My kids are picky eaters.
If the menu has ice cream, cake or McDonald's chicken nuggets on it, I might succeed in getting them to eat a few bites of something. If not, it's a total toss up.
I've seen pickier kids. And I've also seen kids clean their plate at my house and eat whole Big Macs without complaint. So I feel we're probably somewhere in the average to pickier-than-usual range. And man it's annoying.
Some of you probably remember the good old days when my husband, Shane, cooked all of our family's meals -- and in gourmet style too. He's a great cook, one of the reasons I married him, I joke (but not really ;) I, on the other hand, am less well known for my cooking abilities. In fact, I was a bit of a legend in college for burning microwave popcorn to the point of flames (I had to chuck it out the patio door to save the dorm.) And I once cooked Easy Mac -- those little single-serving macaroni and cheese things -- until the noodles formed a nice, Frisbee-like plastic disc at the bottom of the container. So, yeah. Cooking hasn't always been my strong point.
It's not my fault. My mom was a terrible cook. (Sorry, Mom.) Though she has become a very good baker, driven by her desire to give my kids the best birthday cakes on the block. (My sister, by the way, is still traumatized by the store-bought Easter bunny cake she got for her April 14th birthday one year. We finally know who Mom likes best, Katie: the grandkids.)
I don't recall my Dad cooking much beyond heating up a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup and making a grilled cheese sandwich. Though I do remember, vividly, one time he and I baked a cake and were so hungry we pulled it out of the oven early and ate it half cooked. That was probably a health hazard, in hindsight.
All this to say, until I met Shane, I didn't realize regular people knew how to cook. And then I promptly married the one guy I knew who did, and let him feed me for years to come. I did start hanging out in the kitchen with him though, and I, slowly but surely, picked up on the process. Cooking went from some mysterious talent bestowed upon the very worthy to something I could actually do.
Which was a good thing. Because when our kids hit "picky eater stage" somewhere around age 4, Shane hit his wall. He began hating cooking because of the squeals of horror and protestation it brought out of our children. I can't blame him. You can only hear, "Oh gross! I can't eat that! Why is that black pepper fleck on that piece of bland roast chicken RUINING EVERYTHING??!!!!" two or 23 times before you start to lose your mind.
So Shane vacated the kitchen altogether. He cooks now, maybe, once a week. And I became the family chef. I took over the family meals a few years ago and, by necessity, I've become a pretty good cook. I'm no longer ashamed to share food with people outside the home. My mom and her husband, Paul, always pretend to enjoy what I serve them ;) So that's a win.
But there's a lot of freaking meals families have to eat -- and, thus, I have to prepare. Especially since we moved to New Zealand where we rarely eat out at restaurants or get take out meals.
Every day now, I make breakfast for two grumpy, barely-awake kids. Half the time, they spill their cereal on their school uniforms. (Fun!) Every day, I pack lunches for two griping, "I wasn't that hungry" kids who want me to pack fancy lunches like the ones they see YouTube moms make, but won't even touch their peanut butter sandwich if it happens to brush up against a Dorito chip. Every night, I make dinner for two groanful, skeptical children who can spot a new ingredient in their pasta sauce from a mile away. They won't even eat plain noodles without a heavy dousing of American-style Parmesan cheese. (You know, that shredded cardboard stuff that can't actually be bought here?)
So I hear a lot of this during my day: "Can I have a snack??"
Yeah. Guess how I feel about that question.
Feeding kids, clothing kids, bathing kids, herding kids to all of the appointments and practices they have to get to -- it can all be incredibly frustrating, am I right?? Shane and I have always been in the parent camp that freely admits this parenting thing is HARD AS. (That's some Kiwi slang for you :) It's always been hard for us, even when things are going well and kids are happy and healthy, which is most of the time. It's still the hardest thing Shane and I do every day.
And we don't always get it right. Our kids are far from perfect and we're even farther from it as parents. I'm sure we've done something wrong along the way to create the pickiest of picky eaters of all time. Yes, I'll take the blame. Because honestly, we don't even try to get it right all of the time. We win some, we lose some. Our kids don't eat much, but they sleep well. I still have to help the boy put on his socks and shoes, but he's kind and loving and a good friend at school. The girl loves to boss around her little brother like whoa, but she's a leader in her classroom and her teacher adores her.
Sometimes our kids eat cinnamon toast for dinner. Sometimes I find them hiding in the snack closet minutes after I cleared the dinner plates. Do I gripe about it? Oh yeah. I'm not above a bit of complaining here and there and all over the Internet ;)
But I do try to step back -- especially on the most gracious of all grateful days, Thanksgiving. I try to focus on gratitude over the griping. Because at the end of the day, after all the grumblings about the chives on the mashed potatoes and the skin on the turkey slice, we're still sitting down together and figuring out as a family how to make it through this meal, this world, this life.
That's not easy, nor should we expect it to be. But it is a beautiful thing.
Happy Thanksgiving! May your meal make you as happy as two pieces of plain white bread make the Adorable Boy!
