Yesterday for lunch DuckyBoy acquiesced to eating tomato soup with Goldfish crackers and some cheesy munchie mix.
We began with the tomato soup mug about half-full, because I know he never eats too much of the soup itself.
He ate most of the crackers and a tiny bit of soup and then announced he was full.
I let him take a break, then told him he had to finish the soup.
Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that ensued!
I put it in the subway-map mug. It was full but it's much smaller, so it looked like less.
Relieved that it was less than he thought, he agreed to eat/drink more while I read to him.
The book finished, he'd had the rest of the crackers and about a third of what was in the subway cup.
"Fuulllllllllll!" he complained.
As much for me as for him, I proceeded to pour the remaining soup into a measuring cup. It was a measly quarter-cup of soup. I was not going to feel guilty about making my kid have a quarter-cup of soup That I Know He Likes.
I put my foot down: We were not going to go outside, or play (both of which he wanted to do) until that soup was gone.
Now, I never do this. Many other people do, I know, it's not a new concept to make your children clean their plates, but I tend to be more laissez faire -- when he's hungry he cleans his plate, when he's not he doesn't.
But this is ridiculous -- he agrees to soup and drinks a tablespoonful?!
So it was a real OK Corrall-style standoff. After a few moments of his fussing I finally said, "You can eat this soup or go to your room!"
Oh, that was NOT what he wanted to hear! He went in and out of his room a couple of times, then --surprise, surprise! -- managed to drink the rest of the soup.
I think the novelty of having it from the measuring cup helped.
But good grief! It takes a cabinetful of cups to feed a child ...
1 comment:
Moving the soup to increasingly smaller cups was brilliant.
And my father used to have one of those same Campbell's soup mugs. It shattered years ago.
And when I ordered my son's cake for his first birthday, I spelled his name for the baker at the chi-chi bakery three times before giving up and saying, "It's spelled just like Campbell's soup." Turns out that baker must use generic soup because the cake said "Happy Birthday Cambell" - I was so mad.
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