Thursday Dinner

Thursday night Matt made Chicken Pitas with Cucumber Sauce. These are delicious! It is our own creation and is basically just grilled chicken, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumber sauce (homemade) on a pita.

This was Nicole's response to dinner.

She ate a tiny bitty bit of her pita and then would eat no more and would only cry. So, we let her down from the table and tried again an hour later when she was super super grumpy and very hungry and she would only eat the chicken disassembled from the sandwich and cut into miniscule pieces.

It was a tearful dinner.

Victory!

Last night I felt like I had a victory with Nicole. We went to the store yesterday and let Nicole pick out the type of noodles that she wanted for dinner. She said she wanted Butterfly noodles (bowtie). So, we got butterfly noodles and the rest of the ingredients for dinner and went home.

I made an Alfredo Broccoli Pasta for dinner. It looked like this...

I served it up on Nicole's plate and then cut up the broccoli into miniscule pieces and cut the pasta noodles in half (she is constantly telling us that her bites are too big, so we cut up everything small). I sat Nicole down in her booster chair and offered her a noodle on her fork.

"Nicole, you want some noodles? They are butterfly noodle."

"No! I don't want it. I can't! I want some gaterade."

I took a deep breathe so as not to get too frustrated because I hate it when she asks for food and then tells me "no." Matt and I decided a few days ago that we were no longer going to make meal time a fight. We felt like we were fighting with her every meal and the more we tried to force and coerce her to eat, the more that she dug in her heals.

She would eat for my sisters or my mom, but the second I came into the room, it was, "No, I don't want it!" So, I figured that it was something that I was doing that was making her purposefully rebel against me.

So, last night when she told me "no," I said, "Okay Nicole, you can eat it if you want to."

Then, I set down her fork and Matt and I ate our dinner and had a conversation and ignored her. (The dinner was really yummy and I will put the recipe at the bottom of the post.) Then, as we were eating and ignoring, she picked up her fork, looked at the noodle and tentatively put it in her mouth. My heart soared! We immediately started cheering for her when she ate the noodle and told her what a big girl she was and how proud we were. She loved this!

"I a big girl Mama! I like noodles," she told me.

Then she just continued to eat her noodles, occasionally asking for help when she couldn't get one on her fork. But, avidly avoiding the broccoli (which she picked out at the store because she said, "I like broccoli"). So, I decided to give it a try, knowing that I might ruin all the success that she had had with eating the noodles.

"Nicole, do you want to try the broccoli?"

"No, I don't want it."

"Nicole, do you want to try a baby bite?"

"No, I can't"

"Nicole, it would make me so happy if you tried a baby bite of your broccoli."

(Side note: baby bites are small bites, mama bites are slightly less small bites, and daddy bites are regular sized bites. She made up these names.)

Reaching out with two fingers, Nicole picked up a tiny piece of broccoli top. She put it in her mouth and chewed it with a yuck face.

"You did it! I'm so happy!" I cheered.

"You get to put money in the pig because you ate your broccoli!" (this is her reward system)

Then, there was no stopping her. She was ravenous, like she hadn't eaten in days (she hadn't had a nice full meal since taco night on monday; her choice, not mine). She ate the broccoli, and she ate the noodles all gone from her plate and then she said, "Mama and Daddy are happy?" And my heart melted. And then she asked for seconds.

It was one of the happiest dinners that we have had with her. There was no frustration, there were no tears or meltdowns, and she was so happy after she had finished her second and third helping (probably because her tummy was finally full). And, we were happy because it was not a fight at dinner time.

Dinner did take a full hour for her to eat and Matt and I finished eating after just 20 minutes, but Matt patiently sat at the table with her until she was finished eating and he didn't rush her. We discovered that if we try to rush her for any meal she fights us even more and just will not eat. So, we have tried to schedule more time for her meals (though that is impossible for breakfast because they get dropped off at the sitter's every morning).

After she finished eating, she got M&Ms for desert and got to put 5 monies in the pig. Success! Well, for one night at least. Tonight is chicken pitas with cucumber sauce we'll see how well she does with that.

