Cheese, Cheerios, and Poisoned Apricots

Sophie has entered a picky stage of eating.  My once fabulous eater whose favorite foods included avocado and spinach now refuses to touch anything green.  She is much too mature for purees (unless they are straight out of a pouch), yet hates to have dirty hands so she doesn't like to pick up anything sticky.  It was just recently that her love of bananas triumphed over her unwillingness to pick up pieces of gooey banana by herself.  (Prior to that my little princess liked others to place them delicately in her open and waiting mouth.  Quickly, please.)

Some days it seems I am the world's best chef for the incredible way I slice blueberries, while other days she's appalled that I would serve her something so disgusting.

Today's dining fit protested the fact that I tried to serve her apricots and mandarin oranges.  When we had a picnic lunch last week, Sophie was very interested in her friend's lunch which included these fruits.  He kindly shared a piece and Sophie would have been content to pilfer the rest of this poor boy's lunch.  So, being the kind, caring (read: desperate to get my daughter to eat fruits or veggies) mother that I am, I picked her some of these new-to-her fruits up at the store today.  As I cut them up I thought that surely I was about to be named "Top Chef" for this culinary masterpiece.

Little did I know that I had apparently purchased the poisoned variety of these orange fruits, something I had no idea Publix even carried.  They were obviously the most disgusting thing I had ever put in front of her.  Shame on me.  After several minutes of attempting to demonstrate just how delicious her lunch was, I threw in the towel and broke out the cheese and crackers.

I sent Clay a text asking if it was possible to raise a healthy child whose diet consists solely of cheese, cheerios, and wheat crackers.  Especially since she was sick last week, I've allowed her to eat pretty much whatever she will eat these last few days because she had eaten so little before.  But now I'm starting to wonder if I've doomed myself to a toddler who refuses to eat anything but cheese and crackers.

The story doesn't end there.  Approximately thirty minutes later, she saw the plate of apricots and oranges still on the table.  Her points and adorable little grunts indicated that she really wanted that food, as soon as possible.  How could I have been so flighty as to not have offered these to her at lunch time?  Silly mommy! So, I give her a piece of apricot.  She looks at me with her adorable surprise face (my new favorite), grunts, and nods yes (Sophie speak for "yes, more!")  She proceeds to eat the whole apricot I've cut up for her.  So I figure, what the heck, let's try the orange.  She scarfs it all the way down as well.  Score one for Mom, even if it was a delayed reaction.

I know this is (*hopefully*?) just a phase she will one day outgrow.  It's easy to get frustrated when something she loved yesterday is world's nastiest food today.  But I'll just hold on tight and keep putting new things in front of her, hoping that one day soon I'll receive the much coveted "more" grunt!