For a while now, we’ve been trying to get the Monster to broaden what he eats.  As I’ve mentioned multiple times, it gets a little tiresome when the only thing he’s willing to eat at home for dinner is pizza, with the occasional chicken nugget.

(Which is probably a little unfair, since he will eat chicken fingers if we’re out at dinner at a restaurant, and is still generally willing to have a hot dog at the ballpark.  But still, by and large, our weekly routine has started to include a stop at a pizza joint to get some for him, so we don’t have to cook it ourselves.)

So, the goal of the food therapy he’s been in lately has been to get him to be willing to accept other foods, and to try to figure out if there’s a pattern.  So far, we’ve had no luck with determining a pattern to what he does or doesn’t eat… but we’ve had limited success with getting him to try new things.

Apparently, some children will do just about anything for an M&M.

A few weeks ago, my wife and the therapist got him eating melon, so long as he was supplemented with a piece of chocolate now and again.  It’s progressed slowly but surely to the point that he can be persuaded to eat it for its own sake as a side, but usually, something else has to be introduced to get him to be willing to go that far.

Oatmeal, for some reason, was largely a non-starter.  Not quite sure why, though I myself am not a huge fan of maple-and-brown-sugar oatmeal.

But then, this week was macaroni and cheese.  They had some struggles to get him to have mac and cheese at the therapist’s office, but he ate it with my wife doing a good portion of the work to get it in his mouth.  When they got home, she heated up some more for him, and after one run-through like at the therapist’s office, he started to eat it on his own with minimal encouragement…

And tonight, he’s fighting again.  *sigh*  Two steps forward, one step back.

Progress, slow and steady, but progress.