Food update--mo laisins

A few weeks ago, it appears that Ivan's appetite has kind of returned. So after two full months on subsiding on milk, yogurt and air, Ivan has started to eat again.

He's still picky and doesn't eat that much, but it's definitely an improvement from before.

Raisins now rule. "More laisins, more laisins," he yells all the time. I started buying raising about a month ago, in an effort to get him to eat something that at least used to be a fruit.

He's still on a fruit boycott. All fruit, except bananas, which he willingly eats and goes to get himself, are a no go. He did put a blueberry in his mouth a few weeks ago, as if to dare me, but he promptly took it out. And blueberries were last year's one and only food item.

He even backed of yogurt for a few weeks, but that was short lived. However, he's now very peculiar about his yogurts. He wants to pick the one he wants to eat from the fridge. He opens it. Sometimes he eats it, but other times, he declared "no want it." And that's it. The yogurt goes back into the fridge. I try to give it to him later, but he refuses to eat an open container. He wants to open a new yogurt. As a results, lots of yogurt got wasted in the last few weeks.

The veggie boycott also continues. Although a few weeks ago, at a birthday party, I did manage to feed him a few carrot sticks dipped in hummus. After that, I optimistically bought carrot sticks to serve with hummus, but he caught my gimmick. No carrots have been eaten since the original birthday party tasting.

He regularly refuses to eat dinner with us. We've been making a big deal about dinner lately. We all sit down as a family to eat a nice square homemade meal. While Andy and I eat ours, Ivan plays with his food, or pushes it away declaring "no want it."

Yesterday, he did take a couple of bites of his corn on the cob, which was a major improvement over the previous time we served corn last week, when he systematically pierced every kernel, as if it were bubble wrap.

But today, he positively shocked us. We ate burgers with boiled potatoes and green beans. He pushed his plate away, even though "kepops" was generously doled out on the meat. We didn't expect him to eat the green beans and potatoes, since he's never touched them before. On his plate, there were served more as a decoration than a part of the meal.

Then Ivan got off his bench and wanted to sit in my lap. Once on my lap, he actually picked up a green bean and ate it. Then he helped himself to several more. Andy and I were too afraid to say anything, lest we'd break the grean bean eating spell, so we just looked at each other in shock. Then Ivan actually got a few potatoes pieces of his plate and ate them. Again, we were speechless.

This entire spell lasted only a few minutes. And soon Ivan was back at the fridge, demanding we open it, so he can peak in. He wanted hummus and "cips," which we let him eat.

And later he wanted yogurt.

(On Sunday at my parents house, while we all ate stuffed peppers and mashed potatoes for lunch, he refused to eat. But once we were done, my mother continued hanging out with him in the kitchen. Somehow she got him to eat. He ended up eating three small plates of stuffed peppers-stuffed with ground meat and rice--and mashed potatoes. We're still talking about this eating spree four days later because it was so unusual.)