Broccoli Alfredo Pasta

1 pkg Pasta (your choice)
2 small heads of Broccoli
1 1/2 c Whipping Cream
2 cloves Garlic
2 T Butter
2 T Bacon Grease
2 t Olive Oil
1/4 c Parmesean Cheese
1 handful Monterey Jack Cheese
1/2 t salt (or seasoning salt)

Sauce
Put butter, olive oil, and bacon grease into a large frying pan on medium heat. (I do a mix of grease for these reasons: butter and bacon are for flavor and the olive oil keeps the butter and bacon grease at a lower temp so they don't burn or catch fire.) Mince garlic and put in pan when it is hot. Cook garlic until you can smell it. If it starts to brown, then you have most likely burnt it and it will be bitter... don't do that.
Add cream, cheese, and salt. Whisk all of it together until mostly combined (the cheese will need time to melt). Reduce heat to low and let bubble for 7 minutes so the sauce can thicken. You know when it is done when the cheese has melted and when you stick in the tip of a spoon, it comes out all coated in sauce. Keep sauce on warm until pasta is done.

Pasta
Bowl a pot of water with a pinch of salt and a dash of oil in it (salt is for taste and the oil is to prevent boiling over). When boiling, add pasta and boil until aldente. Drain and place directly into sauce. (Do this consecutively while making the sauce so that you can throw the pasta directly into the sauce. That is the secret to making it good, don't let the pasta sit!)

Broccoli
Boil a small pot of salted water (enough water to cover the amount of broccoli you are cooking).  Put broccoli in when boiling and cook for 1 minute. Do not exceed a minute or you will have mushy broccoli! Drain broccoli and put directly into sauce.

Putting it together
Once the broccoli and pasta are in the sauce, stir it all up until sauce coats everything. Serve with Parmesean on top and it is delicious! You could also saute some chicken and serve that with the pasta. I didn't because I didn't have any defrosted chicken.

Enjoy! Nicole sure did.

Picky Eater

We were making such good progress with Nicole. Most nights, she would eat some, if not all of her dinner and it was often new or different food for her (i.e. not mac and cheese or hotdogs). We were even convincing her to eat broccoli, spinach, lettuce, and carrots for dinner (usually cooked into a dish, not as a side). And then, the stomach flu happened.

Nicole got the stomach flu last week and started throwing up everything for three days! I thought that she was going to starve because she kept refusing food for three days. We were able to get her to drink gaterade, but beyond that, her diet was graham crackers and popcorn (the ONLY thing she would eat).

If you don't have a picky eater, you may not know this, but you CANNOT force them to eat. People tell me all the time, "Oh, you just need to force them to eat." Or, "Just don't let them leave the table until they have eaten." Or, "If they are hungry enough, they will eat what you give them." This is entirely untrue when it comes to Nicole.

She will scream and cry and throw a fit if we try to put something in her mouth that she doesn't want there. If we get it in, she immediately sticks her hand in her mouth to get the food out, then she gags herself with her fingers and throws up. We have also tried waiting her out, letting her sit at the table for over an hour after we are all done eating. Let me tell you, she can wait longer than us. Plus, she screams the whole time she is there and the screaming and the crying really get to me. And, Nicole will not eat, even if she is hungry, she will just go hungry and get more and more upset (crying, yelling, throwing fits) the longer that she waits to eat. She will even go to bed hungry, and then wake up at 2am crying for food (which she still won't eat).

Yesterday, she finally started asking for food again after many days of the stomach flu, so we tried to get her back on her eating schedule that we had her on before the flu. But, it seems that catering to her every food whim while she was sick has set us back and I feel like we are starting over. She WOULD NOT eat the burritos that I made for dinner last night (just beans, cheese, and ground beef). Burritos were on her list of foods that she would actually eat, so I thought it would be a safe dinner, but no.

We fought with her at the table for an hour, trying all the tricks we usually use to try and get her to eat (incentives, asking nicely, having baby Daniel at the table for her to show him how to eat, ect...), but none of our tactics worked. So, she went to bed hungry.

