Hello to all of my zero readers!  Do not worry, I will respond to all of your comments and emails in due time, but please remember that I am only one man…

Let’s get started…

My topic for my literary hymen ripping revolves around my inability to get my 3 year old (M) to eat anything other than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Here it is now 7:20 PM and we sat down for dinner at 6:30. M has eaten exactly two vitamans, one bite of string cheese, and a glass of milk.  She was presented with grilled chicken, sauteed squash and zuchinni, and some early peas for her would-be meal.  In order to speed this process along (this happens nightly…unless there is peanut butter and jelly involved) I am requiring only 1 bite of chicken, squash, and zuchinni…no more, no less…I made this offer 30 minutes ago and she has yet to take that 1st bite…we have had a bite of chicken forked up for about 20 minutes now…we have dipped it in ketchup at least 3 times during that 2o minute span. 

7:26 PM-Wait! Hold up..She is about to…could it be?…YES! she put a bite of chicken in her mouth!…but wait, folks…REJECTED!  The chicken is on the floor, I repeat, the chicken is on the floor…

If she were not so dang cute I would force the food down her dainty little throat!  Alas, I am unable to even scold her…dang her and those cute little blue puppy dog eyes…

7:30 PM- New Tactic: Stories at bedtime are now on the line…no bites=no stories…this may sound mean, but you have to understand that we go through this every damn night…we (well M at least) literally sit at the dinner table for over an hour each nite waiting for those magical bites of new and exciting foods (like chicken, beef, fish, macaroni & cheese, any pasta for that matter, any cheese other than yellow Kraft slices, hot dog…and the list goes on and on) that never come…It’s like playing one of those JV side games in a Vegas casino that you know you are going to lose, but you play anyway.  You can imagine, right?  The blackjack tables are crowded and you want your free drink, so what do you do?  You roll up to the Guess- The-Card-On-My-Forehead game…at first your excited, there are no lines and surely the cocktail waitress will be around before you lose any money.  Before you can blink you have lost $100 to a buck-toothed, squinty-eyed, leathered from all of the cigarette smoke (insert country of immigration here___)…what’s worse is that you still have NO DRINK!  I roll up to that game table (the dinner table) every night and I lose.  But I love M and so I keep playing…and I still have no drink.

7:45 PM FINAL REPORT- After swiftly rejecting the bite of chicken to the third row of the bleachers we had to make our tactics more aggressive.  M was given door #3 on Let’s Make a Dinner Deal.  Bob, tell ’em what’s behind door #3!  Well, this fabulous package starts with a count to 5.  If after the timer reaches 5 no bites are taken, M gets ZERO stories!  1…2…3…4…BITE…attempted spitting out onto the plate… stern reminder of loss of stories…” I want to dip it in ketchup (this is squash I remind you)…2 dips of ketchup…ultimately swallowed down like a pill with a drink of water…

This is the part where I want to seek advice from all of you other parents out there, but I am just going to finish off M’s dinner like I always do…OINK!