Josiah is...for the most part...a very mellow, easygoing 16-month-old. But not when it comes to eating! The kid is without a doubt, 100% ADDICTED to grains. As a baby, we fed him a wide variety of baby food...various cereals, veggies (mostly homemade), and fruit. He was not a picky eater and ate almost everything. His favorite by a mile was homemade pureed sweet potatoes. We thought this had set the stage toward non-finicky eating as a toddler. But, we are learning the age-old lesson that even the best laid plans fail!
We started to notice his penchant for grains when he would consistently polish off whatever grain (bread, rolls, crackers, pasta) happened to be on his tray, leaving the rest of his well-rounded meal untouched, and then clamor (increasingly loudly) for more of the grains. We have tried everything to encourage him to eat more of the other food, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. The more successful measures have included:
- Fork-feeding him (this was a Jenna trick and was successful in getting him to eat diced peaches)
- Making a big deal out of handing the other food to Isabel, and emphatically smiling and chanting "Yum, yum!" when she eats it, then handing a bite of that same food to Josiah (this was successful recently in getting him to eat raspberries, and to try blueberries (though he promptly took the blueberries out of his mouth again))
Our newest attempt, a couple of nights ago, was to place only the non-grain items on his tray at the beginning of dinner. This was a colossal failure which we may have paid for with a slight loss of hearing! The blood curdling screams that came out of his mouth were shocking at best, and though we tried to ignore them, they grew louder and louder for the better part of 5 minutes (and Isabel joined in the crying because she wanted him to stop crying). To stop the cacophony and be able to enjoy our meal ourselves, we finally gave in by handing him a piece of bread. I am not exaggerating when I say that his screams instantly stopped. He went from completely hysterical to completely at peace, gnawing on his precious bread. This is what I mean when I say he is addicted!
I often loosely quote the Bible to him, saying, "Josiah, man does not live on bread alone" (Matthew 4:4). But he is bound and determined to prove me wrong! Could this mellow fellow have some of his sister's stubbornness in him? Uh-oh...watch out world...
