Persistence Pays Off

Finally, our persistence in forcing Drew to try new foods paid off.  Before I give you the details let me give you a glimpse into our torture sessions dinnertime rituals lately.

If you haven't noticed Drew is a picky eater.  And I mean PICKY.  Since he was around 14 months old he would make himself throw up versus eat anything he didn't like - we think this was mostly a texture thing.  So overnight the kid went from eating EVERYTHING to about 3 things.  I'm not exaggerating by much.  He still will only eat those "3" things - bacon, PB&J, chicken and french fries, hash browns, sausage, pizza

We let it slide and didn't force new foods until a few months ago - deciding cleaning up puke at every meal wasn't worth it.  Not we had a tendency to lose our appetite (come to think of it that would've been a nice weight loss plan). 

Fast forward to our current dinnertime torture sessions, we're forcing Drew to try new foods.  For weeks he has had the chance to earn "stickers" on his reward chart for trying something new - along with a number of other "chores" he can do.  The reward is anything from stickers to a meal at "Old McDonald's" - his favorite.  Well, recently he could care less about earning his rewards.  He'd rather starve than eat anything.

And to be fair I'd put only a bite of food on his plate, and the rest would be bread/PB, Crackers etc.  Not enough other stuff to fill him up, but enough that he wouldn't starve.  Often we'd have to pin him down to put the new food to his lips, send him to time outs, turn movies/TV off - whatever leverage we seemed to have.  Needless to say there was a lot of screaming and crying from the child - Dave and I felt like crying too out of frustration, but we refrained.

We haven't found anything new that he likes.  Luckily there's only been a lot of gagging, no puking.  That is until last night.  I made spaghetti.  We put some sauce and 1 noodle on his plate, then gave him a slice of french bread.  The meal started out like any other - screaming sessions filled with "I don't like it", "I'm not hungry" (which 2 minutes before dinner was served he was begging for goldfish snacks). 

Dave made a game out of dipping his bread into the sauce and eating it.  We told Drew all he had to do was dip his bread and he could earn the sticker.  He did it.  Then on his own went back for more, and more, and more.  Dave and I were making "eyes" across the table - you know the "Holy Crap he's eating it, but let's not make a big deal about it" eyes.  Then he asked for more sauce and more bread.  Three servings later he announced he loves spaghetti.  He asked to have it for dinner tonight too!

That my friends is progress.

Sunday School Presentation

Yesterday at church Drew's Sunday School class was asked to go up front and recite last month's verse. Drew went up so excited...




And then proceeded to make faces at the congregation (that's Drew just to the left of the bald head). Um yeah - we're proud.

He does know this verse. I swear it!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

First School Photos

I've had these for more than a month, but I needed to be sure we were past the holiday craziness and well that those that received them as gifts got them first.

In November, Drew took his first school pictures.  And after a few family photo shoots - first with my family for my Mom's birthday, then with the cousins in November - we were batting .000.  No solo shots for Drew, either he wasn't cooperating or the photographer "lost" the photos in the span of taking them and downloading them.

Needless to say when we had our "viewing day" it was all I could do NOT to buy everything they had:

Doesn't he look like a good boy?!  Well I didn't buy everything under the sun, because HOLY CRAP school pictures are expensive.  But I was willing to pay what I did, because without them we'd have no professional 3 Year pictures of Drew.

A little back story - to my dismay Drew had an accident at school that day - which I noticed when I picked him up and he was in different pants.  I was panicked that it happened before pictures.  I was relieved to see that it was after.

When "Growing Up" Backfires

Drew and I were talking on our way home from Preschool yesterday about how he needed to try more foods and that he should eat Mommy & Daddy's chicken (I tried to make it seem extra cool because it would have cheese on it).  I also mentioned that if he ate more foods he'd grow up big and strong.

Drew's response: "I don't want to grow up and get hair all over my body".

So much for enticing him with dreams of getting taller and stronger... he sees grown men as hairy beasts. 

Bittersweet Moments

For every parent there are those bittersweet moments.  The moments when you're actually sad to watch your child(ren) grow up - for that brief (and let me stress brief) moment when you wish your son or daughter could freeze in time.

Dave and I had one of those moments on Monday after swim lessons.  Drew was in the back seat talking about "wabbits" - and I said to Dave I'm going to miss the days when he starts pronouncing things correctly.  It'll be another sign that our "baby" is grown up.

Dave chuckled and said, "Why do you think I bring up and have him say 'baden' once in a while when we're in the bathroom getting ready or taking a bath." (For those that don't remember that was how Drew would say water around the ages of 1-2).

While it probably seems like nothing to you, it's just one of those little things I'll miss.  Those sweet little Drew-isms that are slowly fading away as he grows into a wonderful young boy.  Now I wonder if it's possible I'll ever miss the battles, the tantrums, or the "why's"?

Chicks Dig Us

On New Year's Eve, Drew and I got together with my high school friend Heather and her 3 year old son Nikos at the Oakland Zoo (you can read about Heather here - she's also a blogger).  Sadly this was the first play date we've had with the kids - her daughter stayed home to nap.

The boys seemed to hit it off right away.  So we hit up a few animals and then let the kids burn off some energy around the play areas... (yes so Heather and I could talk and catch up).

Here the boys are doing their impersonations of snakes.

It's impossible to get two 3-year olds to look at the camera at the same time.  Nickos was pretty excited about his palm leaf...

After the zoo we hit up a few rides. 

And then the two studs finished the day by cruising for chicks.

It must have been AHS class of '94 day at the zoo.  We were joined by a few former classmates there as well!  One intentionally and the other we ran into by coincidence.  Or maybe we all had the same idea.  Find something to do on New Year's Eve to wear your children out!

Ringing in the New Year

Happy New Year!  There are a lot of things we're looking forward to this year and we hope you all are too.

Here's a look at how we rang 2011 at Ms. Stephanie's house (Drew's former day care provider).

There was no hope for Drew making it until Midnight.  When he was asking to go to bed before we even left, we knew there wasn't a chance.  He did last until about 10:30 when he put himself to sleep on the couch.

Meanwhile everyone continued to party around him.  Here some of us are gathered in the front room for the countdown.... there were a lot more people behind me.

The happy couple happy to be awake (and mostly sober) for the New Year.  (By the way it was 8 years ago on this evening that Dave popped the question).

Me and Stephanie

I didn't really make any resolutions this year, however I did set a goal for myself.  To run at least 475 miles this year (averaging a little more than 9 miles/week).  Now if it would only stop raining....