Dinner, and lunch for third graders

Here's the follow-up to yesterday's post.
Oh, it was good.

Beef stew



And fresh-baked bread.
With butter.
(We'll have none of that margarine nonsense here.)



# # #

Switching gears (or meals) now...I have to post about the girls' lunches today, because for a long time my girls have tried to be picky eaters and what we packed for lunch this morning delighted me to no end. Now, I say "have tried to be picky eaters" because I'm a mean mother and do not pander to my children's dietary whims. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a believer in the clean plate club. Forcing someone to eat all of something she doesn't like -- or forcing someone to continue eating after she's full -- is messed up and a recipe (har har, pardon the pun) for future eating issues. But I won't cook a separate meal for them, I won't let them make and eat PB&J instead of what Pete and I are eating, and I insist that they at least try the "ewww" item(s) -- and really try, as in, three good-sized bites. I also make the "ewww" item(s) again -- and again, and again, and again, because tastes do change over time. I've also read that it can sometimes take at least 10 tries for a food to "take" with children. I have no idea whether that's true or not, but the girls are happily eating things now that they turned their little noses up at not so long ago. Take our dinner last night. For several years, the girls hated that beef stew. Now, they love it. In fact, when they walked in the door after school yesterday, they both exclaimed in unison, "Ooooh, something smells really good!"

It's the same thing with their lunches. Every since kindergarten, we've been packing lunches. (We don't do the school lunch the school serves, except as an occasional treat, as it's not very healthy stuff.) For a long time, there wasn't a lot of variety: organic PB&J on a homemade whole grain bread, carrots, some kind of fruit, milk. Deviations from that resulted in essentially untouched lunches and two hungry kids. But slowly, bit by bit, the lunches have been evolving...and now they're eating -- and liking! -- things that they wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pole a few years ago.

Today, they're having:

- nuts (E. had cashews, M. had almonds) with dried blueberries and cranberries
- baby spinach with their favorite dressing (a cranberry, walnut, and gorgonzola combo)
- carrots
- and milk (not pictured).




Isn't that pretty little lunch!

We're not out of the woods yet, of course. They still turn up their noses at an awful lot of things, and anything new is regarded with deep suspicion. But it's lots better than it used to be, and that makes me happy.

And maybe someday we'll be able to go to the Indian -- or Mexican, or Thai -- restaurant without complaint and groans of, "This stinks." I can hope, anyway.