Stop the Enabling

So here is my confession of mistakes, battles and lessons learned the hard way in my journey through parenthood, well ok just one confession ...

Maclin had his two year well check at the beginning of this week. He weighed and measured in at 36lbs, and 37.5in. Both above the 95% for his age. Overall his pediatrician was pleased with his development. However, the dark secret in our closet, is Maclin's eating habits. If he had his way he would drink milk and eat animal crackers for the rest of his life. Even as a baby, if he didn't like how the food looked or felt on his tongue there was no way I was going to get him to eat it. I tried varied stealth manuevers of "nutritiousness" most of which were met with utter failure. When he gave up eating pasta with red sauce and then most recently macaroni and cheese, I thought I just might actually lose my mind. How in the world did this happen? Then our pediatrician reminded me that I was the adult here and I had to limit his options. And then I had my ah ha moment. I've been enabling his eating behavior or lack there of this whole time. I didn't want to argue with him over food, but he was controlling the situation by refusing all my options until I gave in and gave him the prefered food. He's the third child. He knows I'm worn out. I eventually gave in thinking he needed to eat something, right? But I already know that he won't starve (please he could live off the fat of the land for quite awhile). He will eventually get hungry enough to eat. But could I stand the temper tantrums until he reached that point? Did I have enough bottles of wine in the house to see me through this? He is a redhead, and true to his hair color and the gross generalization that is implied, the kid has got a temper. But I'm not doing him any favors by giving in just so I can have some peace. So, I put my big girl pants on and said, "No Maclin. No milk. First eat. Then milk." At first this was met with big fat tears and screams, but tonight we had a huge breakthough. He ate Taco Soup. He actually ate it. He didn't pick anything out. He ate all of it. The chicken and beans and tomatoes and corn ... If I were writing this by hand you might see the smudges that my tears of joy make in the ink. And here is the documentation to prove my triumph.

And by the way, yes that is Harrison saying "yea, poophead."