I’m realizing that feeding Ellie is a never ending battle. For the most part she eats really well, and eats most things I give her. But as she gets older and more independent, she’s going through waves of being extremely opinionated and fussy.
She likes variety. She’ll have a few bites of this and then angrily push it away and then happily eat the other food we had. We’d have to bargain with her to get her to eat a little more of one thing. “If you eat three bites of this, you can have yogurt.” It was a showdown. Who could hold out longer? Just as I’m about to give in, she’d open her mouth and take a few more bites. This was getting annoying and I was dreading feeding her. But then she started eating on her own with her spoon.
She’d take her spoon and scoop, shovel, and repeat all by herself. Wow! That was awesome. She started eating more, and stopped pushing things away. I gave her a serving of beef stew and she devoured it. There was beef stew all over her smiling proud face and she held out her bowl saying, “Mo?” More? “Mo?” More please. “Pees.” Coming right up!
She was eating everything with her spoon. Eggs, yogurt, stews, peas, everything! She didn’t care what she was eating, as long as she was feeding herself. But then the novelty of that started to wear off, and then her opinion came back. And since she has the power of the spoon now, it came back stronger than before. The spoon had empowered her. Since she was more independent eating, she felt she had more of a say in what she wanted. And what she wants is pretty limited now. All she wants now is yogurt, fruit, and crackers. She’s begging for crackers as soon as she gets up and continues to all day long.
I’m back to dreading feeding her. I strong through breakfast and lunch, but by dinner, I care a lot less. You want crackers and yogurt, fine, go ahead. I make all this good food for you and you don’t want it? Fine, I don’t care. I’m only your personal assistant all day long and make you all this great food that you don’t want to eat.  It’s no big deal really. You eat your yogurt and I’ll eat the homemade chicken noodle soup I made just for you.
It’s a will power battle again and she’s catching me while I’m tired and weak. I think I need a magic spoon to empower me. But until then, go ahead, have your crackers. I’ll try again tomorrow, with a spoon.
