Monday, March 31, 2008

Notable dinner

I hesitate to label Tobin a picky eater, because I don't want the perception to become the reality or whatever. But. He is quite opinionated about what he will and won't (even try to) eat. And sometimes those opinions don't make much sense.

Tonight we went to local Tex-Mex place for dinner with Matt's parents, who we're visiting for spring break this week. We had a lovely afternoon at the zoo, and when we were in the car on the way to the restaurant, I offered Tobin snack options since he hadn't eaten for a while: Cheerios or a strawberry cereal bar. He said a definitive "no" to Cheerios, which are usually a perfectly fine eating option, and "yes" to the cereal bar. T finished the cereal bar, and before he could finish chewing the last bite, he started signing "more" with his hands. I asked if he wanted another one, and he nodded, so I gave him another, and he ate it all. So another thing you should know about Tobin is that this amount of food is a ton for him to eat at one time. When we got to the restaurant, I didn't worry about trying to order something for him because he had such a "hearty" snack. I figured he could just eat some of my tortilla or beans (he's taken to black beans lately) if he seemed interested. As it turned out, Tobin was interested in neither, but he did enjoy dipping a tortilla chip in salsa and licking the salsa off. The salsa was really mild, and he would only occasionally make a face and spit out a cilantro leaf. He never really ate a tortilla chip--would just get a new one when the one he was using got too soft. We all got a kick out of the salsa-eating-chip-licking boy. Then I gave him the lemon from my water because I wasn't sure if his grandparents had seen him eat a lemon. He likes lemons and does not even make the slightest sour face. Of course, tonight he topped previous lemon-eating feats by (a) dipping the lemon in the salsa AND REPEATING and (b) eating a chunk of the rind. Tobin washed down this dinner of salsa and lemon with a few sips of Matt's "Ashley juice," which as you may remember is supposed to be sweet tea but Matt drinks unsweetened tea. I thought T wouldn't want anything to do with the unsweetened variety (because I sure don't!), but he drank it as if it were no big thing. I kept trying to sneak him sips of water instead, because the tea was caffeinated but he would catch me. Fortunately, he didn't drink too much.

So let's recap. For dinner, my son ate two cereal bars, a few tablespoons of salsa, most of a lemon wedge including the rind, and a few ounces of unsweetened iced tea. I could feel guilty about this, but I'm choosing mostly to be amused. And also hoping he doesn't wake up with a tummy ache.

1 comment:

DMW said...

ha ha ha!!! lemon rind?!?!?!?!? that's too funny. hope you are having a great time on your spring break trip. :)