Picky, picky, picky.

Confession time: I don't like cooking.  Part of it is that I'm pretty easy to please in the food department--I will eat the same thing three days running without batting an eye.  Another part is that my kids have broken my will to cook.  My minions balk at childhood staples like mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and quesadillas.  Half of them like pizza, but not sandwiches; the others pass on the pizza for peanut butter and jelly--but only with raspberry jam.  Well-planned meals are often met with "Can I have a sandwich?" and negotiations for how many bites they have to eat to continue living in my house.

Hi, I'm Carla, and my kids are picky eaters.

However a more fitting term would be "erratic" or "inconstant" or "disgusting and ungrateful."

Several weeks ago, I proudly made shepherd's pie for the first time in my adult life.  It was delicious.  Leah, however, thought I was pulling a fast one.

"You said we were having meatloaf," she accused.

I nodded. "We are.  It's under the potatoes."

"Huh."

A moment passed as they all considered this.

Then, Bren, who is otherwise respectable and a model citizen, sniffed: "I didn't know it was possible to ruin meatloaf."

Aeryn chimed in. "Yeah, I don't need dessert tonight."

Part of me was all Beast: "Then go ahead and STAAAARVE!!!!"  Another part of me--a quieter, calmer, and more sarcastic part--could only think: "Really?  I know what you've eaten, and this is at least meant to be put in your mouth."

I really don't get it. When I was a kid, I never questioned having to eat whatever my parents served, no matter how much I hated it.  One of the worst was something my dad used to make called a "garbage omelet"--shredded corn tortillas, onions, peppers, ham, mushrooms, cheese, and whatever else he could find in the fridge, sandwiched in runny eggs. Loathsome as it was, I knew better than to try to weasel my way out of eating what my dad made; I couldn't pretend to be sick because my dad wouldn't care, and until I was older, the only alternative to eating what was on my plate was going hungry. Oily fried spinach with slimy onions and limp bacon, chicken swimming in grease, garbage omelets...I hated it, but I ate it.

Not my kids.  They will turn their noses up at legitimate food, and yet eat the most disgusting non-food without any sense of shame or concept of sanitation.  I have seen these little savages psych themselves into throwing up over a bowl of beans, but then straight-up eat dirt, boogers (theirs and their sisters'), scabs, earwax, toenails, crayons...  As a toddler, Brenna used to snack on the cigarette butts that our upstairs neighbors would throw on the goose-crap sprinkled lawn.  One time Leah helped herself to some anonymous caramel she had scraped off the bottom of our grocery cart. The current champion of nasty is Echo, who has a frankly disturbing love of cat litter. 

I mean, seriously?  Cat litter?  Shouldn't this be a self-correcting problem?

Somehow I've convinced them over the years how undesirable most of these are, and, in all fairness, Leah has developed a sudden and unexpected love of scrambled eggs.  I don't know why or how.  I'm not going to ask, just in case she decides I've taken too much interest and she has to hate them again. 

However, even if they're eating regular food, they still occasionally eat like jerks.  See exhibit A.

Exhibit A

This is a bowl of Marshmallow Mateys.  You may have noticed the lack of any marshmallows except for a couple blue fragments the monsters somehow managed to miss during their gleaning.  This is one of the harsh realities of parenthood that you somehow never hear about.
I suppose you're hoping there is some point to this tirade.  No, not really.  I guess if you must find some value in this, I can throw you this bone:  Pick your priorities.  I have no idea why my kids all stop eating like humans around 3, and I don't know what prompts them to start again, however grudgingly, as they age.   If they choose to live on raw carrots, apples, rice, breakfast cereal marshmallows and the occasional chicken nugget until they are 7, that's their business--it's mostly healthy food, and there are other battles more deserving of my time and energy.  I tried fighting this one, and it just made me miserable and my dinner cold.

In the meantime, if they don't want to eat, it means more for me.  Silver lining.