I’ve mentioned, time and time again, about how the Monster is a picky eater.

And he is.  Trying to get him to eat something that isn’t in his normal repertoire is almost worse than pulling teeth…

It wasn’t always like this.  Once upon a time, when he was much younger, he rather enjoyed eating just about anything that we put in front of him.  And then it changed, and has been getting worse until we’re down to the fairly limited diet that he enjoys.

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t surprise us once in a while. About two or three weeks ago, out of the blue, he started eating peanut butter sandwiches again.  Not with jelly, mind you – just peanut butter – but it certainly made packing lunches easier for him since we can now give him something ‘normal’ now and again for lunch.

As you can imagine, that means that most family gatherings are kind of a nightmare for us.  It’s always the question of what he might eat, what we could cajole him to at least put down his pie hole so that he’s getting some nutrition.  (It also means often bringing food for him, or trying to figure out if we can grab nuggets or something on the way home, after putting enough snack-type food into him so that he’ll at least not be carrying on about being hungry while we’re there.)

We weren’t really figuring much would happen different this year for Thanksgiving. If we were lucky, he’d decide that the turkey was chicken and eat a little bit before figuring out the difference, and that we’d probably dig into his grandparents’ pantry to find some snacks for him.  Maybe we’d be very lucky and find some fruit that he’d be willing to eat instead.

In the beginning, this held true to form.  He did not want anything in front of him – especially not the broccoli that R was eating with vigor – and so we kind of gave up and left him be for a while.  After a bit more, the turkey slowly disappeared from his plate.  (I’m a firm believer that a hungry-enough child will give in and eat what’s in front of them.)

And then came dessert.

Again, I have no illusions about my child.  The Monster is not a big fan of most non-chocolate desserts.  And yet, as you can see, he got pumpkin pie.

He actually asked for pumpkin pie.

I don’t know what happened here, but hey, I’m not really going to complain…