Pick your battles, pick your eaters

I originally wrote about 90% of this over a year ago. Better late than never. ;)

“Mommy, I’m hungry.”
“Dinner isn’t ready yet. It will be soon.”
“I can’t wait. I think when dinner is ready, I’ll just… eat the whole thing and there will be no more food.”
So whined my 5-year-old son. Over and over for the better part of an hour. The kid eats and eats and eats, and when he’s not eating, he’s talking about food. He (and I) were waiting not-so-patiently for dinner to be done. As I am so innately creative on rainy Mondays in January, I had whipped up the “cheesy chicken casserole” printed on the back of a creamed soup can. I was pretty pleased with that, too. After a whole day of child rearing and shuttling my pre-kindergartner to and from school in a downpour, it’s lucky that I actually cooked anything at all. Many of our dinners lately are comprised of a can of chicken and stars soup or scrambled eggs. I find that by 6 pm, any creativity I may have had in the morning has long since disappeared and it certainly does not manifest itself in the form of a fabulous dinner.
So, dinner was finally done. This meant not just cooked, but spent sufficient time in the refrigerator cooling off so that I wouldn’t get complaints of it being too hot. My son sat down to his Thomas plate and started drinking his watered-down apple juice… for far too long.
“Honey, eat some of your food now, don’t drink all of your juice at once,” I told him between bites. This is something he’s guilty of quite often.
“I’m not eating this,” Alexander announced.
I stared at him. “Why NOT? It’s chicken, it’s cheese, it’s rice, carrots… all good stuff!” I said.
“I’m not hungry.”
This coming from the child who just 15 minutes earlier was nearly writhing in pain from his growling stomach. “Are you kidding me? You went on for an hour about how hungry you are!”

“Not for this,” he sniffed.
And I present to you my GOOD EATER.
My picky eater, on the other hand, started screaming the instant she caught sight of her plate as I was strapping her in to her booster seat. I knew she wouldn’t eat any of it, but with every dinner comes fresh hope that she might nibble something and surprise me... and herself. I thought, well… the chicken is really tender! And it has CHEESE on it, which is her main food group. And rice! I’ve seen her eat rice before. What month was that again? In any event, I know I’ve seen her eat it.
This is why, most nights, I choose not to cook. Why bother? My husband doesn’t get home until 8 pm, my daughter won’t eat 98% of what I put in front of her, and my son would be just as happy with a sandwich and soup as a home-cooked meal. But usually, he at least eats it, and will very generously makes lots of yum-yum noises, at my request, in an effort to get his sister to at least take one bite.
Still, I feel I must make the effort. I’m a stay-at-home mom, and isn’t this part of the job description? Wait, IS there a job description?! Because I never got my employee handbook, actually. And of course it goes without saying that there is no pay (and therefore no raise), and my bosses treat me like the lowly underling that I am. I’m at the bottom of the ladder and they are perched precariously on top (usually trying to reach cookies or something else they’re not supposed to have).
I do get bonuses, though. The random “I love you,” the bear hug that hits me (literally) out of the blue and nearly knocks me over, and even the odd compliment that I never would have guessed I’d hear. (A few days ago my son told me that I’m the best cook in the world. Granted, he doesn’t eat at many five-star restaurants, but he DID compare my culinary skills to my husband’s and I still won, which is saying something. He may be six, but I trust his judgment. If you knew him you’d understand what I mean.)
So, for now, it appears that my cooking adventures have been halted until a later date, until my picky young children turn into… picky teenagers? I’m not deluding myself here. Well, at least by then maybe I won’t care so much. ;)