Do I Really Know Best?: Veggie Tales

So, Noah has recently been skipping on his vegetables at dinner and lunch...he basically eats everything else, then claims he's all done or he doesn't like the vegetable I made.  This kid used to be ALL about the fruits and veggies.  He still loves his fruits.  But the veggies have become a pain point.  Some of it, I'll accept.  He doesn't like asparagus, or my grilled squash and mushrooms, or cooking broccoli ANY way other than steaming it.  That's fine.  But lately, even vegetables that HE CLAIMS he will eat...nothing.  Absolutely nothing!  He just plays with it, throws it aside, and claims he's done.

Short of bribing him, which I try never to do as a parent, I am at a loss for this one.  This all came up on...Thursday?...when I made enchiladas and carrots.  He ate the first one I put out and asked for another, along with a chicken quesadilla.  The RIGHT thing to do there was tell him he had to eat the carrots first, but I wasn't thinking.  So I gave him the 2nd enchilada.  He ate most of it, then said "Done!".  Looked at his carrots...basically untouched.  So that touched off a discussion where I told him he HAD to start eating vegetables or we'd have to take some sort of drastic steps.  I asked him why he wouldn't eat the carrots I made: "Because they were raw!".  Yeah, they were steamed carrots.  I asked him what kind he liked: "Carrot Sticks"  Yeah, the raw kind...So, I decided to try the "Pleading Parent" routine.  I told him that it was SUPER important he eats vegetables and next time if he didn't eat them, we'd have to make a vegetable smoothie as his breakfast the next morning.  What's in a vegetable smoothie?  I have no freaking idea.  But it was the only idea in my head at the time...

Friday was a wash out, literally due to the storms, so we had pizza.  Saturday, Shannon had a bridal shower, so it was on me to make the kids dinner.  Noah asked for quesadillas, I said okay, BUT we have to eat vegetables!  What kind would he like?  Green beans.  Then, when shopping, I decided to make myself a salad.  Guess who had to have one too?  I asked him 4 times, "Noah, are you REALLY going to eat this?"  He has done salad before, but...I knew what the answer was really going to be, and that it was going to be different from reality, but I figured "he's making the salad himself...maybe this will work!".  He also threw a fit about getting a Ring Pop as snack...Light bulb, I said he could have the Ring Pop after dinner IF he ate his salad.  And guess what...it didn't work.  Not at all.  He had 3-4 bites of salad after eating his quesadilla, then he was done.  So, Ring Pop got put away.

Sunday morning, he wanted the Ring Pop.  Mommy put the foot down...he didn't eat his salad, he didn't get the Ring Pop.  So that was about 30 minutes on a tantrum....He eventually got the Ring Pop after he did some writing/hand exercises for pre-school.  So, I asked him when we did our weekly grocery shopping if he wanted green beans with dinner still?  Yes, he did.  We went over the whole vegetable smoothie thing again.  So, made dinner, Noah started eating, he ate his fish, he ate his potatoes...then he mashed his green beans.  Claimed he was getting rid of the bad beans.  After doing this with a handful..."Daddy I'm done".  Alright kid, that's it.  VEGETABLE SMOOTHIE!

Oh yeah, except I still don't know how to make one.  Crap, bluff called.

So, here we sit...I vowed to do something.  This kid is going to eat his vegetables.  That's just that, he is going to one way or another.  Among my ideas, replacing all snacks with vegetable options (We usually offer fruit or another low-cal/fat snack anyway, but if he won't do the veggies, maybe just force him to either eat them at snack or at dinner), making dinner a "vegetable first" serving, or back to the vegetable smoothie idea.  Noah actually said he wanted one, so I'm looking for recipes to start seeing if he'll do that.  My biggest concern there, he'll grow accustomed to doing that and will never go back to eating plain old vegetables.  It's a pick your battle thing there...Either he gets the nutrients and takes "the easy way out", or I stick by the traditional way of doing it and he doesn't get his nutrients in.

Do I Really Know Best?  Ugh.  At least the kid loves his fruits....