A common conversation in our house around dinner times goes about like this:
Melanie: So, it’s about time for dinner.
Me: Yes, it is. Any idea what you might like?
Melanie: No.
(I name five or six different things all of which get muted responses. I take that as a No.)
Me: So what do you want then?
Melanie: I don’t know…
And so it goes until finally after much searching of the mental culinary databases and perusal of fridge and freezer we arrive at an acceptable selection.
Just now, Melanie was trying to interest Isabella in dinner, and finally exclaimed: “I offer five or six different things and she rejects them all. It’s so frustrating when she gets like this!”
She didn’t understand why I started laughing.
On the other hand, I suspect I won’t be laughing as much in five or six years when I’m negotiating the fickle appetites of the both of them.
Should try it with 6 kids and at least 4 fickle appetites.
Of course it is probably just recourse from my pickiness as a child
Surrender now! They outnumber you. (Even if your new one is a boy, somehow they will STILL outnumber you!)
I recommend http://www.savingdinner.com. A weeks worth of menus, grocery list, easy to prepare food and tastes good. It has saved my sanity and my kids will happily eat it.
Heh, heh, hahahahahahaha!
Only about 40 more years for YOU, Dom.
A refusal of three offers means that Dad makes anything he wants, and complaints may be dismmissed without further rationale.
I would make what you want, and give it to them- if they won’t eat it then they are not that hungry. ( n.b. i’ve gone through with this with four kids) As James Dobson has pointed out, no kid ever starved himself.
Don’t start playing that game.
Grew up the oldest of five kids born within a span of eight years. Mom and Dad had grown up during the Great Depression, and Dad had served in the Navy during WWII, and had seen hungry refugees. Big issues around food and lack thereof.
Mom served husband and children the same meal. If you didn’t like something, you’d better not let Dad hear you complain, or he’d be on you like a hornet: “I’m going to count to ten and that plate better be clean . . . starving children in Southeast Asia, etc. . . ”
Better just to say that you weren’t very hungry. “That’s OK, honey,” Mom would reply, “I’ll put it away, and you can have it for lunch tomorrow.”
Once in awhile one of the toddlers simply wouldn’t eat, and Mom would cry, afraid they might starve overnight, I suppose. Pediatrician reassured her, “if baby is hungry, baby will eat what you have prepared,” he said. “Just see that they have a little extra milk if they want it, and that they get a good breakfast next day.”
All five today are fit, tall, strapping, if anything . . . a little too strapping!
Marion- that sounds like the perfect approach.