MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Most toddlers are smarter than the average bear, which makes them very smart because bears are actually quiet intelligent.  Did you know that in North America, bears have the largest and most convoluted brains relative to their size of any land mammal?  They are considered by many wildlife biologists to be the most intelligent land animals of our continent. 

Anyway, Izzy is no exception to when it come to being smart.  That means Momma has to be even smarter.  I have these think sessions in my mind where I try to come up with new sneaky ways to outsmart my daughter.  (I don't use the word trick because I don't want to trick my children.  It's just not the proper word to use in parent language.  Sneaky is a much more acceptable term.)  Now, I believe there are two types of children.  Those who love food and those who think Cheez-its and Kraft Mac 'N Cheese are an acceptable diet.  Sadly my daughter is the latter.  Yet, there are times when she doesn't even want her beloved mac 'n cheese.  She slowly spins into a downward spiral of fatigue, moodiness, lots of tears, not feeling well, sunken eyes, and a whole other mess of things.  She does drink water and milk but she will still look so sickly and pathetic, mostly from her tears and sadness *tear.  I keep telling her that if she continues to make those frowned, moody faces; she's going to have wrinkles by the time she's 10.  Ahh, well, this whole not eating thing is not a 365 day thing, but it happens enough and I am always coming up with new ways of attempting to get her to eat healthy.  You may say, just keep putting those vegetables on her plate and one day she'll eventually eat them.  Izzy would say, rather she would hold that vegetable (pick your vege) defiantly in your face and tell you to choke on it.  No, she wouldn't say that.  She's much too polite.  But she would probably be thinking it. 

I have made several sneaky attempts to sneak healthy food into food Izzy likes.  It hasn't worked in my favor yet.  But I have new secret weapon.  One thing I know about my Izzy is that she has an unabashed love for chocolate.  I am going to be trying a few recipes from the Sneaky Chef over the next few weeks that incorporate chocolate.  I do have to be careful though because Izzy also has an unabashed hate for certain textures and visual bits in her food.  She's funny like that.  She once ate a big bowl of mac 'n cheese that had tiny parsley flakes in it.  Normally, she would say, "Eww, don't want it", but this was mac 'n cheese and she was very hungry.  She painstakingly removed every bit of parsley as she ate.  So we'll see how this goes.  I also have a new mac 'n cheese recipe to try with a new purée to put in it.  I think most of you know how that went the first time around.  How does a two year old know that you put the tiniest amount of puréed butternut squash in her mac 'n cheese?  I'm putting that behind me.  It's time for the next mission to begin.

And so far, I'm hopeful.  I just made a blueberry and spinach purée and Izzy thought it was chocolate.  She wanted to try it but I told her it was for a special recipe tomorrow:)