Progress...?

My great Zucchini Muffin experiment was rather anti-climactic this morning when the Roo ate exactly ONE, forsaking the hearty baked goodness in favor of gnawing on hunks of strawberry. Lesson? Hide the fruit until the END of breakfast in hopes of actually getting something with more than, oh, ten calories in his belly. SIGH. On an upnote, mommy enjoyed three of her little muffiny friends for breakfast, and relished every bite. SO THERE, ROOROO.

Today marked the first time I have allowed the daycare to feed Carter some of their food. The lunch today (well, I say lunch, but technically the most substantial of the five mini-meals they serve throughout the day comes at 10:30am...go figure) was rice pilaf with roasted chicken and broccoli. I had spoken to the director last week, and she proudly informed me that she'd begun buying hormone-free chicken from Costco, so I felt okay about giving him that. Rice pilaf is fairly innocuous, and broccoli is one of the "Clean Fifteen" veggies, so I decided to go ahead and go for it.

I arrived mid-afternoon to visit, and the daycare ladies excitedly told me that he'd eaten very well, as if he couldn't believe he was eating the same food as the other kids. Hrmph. Then I looked in the fridge to discover his 1:30 yogurt snack, lovingly prepared and brought from home by yours truly, untouched - but his paperwork said "1:30 yogurt - finished." !?!? I immediately assumed the school had misunderstood my notes and served him their 1:30 yogurt (by coincidence, the other kids were having yogurt then, too) instead, and left irritated. But NO - when I picked Carter up tonight, the director told me that he had refused ALL OF MY FOOD, and only seemed to want theirs. In other words, my child appears to be STAGING A PROTEST and refusing my organic homemade treats in favor of processed daycare crackers and the like. Evidently, he just wants to be like his little friends - does peer pressure really begin this young?

I arrived home disheartened and sweltering in the 105-degree heat (and, might I add, loathing every sweat-covered moment of Southern California life). Unsurprisingly, he refused to eat more than two bites at dinner, no matter how we coaxed and cajoled.

Then I saw it, as I was changing his diaper before bedtime. How could I have missed it? His mouth was thrown wide open in a deep belly laugh as I blew raspberries on his tummy, and there it was - tooth number seven rearing its little head! AH-HA! THAT could explain his utter lack of appetite for the past several days!

....Or could it? Am I just desperately clinging to that hope so that I don't have to face the unpleasant reality that my child just doesn't want to eat ANYTHING I make? After all, he ate the school food just fine.

It seems that I'm just going to have to chalk another one up to the great mystery of toddlerhood. But maybe, just maybe, daycare food isn't so scary after all.