Picky, Picky

I don't know how I ended up with a daughter that is such a picky eater.  Emily wasn't overly enthusiastic about rice cereal the first time it was offered, but she came around to the idea of solids pretty quickly.  She embraced baby foods, both fruits and vegetables, with a healthy degree of interest.  Real food though, as in food that doesn't come from a spoon, is highly inspected by our picky eater.  Take today's lunch, for example.  I was eating grapes, and that generated some interest from Emily, so I bit off half and offered the other half to her.  She took it, looked at it from every angle, smelled it (I swear!), licked it, put it in her mouth for a good five seconds only to finally spit it out and try to give it back to me a little later.

The only fruit that she'll eat, unless it's pureed and mixed in with oatmeal or yogurt, are bananas.  And frequently the only vegetable that I can't get past her lips are sweet potatoes.  And Emily, let's be honest, that barely counts as a vegetable.  I feel like I'm failing miserably when it comes to teaching healthy eating habits despite my best attempts.

And then there's the frequent changes of heart that are so typical for toddlers.  She loved a homemade soup I made one day and completely rejected it the next.  She gobbles up pasta here at home but our caregiver, Julie, insists she won't touch it at her home.  The only food group that is never rejected is the cracker and bread food group.  Bring on the carbs!  I keep trying to tell her those foods will straight to her thighs but so far, she seems unconcerned.