Kiwi

“I don’t like kiwi!”

This said by three-year-old as she cried in protest at my cruel and unusual punishment…

I’ve been pretty lax on the healthy-eating principles with my child – I’ve always wanted food and eating to be a non-issue for her.  God knows it’s been a huge issue for me.

My past MO has been to put a plate of colorful, relatively healthy options in front of her and let her have at it.  No stress over what she does or doesn’t eat.

The result?  A carb-lover extraordinaire.  She hates almost all fruits and veggies.  She’ll occasionally eat a few bites of apples, grapes, watermelon, or a bite of banana, but that’s about it for fruit.  And on the veggie side, it’s occasionally carrots, broccoli, corn, and cucumber.  No interest whatsoever in anything else.

Enough is enough already!  I decided it’s time to start the courtesy-bite concept – try at least one bite of everything on your plate.  It can be a small bite, and you don’t have to eat anything more if you don’t like it, I say.

Enter the kiwi.  Which, by the way, had been approved by three-year-old as a grocery cart addition at Costco.  I try to go through her approval process as much as possible while shopping to avoid future battles…

But this kiwi just did not cut it.  The two little chunks on her plate had her running the other direction.

I stuck one chunk on her fork.  Come on, eat it!  Get it over with!  Then we can play and do fun activities.

NO!  Tears and sobs commence.

Time out, then – let’s go!  More tears and sobs.

Why do I have to eat it?

Because it’s good for you. you need to learn to try new things, you need to be polite and eat a tiny bit, and you need to eat HEALTHY food.  Lots of reasons.

I DON’T LIKE IT!

We battle for more than two hours.  I think of all the fun things I had planned for the day.  I actually had all the activities lined up and ready to go this time.

PLEASE, I plead, just take a bite!  It’s just a little thing!  Once you’ve finished, we can have fun!

FINALLY, we negotiate.  I cut one of the little chunks into thirds, and she eats one third.  No more tears!  All is forgotten!

Why do I ask God for the opportunity to do big things, and balk at the little things? 

Why?