Eating (or not)

The last time I remember Ivan eating heartily, ocassions which are few and far between, was at Mila's birthday party over the Memorial Day weekend. That was over a month ago. To my astonishment, he had scarfed down two "sarmas," stuffed cabbage rolls. Well, he ate the meat no the cabbage. But still. The day before he had eaten two hotdogs at Dave's.

Since that he's been progressively eating less and less. It's really becoming a concern. Granted he's been sick this week, and with an inflammed throat, it probably hurt to eat.
He's even stopped eating his ever-so-loved yogurt. He asks for it, we open it and then "no wan it." There were four open yogurts in the fridge this week. We finally through them out.

The same thing with sandwiches. He asks for one or see me eat one. I make him one--his favorites: cream cheese, or pbj. As soon as I put it in front of him, "no wan it."

He keeps asking for pizza. So he's eaten pizza several days now, including cold left over pizza as breakfast. But even pizza has become dubious.

He's still into ketchup, which he calls "kepop." Except he wasn't to eat it by itself, with a spoon, not as a topping. We made burgers last night. Meat, as a food group, used to be one thing he'd eat. Nope, he maybe ate a few bites, and spat it out. But the kepop was all gone.

Even the cheese stick and crackers, which used to be his staples, seem have been rejected now. He wants to open the cheese package, but then strings the cheese into pieces and hands them to me instead of eating it. And crackers, he'll hold a cracker in his hand but not really eat it.

He's not eaten veggies or fruits in months now. But he will gladly eat a cookie. There always seems to be a room for a cookie, which, of course, we give him sporadically.

Now, everyone says it's normal. Toddlers are finicky. Except all other moms I talk to report their toddlers eat all this variety of food. In some cases, I've witnessed it myself. I saw Lisa's Sam eat fruit: strawberries. Ethan munches on cucumber slices. I could only dream of that. Actually, at Beth's 4th of July BBQ, one of the deserts was a strawberry jello pudding/cake/mousse. Ivan wanted a piece ("cake") so I hid an actual strawberry in the pink mousse and gave it to him. He promptly spit it out. No strawberry for him.

As our pediatrician said this week, if his throat is sore, he probably won't eat. But he'll make it up later. Except, I've started to wonder what and when is later. What if he has some sort of acid gas reflux thing or some other medical issue and doesn't want to eat? Should we be taking his pickiness and finickiness more seriously. The kid can't live of milk. And we certainly won't indulge him and solely feed him cookies and cake.

Also, I'm concerned because I feel that I have a limited amount of time when I have complete control over his eating habits before he becomes aware of all sorts of junk. In another year or two, he'll be too aware of commercials and junk that other kids are eating that will getting him to eat healthy will be even more of a challenge.

Also, I see other moms push a lot of snacks, granola bars, cheese puffs, goldfish, cheerios, etc... I'm not big on snacks. I wasn't raised on snacks and neither Andy nor myself are snackers. So it doesn't occur to me to buy then. Crackers and cheese is what Ivan gets when we're out and I know that snack time is approaching. I'm also not so sure I approve of that excessive and constant snacking. It seems to me that it sets kids up for poor eating habits. Insead of snacking, I want Ivan to rely on eating three square meals a day, plus a snack here and there between mealtime.

Except at this point, I guess I would just like him to eat.