Maggie Quotes

[selenite0]

Maggie Rose is a picky eater. She hates trying new food. Any new food. Doesn't even need to smell it or see it first. When she was describing seeing Ratatouille one bit was "He made some tasty food that I don't like."

So when celticdragonfly made pot roast tonight I got the job of persuading her to try a bit. A tiny bit, smaller than one of my fingernails (but larger than one of hers). Nothing doing. Promises that she could have whatever she wanted afterwards didn't help. Being prohibited from watching the video with the rest of the family until she ate it didn't help. Sitting in front of it for about an hour didn't help. So in the interest of nutrition (she's far too skinny) I conceded and gave her some food and let her join us. With speeches about how she was displaying bad manners and needed to do better.

Then we had to go through this again when it was her bedtime. She wasn't having any. As she put it "I don't want to do anything I'm going to do." Which was such a totally comprehensive bit of backtalk I could barely keep from laughing out loud while putting her to bed.

Comments

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

I knew one woman whose technique was that if a child didn't want to eat what was on the table, he or she could have a peanut butter sandwich. The child could not make another meal, if the child was old enough, but he or she could have a peanut butter sandwich. That got around the "the kid needs to eat" problem but also set a ground rule.

How big was it?

[fordprfct.livejournal.com]

Having borne witness to the pot roast interaction above, I present, now, a list of things larger than the symbolic morsel of meat presented to Maggie:

A single kernel of some types of corn
A "jumbo" Tic Tac
One kid's vitamin (often requested by Maggie, oddly enough)
The connector at the end of a phone cord
The "dial" key on celticdragonfly's cell phone


Oh well. More brownies for the rest of us.

[lazylawriter.livejournal.com]

How old is she?

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Five, going on thirteen, and weighs less than her brother 18 months younger.

[dolmena.livejournal.com]

My stepdaughters were raised with the "no-thank-you-portion:" they were allowed to eat the rest of the meal in peace if they would eat just a small amount of whatever they didn't.

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"I don't want to do anything I'm going to do."

I feel that way sometimes, too.

(I used to tell kids I took care of that they didn't have to like it, they just had to do it.)

[snippy]

I never tried to force my kids to eat anything, and they always had the option of a piece of plain bread, a glass of plain milk, or a piece of fruit.

They called it "prison food." But if you're hungry, you'll eat one of those, and if you won't eat any of those, you're not really hungry.

That doesn't handle people whose hunger signals are messed up (whether because of illness or other reasons), of course.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

That doesn't handle people whose hunger signals are messed up

I think this isn't a hunger issue but a willpower one. She's quite willing to skip eating for a day to get her way.