I am beyond frustrated with this stupid picky eater thing! I spend so much time carefully planning dinners that contain food she likes, while integrating healthy foods. I spend so much time researching picky eater tips and recipes on the internet on how we can get her to eat and she is still as belligerent as ever.

Most kids LIKE to eat! Eating is a reward, it is fun, it is something they love to do. But, in the Kimball household, we dread meal-time because we know, that no matter what we bring to her, it will be a fight for every single bite. Even if it is a food she has eaten before, even if it is a food she loves, even if it is desert! We have to fight her to eat delicious things like cake and ice cream!

Additionally, Nicole has food allergies, so we also have to be careful what we feed her. We have switched to organic milk and eggs to try and alleviate some of her digestion issues from her allergies and I always plan meals around what she can eat.

Eating away from home is even more of a pain than eating at home. We always have to bring her meal with us because it is 95% likely that she will not eat food from another person's house. Why? I do not know.

Anyway, it is back to the beginning for me with Nicole's picky eating habits. What am I cooking for dinner tonight? I'm going to try chicken fried rice (which she has had before and liked) we shall see how it goes.

Post Spring Break

Here's the thing about spring break. It is awesome having a lot of free time and being able to see my husband when I get home from work... and then it ends. And, all the homework that was not done during spring break (because we were too busy partying) has to be done the next week. So, this has been post spring break homework week for Matt.

Which means that he gets home from school and is up late studying. It sucks. Probably more for him than me because he is the one doing all the work, but I still miss my man.

On the bright side, I invented two new dinner recipes this week. One was better than the other. Nicole would only eat one of them. But, here they are for your viewing pleasure.

Chicken, Potato, Green Bean Stuff

5 Potatoes
A bunch of frozen Green Beans
3 breasts of Chicken
1 Cube Bullion
1/2 c Water
2 small cans Cream of Mushroom Soup
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Lowry's Salt
Pepper

Wash and dice potatoes into bite size chunks and place in 9x13 pan. Place a layer of green beans on top of potatoes. Cut chicken into serving size chunks and place on top of green beans. Add broken up bullion cube and water to pan. Add soup over everything. Season pan with seasonings (just a layer of seasoning over everything, I never measure). Bake for 40 minutes at 425 degrees. Eat.

Nicole would not eat this dish. She had two bites of potato and two bites of chicken, tried one green bean and then told me the whole plate was yucky and wouldn't let it near her. Literally, she kept pushing it away from her and when I  would scoot it back to her, she pushed it again and had a fit. Ugh.

Broccoli Chicken Pasta

1 Head Broccoli
1 pkg noodles
2 breasts Chicken
2 T Olive Oil
2 T Butter
1 t red pepper flakes
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Lowry's season salt
Pepper
1/2 c whole milk
1/4 c Parmesan cheese

Cut broccoli into bite size pieces and place in boiling water for 3 minutes. Then, drain and set aside. Boil noodles and drain when cooked (any noodles you want, I use ones that look like wheels from the bulk section of Winco because Nicole will actually eat them). After you have drained the noodles, throw a little olive oil on them and stir it around so that they don't get all stick togethery.

Heat olive oil, 1 T butter, and red pepper flakes in frying pan on med. high heat. Butterfly chicken breasts and season with onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. (Again, I don't measure, I just sprinkle a bit of eat on both sides of the chicken.) Saute chicken in butter and oil until cooked.

(Trick with chicken: put it in the pan and don't touch it. Don't fiddle with it, don't turn it a million times, just put it in and leave it until you see it turning half way through the breast, THEN you turn it and you once again leave it. After 3-5 minutes, bend the breast with a fork or tongs; if the chicken breaks, then it is done. If it bends, it is not.)

Remove chicken from pan and let rest for 5 minutes. Chop chicken into bite size pieces after it has rested. Add milk to saute pan and deglaze all chickeny goodness from the bottom of the pan. Add cheese and more salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste. Add the other T of butter. When sauce tastes yummy and the butter is melted, add the noodles, broccoli, and chicken to sauce. Stir until the sauce gets everywhere and then serve.

