Eating your own dog food

In one of those random bits of parenting reading that I came across some time ago, it said that children are more likely to eat the things you’ve made for them if they have had a part in the preparation of the meal. Being that I tend to take it personally when she turns her nose up at my cooking, it’s been in my interest to let her participate when I can.

Yes, she actually eats her vegetables, including the Brussels sprouts seen in the picture. Occasionally, I take her grocery shopping, and she insists on biting into the cucumbers that she grabs as we swing through the produce aisles. I know, however, that it’s only a matter of time before she’s pestering us for junk food. How do people deal with the checkout lane? I swear, every time I go through one of those things, surrounded by candy bars and tabloid magazines, I gain five pounds and lose five IQ points.

Eating hasn’t been a problem, yet, but I hear that’s coming. She already exhibits a lot of frustration that you would see from a two-year-old, gritting her teeth and gripping her fists, body trembling when she doesn’t get her way.  Every now and then we get the lie-on-the-floor-and-wail treatment, but, so far, not in public.

Right now, the best moments of fatherhood come at the beginning of the day (albeit a little too early for my tastes) and when she comes home from daycare. It’s a brief but satisfying moment (and only a moment) where she cries for “Daddy!!!!” But once I get that hug, she’s gone. It’s as if she just wants assurance that I’m there and haven’t abandoned her, and once she knows she can take me for granted, she does.

Sigh.