its claws of course. It has longer fins with claws, just so it can dig up its favorite snack.

Really now, I had to appreciate the fact she was able to pull these replies out of her head at the speed of light, or perhaps it would be better to call it “faster than the speed of imagination” ?

Its a WHAT?! :tales from the south

On vacation, My parents took us shopping, to buy the grandchildren some toys. ( its what grandparents DO, right?)

We went to a Target store. As we entered, they had a greeter at the door, giving shoppers carts, and handing out red papers.

I was handed one as well. It had the Target logo on it, and was folded in half. Assuming it is a booklet of coupons or specials in the store, I open it, and see… oh, really?! … it’s a MAP of the store !

This had me laughing so hard I almost had to go back outside. Each area on the Map was shown as a red cube, with the department name on it. Toys, boys clothes, girls clothes, accessories, electronics… How many people do you know actually get LOST in a Target store ??

My Mother’s reasoning for this? “ well, they may have just redesigned the store, moved things around.”
Um….. No.
The store was the same as it was last year when we came to visit.

I wonder what the door greeters at Sam’s club are handing out ? THAT store is at least twice the size of Target. Maybe they have mini- GPS systems, and trackers on the shopping carts.