Nicole at this meal. I told her the broccoli was little trees and the noodles were wheels and she ate it up. She wouldn't touch the chicken though. If it doesn't look like chicken nuggets, I swear that child doesn't believe it is chicken. But, she does call fish sticks chicken because they DO look like chicken nuggets. I just can't win with this girl.

Attitude

Yesterday, Nicole's cousins came for a visit and Nicole picked up some "attitude" that I wish she never would have figured out.  First, Nicole heard her cousin using "potty words."  So, Nicoley started chanting, "Pee, pee, pee, pooh, pee."  Ugh!

Later, after the cousins had left, Nicole asked for cous cous for dinner.  I set her down in her chair, gave her the cous cous and went to do some dishes.  Not three seconds later, I look up and she is pooring spoonfuls of cous cous into her hair and saying, "cous cous head."  Then, while I am attempting to get the cous cous out of her hair, she pours more on the table (my fault, I should have thought to move her bowl out of her reach) and spreads it around with her hands and says, "cous cous mess!"  I tell her to stop and tell her that I am mad at her and that she shouldn't make messes.  She takes a handful of cous cous, shoves it in her mouth and says, "Meths," and spits cous cous everywhere.  I'm still kicking myself for not moving the cous cous after she put it in her hair.

Nicole has never done anything like this before.  She doesn't even like messes.  When her hands get dirty, she cries and holds them up for me to clean them off.  She has never played with her food like this, so it shocked me and I just didn't know how to react or what to do.

Then, after I had cleaned up the cous cous, she asked for rice (which is what was for dinner) I put her back in her booster, and gave her rice.  She tasted it, then violently pushed the bowl away and said, "Yucky!  I don't want it!"  Again, I was floored.  She has never acted like this.  I didn't even know that she knew what "don't want it" means.

Having still not eaten dinner, I asked her if she wanted anything, she asked for goldfish crackers (fishes).  I gave her some.  She put some in her mouth, chewed them a little, then stuck both hands in her mouth and stuck out her tongue and shook her hands until the half eaten fishy crackers went everywhere.

I was done by this point, no more food and time out.  She normally stays in time out when I put her there, but she refused and kept coming off the stairs.  Normally, she even cries in time out.  This time, she sang a time out song (that she made up) and just kept coming of the stairs.  Every time that I tried to use my stern voice with her and showed my mad face, she laughed at me.  This is just not my sweet, tender hearted little girl.

Then, Daddy came home and she knew that she was in trouble.  Why is it that she responds to Matt and not to me?  She finally stopped her attitude and naughty behavior when Dad came home and was a sweet girl the rest of the night.

Is it me?  Is she testing me to see what she can get away with?  Did she just discover yesterday that she can play with her food and wanted to try it out?  Will this attitude continue?

I'm just... frustrated and tired.

Ugh! I Hate Picky Eaters

So, Nicole has recently decided that she doesn't like eating. Of course, she does this while I've got her down to nursing only twice a day. Maybe she is on to my scheme.

Nicole used to eat baby food quite well. It would take some coercion at times (airplane distractions), but she usually ate it. She even went back to eating it after the stomach flu. But, last week she decided that she didn't want to eat baby food anymore. She wanted what we were eating. She is still toothless and can't always eat what we are eating. Not to mention that some foods are just not baby appropriate (meats and citrises).

So, I tried to make baby friendly meals. But, the last few days, she has even been rejecting what we are eating. She also does not want her chocolate soy milk anymore. She fights me on eating it.

All she wants to do is nurse. But, then when she is nursing, all she wants to do is pull my hair, scratch and pinch me.

It is so FRUSTRATING!

Today as I tried three different things to feed her she threw goldfish on the floor, refused to open her mouth for noodles, and gagged and threw up the carrots that I put in her mouth. She literally put her fingers in her mouth to get the carrots out and gagged. Ugh!

I just don't know what to do. I can't continue to nurse, she is too big and it is just to frustrating and painful for me, but she is refusing other foods. Do I just keep trying new things? Do I let her go hungry until she is so hungry that she will eat what I am offering? I'm at a loss.