Jack the Foodie

Jack in the pickiest eater in the world.

This is especially problematic because he has food allergies, so I'm already limited in what I can give him to eat.

If he had it his way, the five basic food groups would be:

-Rice milk
-Oatmeal (the baby food kind)
-Marshmallows
-Pez
-Whatever Mom is eating

It's a battle every day to get something healthy in him.  Most days I am just grateful that his milk and oatmeal are fortified with SOME vitamins.

Protein has been one of our biggest challenges.  Jack just doesn't like to eat anything that has any protein in it.  His usual source of protein is the ever-healthy option of chicken nuggets.

Friday night is pizza night in the Young home.  Lewis has perfected his own pizza recipe - dough, sauce, everything.  One of our favorite pizza toppings was discovered by chance.  When my mom was with us around the time Jack was born, she bought a large bag of honey-battered chicken nuggets, which she left behind when she left.  One Friday night found us without any pizza toppings, so Lewis cut up a few of the nuggets and tossed them on, just to see what would happen.

Ohmygoodness, so delicious.  I never would have thought that chicken nuggets - even high-quality-all-white-meat-kind-of-expensive chicken nuggets would go well on a pizza.  But they do.  So, so well.  Especially with bell peppers, Roma tomatoes, and mushrooms, if you were curious.

One day I was trying to come up with something - anything - that Jack would eat.  Or even just taste.  So I popped a couple of chicken nuggets in the microwave and, miracle of miracles, Jack ate them!  All of them!  And then even asked for more!

Except these were high-quality-all-white-meat-kind-of-expensive chicken nuggets that Lewis and I happen to really enjoy on our pizza.  And if I'm resorting to feed chicken nuggets to my kid, what difference does it make if they are cheap or expensive?

The next time I was at the store I picked up another bag of chicken nuggets.  Lower-quality-animal-shaped-cheaper chicken nuggets.  No fancy honey batter, but why should that matter to a one-year-old?

Well it apparently matters when your son is a chicken nugget snob.  He completely turned his little button nose up at these chicken nuggets.  They were decidedly unsatisfactory.

But you know, sometimes Jack loves something one day and completely abhors in the next.  Maybe this was one of those cases.  Maybe it wasn't the lower-quality-animal-shaped-cheaper chicken nuggets.  Maybe it was just chicken nuggets.

We tested that theory by giving him a few of the high-quality-all-white-meat-kind-of-expensive chicken nuggets, with a single lower-quality-animal-shaped-cheaper chicken nugget mixed in.  Each chicken nugget was cut into three pieces.  At the end of his meal there were three pieces left sitting on his high chair tray.  All three of them put together made a complete rhinoceros.