My Kid Ate a Vegetable

Well, folks, it was a day to document in the baby books. 

Ellie ate a vegetable. 

I haven't talked about Ellie's eating issues in awhile because, well, I get sick of talking about it. But, for those of you who are new here, I'll just sum it up by saying that Ellie eats like 4 things and that's all. She ate veggies as a baby when they were pureed. But now that she's older and full of all of the opinions, she won't touch them. I can get her to eat veggie chips and sweet potato fries but that's as far as it has gone. 

There have been days that I give up and just let her eat the things she will eat because I get really tired of having a fight over every meal time, fights filled with sobbing and timeouts and a little girl going to bed hungry. It's not my favorite part of parenting. 

Last night, Ellie had a trifecta going:

1. She was in a good mood

2. She was very, very hungry and kept asking for more food

3. She wanted ice cream

We knew this was an opportunity. She had already eaten a great dinner and as we all sat at the table, she politely asked us for ice cream. I had green beans on my plate. I put one on her plate and said she could have ice cream if she ate a green bean.

She picked it up, looked at it, rolled it between her fingers a few times and then sat it down and said "No. No thanks. I'm fine. I can't want it."

"Okay, that's fine baby. You don't have to eat it. But then you don't get ice cream, okay?"

"Okay."

A few minutes later she asked for a cookie. 

Grant chimed in. "Ellie girl, I will get you whatever you want. You can have chocolate ice cream. You can have vanilla ice cream. You can have a cookie. You can have a popsicle. Whatever you want. All you have to do is eat that green bean."

And then she did it. 

Like, we watched her chew it and swallow it.

(Because that is a trick she has done before. She puts food in her mouth but then when we present the reward she promptly spits all of it back out, which causes me to bang my head on the table.)

So she chewed it, swallowed it, took a huge gulp of water, and then said "BALILLA ICE CREAM, PLEASE!"

We gave each other a high five and then all 3 of us got 2 scoops. 

Look, I know it's bribery but I feel like a champion. I made this last night to document the occasion.

If you need parenting advice, I'm here to impart all my wisdom. 

SHE ATE A GREEN BEAN, Y'ALL.