3 Green Beans

I've said many times that one area I know I have been delinquent in as a parent has been serving Nadia vegetables over the past year. When she was eating baby food, I had her eat vegetables every day (mostly corn, carrots, green beans, and peas). Over the past year, she had vegetables very infrequently. I am going to try very hard not to make that mistake with Ian. Part of the reason I had my first venture with freezer cooking was because I want Nadia to eat more hot dinners, and I want those to include a vegetable. Last night we all ate dinner together (YAY!). Ian ate a tiny bit of carrots (orange veggies are all I can get him to swallow thus far). Paul, Nadia, and I were having grilled chicken, macaroni & cheese, and green beans. Nadia was shoveling down the macaroni and cheese but wasn't keen on eating the chicken or green beans. I decided to lay down the law and require her to eat 3 small green beans. We started eating a little after 5pm. After many tears at 6:30 she asked if she could go to bed. She had been sitting there refusing to eat any of the green beans that whole time. So I got her ready for bed and she was in her crib about 6:40pm (an hour earlier than usual).

This morning I got out three new green beans from the freezer, warmed them up, and said she had to eat them before she could eat or drink anything else. Many tears ensued. She kept repeating "I don't like beans." After a couple of hours I did offer her some water, but she turned that down. That's something else we need to keep working on. She only likes to drink milk. Anyhow by 11:30 she was obviously rather hungry as it had now been 17.5 hours since she had eaten anything or had any milk. I suggested that I would give her a bite of applesauce with one green bean in it. She ate her three green beans this way. Finally. Then she ate a rather large lunch. She asked for oatmeal for dinner. Since she had eaten 3 green beans for lunch, and since green beans don't really go with oatmeal, I decided not to insist on any veggies for dinner. She does eat fruit every day - bananas, grapes, apples, etc. Tomorrow though I plan to insist again on veggies being eaten. I also am going to start insisting that she eats whatever we're having for dinner (such as chicken). I want her to eat a healthy diet, enjoy a wide variety of foods, and also learn that she needs to obey Mommy and Daddy. Hopefully it won't take 18 hours to get her to eat green beans the next time I serve them. It wasn't pleasant!