Kids' eating analysis and food progression photos

aka: "more than you would ever wish to know about the eating habits of any child that is not your own"

every night, i ask for forgiveness for my infinite parenting fails and i pray for the ability to be a better mother to my children and know the best way that i should parent them.

my biggest struggle right now with abigail is her eating (i'm happy to report that the potty chart is still working wonders in that area of our lives) and specifically, the amount of food that she eats... or doesn't eat.  today was a really great day with the kids and i really wanted for us to end on a positive note.  i feel like the last few hours of the day are often my most difficult because i've run out of patience and energy and i really want to just "finish strong" since that's the phrase that's always in my head when i feel like i'm about to lose my temper ten minutes before bedtime.  basically, my honey is out of town and i knew i was doing dinner and cleanup and bedtime by myself and if dinner took the last of my patience, there would be none left for bedtime.

so lately i've been making mental notes of my childrens' eating habits.  brady, i've noticed, prefers bland foods above flavorful foods.  he strongly prefers banana and avocado above strawberries and tomatoes.  also, i think he doesn't like the texture of cheese.  he can eat cheesy scrambled eggs or cheesy pasta noodles or grilled cheese sandwiches, but he doesn't like shredded cheese or sliced cheese when it's offered to him.  also, oatmeal is by far his very favorite food and he will eat indefinite amounts of it.  hot, cold, fresh, old, dried and crusted on his highchair... he loves it all.  the boy could live off of oatmeal.  and he's got a crazy intense sweet tooth.  concerning brady's eating habits, these things i know to be true.

abigail has been harder to read.  i'm still trying to decipher her eating habits, but one thing i've noticed is that she doesn't like to eat a large amount of any one food.  she will ask for a lot.  i hear cries of "but i want A LOOOOOOTTTTTT!!!!!" a million times a day, but really, plan to bet all your money on "won't finish" because she'll lose steam about three or four bites in.  occasionally she'll shock me and eat more or even finish what's on her plate but the typical scene is that i'll constantly remind her to "take a bite" while she'll spend an hour playing on her chair while chewing her fork or anything else inedible, and the food on her plate will just get colder and staler and soggier until she insists "I'M DONE!!!" a million times over.

ten minutes later, she wants a snack because her belly is hungry.

it's frustrating when she throws a fit because she wants "A LOT" of food because i have two options.  i can give her a lot of food and throw away basically all of it after she decides she's done.  or i can just give her a small amount of food and have her be angry and annoying the whole meal and not even finish the tiny amount i've given her.  i frequently try both and nothing works (although we have dubbed brady the "human garbage disposal" because i just dump the rest of abigail's plate onto his tray and he finishes it off) so it's a pretty no win situation.  the idea kept coming to my head "maybe she only will eat three bites of a particular food before needing to move on to a different food."  so for breakfast i'll give her a small bowl of oatmeal, a little bit of eggs, a little bit of toast... it's working better than just one food... aside from her throwing a fit about only getting small amounts of things.

randomly, tonight i decided to break out that pinterest muffin tin idea.  i was pulling a million things out of the fridge for dinner anyways because i was having taco leftovers and brady was being picky and throwing everything off of his tray.  why not put a little sampler plate for abigail?  sometimes i try to create the muffin tin concept on a plate with a bunch of different items, but typically i get lazy after four things and they all blend together.  having twelve spots stretched me to fill them all and i knew abigail would think it looked cool.  and it would look like " A LOT!"

i told her i was making her a surprise dinner and that she couldn't look and had to go away.  i started to tell her to go play in the great room but got smart and instead, asked her to clean up all of the toys.  it was a disaster since my visiting teacher had been over and i'd pulled out alllll of the toys to the center of the room so her daughter could play with them.  there was stuff everywhere and it was all mixed together.  but my all star cleaning kid had it spotless in no time.  i really like when i come home after being out and christopher has cleaned up all the toys... but i can always tell because it's kinda lazy a little bit and he doesn't really know/care where things really go.  with abigail... that girl does it right.  i mean truly exactly as i would.  for all of the power struggles i have with her about eating or going potty... i'm thankful she's awesome about cleaning everything (i mean, if i leave her clean laundry on the stairs, she'll see it and put it away without being asked) and is really good at it.  anyways, that bought me time and actually probably saved me time in the whole course of the night.

i created this masterpiece.  it could have been cooler but i only used food that i already had out of the fridge for myself and/or brady.  we prayed and then she dug in.

after a few minutes i was curious to see what she'd chosen to eat first.  corn.  she completely wiped out her corn.  then, spinach.  both spots of spinach.  then a little bit of cheese and some strawberries.  what kid eats the corn and spinach first?  i totally thought she would go for the tortilla first.

next... tortillas, then avocados, then carrots.

and then when she declared herself done and asked to be excused...  left behind was one chunk of roast beef, half of the shredded cheese, and half of the strawberries.  and trace amounts of corn and tortilla.

overall, totally not what i was expecting.  in order or amounts.  i honestly expected her to eat all of her tortilla and all of her cheese.  likely most all of her avocado and strawberries and maybe corn.  and then none of the spinach or roast beef or carrots.  it's a good thing i don't bet.

it was a happy night for me.  it really helped my mood and was a great break from preparing food for one kid that i'm in yelling matches with trying to force feed her into eating something and another kid that throws everything on the floor the second he sees something more appealing.  sometimes i can handle that but sometimes i can't.  tonight i didn't have to and it was great.  

also, in case you were wondering, natural light is important to quality photography.  because did anyone else notice that progression?  you can tell how far we were into the meal in relation to the sun setting based on how yellow our food looks from the yellow lighting above our kitchen table.  amazing huh?

does anyone have experience with doing this on a more long term basis?  how soon does the novelty fade?  and how much variety do you have from meal to meal?  nurse amanda... i'm lookin' at you.