As I mentioned a few posts ago, the Monster’s not much for a diversified diet when given his way about things.

Certainly, there’s been a little bit of an evolution at times – first the narrowing when he was younger, from “anything” to “almost nothing”, and now the faintest shimmers of hope in getting him to eat other things.

I’m not, of course, just talking about his broadening from chicken nuggets to chicken fingers, or being willing to consider pizzas that don’t quite look like Papa Johns’ to be pizza… but things like the fact that he’s been recently willing to eat hamburgers again, or the re-introduction of peanut butter sandwiches into his diet.  Or the fact that, last night, he was asking (insistently, I might add) for celery.  Or that, after leaving him be for an hour, he sat down on his own and ate the homemade french toast I made for him, after he’d insisted that it wasn’t french toast.

But then there’s things like yesterday evening, when we tried to get him to eat what we were having for dinner.  He recognizes spaghetti, and while he used to eat it when he was younger, he wants nothing to do with it now.  I mean, okay, at least last night he was willing to taste it (if by ‘taste’, you mean ‘touch it with his tongue while on my fork and then go back to insisting no-no-no’.)  In the end, though, he still ended up having pizza for dinner, since we know he’ll eat that and it’s not going to have him going to bed hungry or malnourished.

My wife’s more insistent than I am about getting the doctor to refer him for a eating clinic when we go this year.  I’m personally still convinced there are larger rocks to move than the expansiveness of his dietary habits – I’d rather work on things like his speech, or getting him to go to the bathroom by himself.  There’s sufficient proof in my own family that one can live, quite well in fact, on a limited, self-restricted diet.  But… on the other hand, I’d also like to stop having to nuke a slice of pizza nightly for him, if only because I’m concerned that it will eventually encourage R to shut down his own dietary choices as he tries to emulate his big brother more and more.

Just a matter, perhaps, of picking my battles.  Maybe this year is the right time to see if therapy can get him to consider eating more things…