Does Anyone Else...

...have to feed their kid like they're a baby bird to get them to eat? I really wonder sometimes if Kiddo is trolling me hardcore, because she's done this since, well, day one of self-feeding.

But I couldn't get her to eat this (smaller portioned, of course) superhardchampion meal...

This meal courtesy of my mad skills, Lidl, Tesco, and the United States Postal Service

...because she's doublejonesy for some PB&J. I make gourmet dinners and all she wants is the classic field trip stand-by.

That's African springbok(!) in the southwestern corner, bordered on the north by Belgian Brussels sprouts and on the east by Uncle Ben's tasty San Franciscan treat.

Why won't she eat it?! That meat's badass. Like butter and no, not like the time I ate butter on camera (heh, that was fun) but like so tender I could use a fork to cut it, no knife! And as for fat and gristle? Non-existent.

Will she eat chicken? No. PB&J? Of course, dummy. That's patriotism, that is. Will she eat meatloaf? Yes...odd, that, even with considering how my meatloaf would kick your mom's and grandmother's ass... meatloaf's ass, not theirs. And I sometimes still have to feed her by hand. Like we're not done with the whole imprinting/bonding process. Did I stop nursing too early?

Meh. That's not it.

She's got no problem eating fruit on her own as long as I get the fruit washed first. (GASP, BOOM, SHUDDER...there may have been times she's eaten unwashed fruit! Horrible mother.) I bought a bag of apples on Saturday. There are none left. Hell, I have to restrain her from chowing down on the wild strawberries growing out the back. She'll eat the green ones if I'm not constant vigilante.

"Honey, Mommy needs to wash it first. No, don't eat it just yet, it needs to be washed. Babygirl, let's walk the 50 feet to the kitchen so I can wash it. NO, I SAID NO! IT'S DIRTY!"
 Look at her, kid's so drunk with lust for that strawberry. Not even paying any attention to me.

It's great! Today, I taught her how to open a banana. Why so late? Because she's hit and miss when it comes to food. Food she liked two years ago, two months ago, two weeks ago (I'm done) even aren't safe from her censorial "blegh". She'll make the good food choices; real fruit versus Welch's fruit snacks, until the real fruit's all gone...then she goes after those little bags of gummy goodness. And she goes AllieBrosh-like on ice cream like how Allie Brosh goes on cake. She is almost four, y'all.

So I still wonder, do the lunch ladies at Nursery feed her by hand, too? Should I get a meal calendar from the school, so I know what's she's eating? I want to set up a CCTV feed direct streaming to my laptop so that I can  watch gather evidence figure out what to do about this, to prove it one way or the other. It'd probably violate many of those children's parents' official wishes to disallow their child from being  photographed (that's a totally separate issue) but this is getting serious for me! I have to know, for reals like, if Kiddo is already a mastertroll, manipulating me and her dad so that she gets what she wants, how she wants. If so, then babybird girl's done me proud.

Because I like to think she gets it from me.