Aaiiiiiiigh.

Some of you have been asking how we're doing around these parts, concerning my son's ongoing food issues. Well! Let me take a break from tearing my hair out to update you!

The update is, there's no update. The child has made zero progress. The prevailing wisdom (and yes, I have read Ellyn Satter; I want Ellyn Satter to come live at my house) seems to be that we should include at least one item he enjoys as part of our dinner, but the number of foods he enjoys seems to be dwindling daily. (He won't eat bread, people. BREAD.) He now refuses any fruit (INCLUDING BLUEBERRIES OH MY GOD). He wants only pasta. Only the small pastas. Orzo and tiny stars and eensy little elbows. With butter or ricotta. Try adding some sauce—just try!—and my god, you will pay.

Not only is he picky, he also has an enormous appetite, so if there's nothing on the table that he'll countenance, he is not happy with you. The Wisdom of the Eating Sages also dictates maintaining a blithe, devil-may-care attitude toward your child's eating, but that's difficult when he's shouting at you and weeping and it's just the two of you because your husband isn't home yet and hmmm, is that a beer I see in the back of the fridge? Indeed it is!

I feel for him. I think this is enormously frustrating for him as well as us. Lately he's been demanding "something un-yoo-sual" for dinner, but of course this is hilarious because "unusual" terrifies him. He's bored with what he likes but scared to try anything new. So tears and tantrums follow shortly thereafter. I've tried to make dinner pleasant, I've made it crystal clear to him that he doesn't have to try anything, but that he also doesn't get to spend dinner time pointing out how yucky everything at the table is, and not once has he managed this. Just keeping quiet about the yuck factor in his vicinity. Not once. It's amazing how one's shoulder muscles can begin to spasm just thinking about this issue! Huh!

Then the other day he stopped dead in his tracks outside a Japanese restaurant, inhaled, and said, "It smells incredible in there." I wanted to drag him inside and pour miso soup down his gullet.

We've limited dessert to one night a week, with the occasional exception, because every dinner was becoming all about dessert. Now every night it's a fight over whether this is a dessert night, or not. His newest line is "I've decided this is a dessert night because I'm the boss, and I get to say when it's dessert night." This is an interesting line, this "I'm the boss" thing, because it has never worked, not once, not ever, and yet he continues to use it about, well, everything. I AM NOT LIKING HIM SO MUCH THESE DAYS.

And look, I know. I KNOW. I know there are worse things we could be going through. He sleeps well. He is a delight in many ways. He's healthy and weighs enough and the pediatrician is unconcerned. But you asked! And this is what's going on. The End.

EDITED TO ADD: Me again! Hi! Listen, please don't confuse what I'm feeling about this issue with what I'm doing. As far as Henry knows, I am the the epitome of nonchalance when it comes to his massive refusal of every food item except tiny teensy pastas. We only address the behavioral issues surrounding dinnertime. We have read everything there is to read. And as for "Maybe he'll like..."--thank you. But no. I mean, probably yes, if he'd deign to put it in his mouth. But he won't! And in this way I am driven bonkers. But all inside, in a quiet way, ssssh. He's not affected by it. Okay?

I'm cracking down because you told me to.

Last night: Chicken cutlets, steamed broccoli with lemon, whole-wheat couscous.

Result: couscous tasted and vehemently rejected; other foods refused.

Interesting factoid: Couscous can settle into nooks and crannies of your dining room faster than you can say STOP SPITTING IT ALL OVER THE PLACE. You'll find couscous nubbins everywhere the next day! And the bitter memories will resurface.

Tonight: Chicken-apple sausage, sauteed kale, mashed potatoes, butternut squash soup. (What can I say? I'm in a cooking mood. Also, the soup is most definitely not homemade. I'm not in that much of a cooking mood.)

Chances of him eating anything: the butternut squash soup used to be a contender, which is why I'm including it. Everything else? HA HA HA HA HA.

Pray for me.

UPDATE: Nothing. Nothing! He talked a great deal about the soup and how he was going to try it, but then demurred when I offered the slightest bit of encouragement. Luckily I didn't care so this didn't bother me one bit. (I am now stifling a scream.)

I just want to live to see him eat salad. Is that asking so much?

Just about one year ago, I wrote about Henry’s maddeningly limited food preferences. Henry was a strict adherent to the all-dairy, all-white-with-a-little-light-yellow-in-it diet, claiming that it “tasted good” and also “I’m not trying anything else ever nyah nyah nyah.” Any attempts to introduce new foods were met with shrieks of protest. It was a fun time.

Since that post, Scott and I have employed different strategies to get him to eat new foods. We created an enormous New Food Chart, with shiny gold stickers for each food and the promise of a new toy when 10 stickers were achieved. On the recommendation of some expert or other, we tried making the tasting of new foods his “job,” with no rewards given except the satisfaction of a job well done. We tried reverse psychology (“don’t you dare eat that broccoli stalk. I mean it.”). We tried explaining the food pyramid and what foods would make him big and strong like a Rescue Hero. We tried begging.

Guess what worked?

Nothing. Nothing worked. In fact, I do believe we made it worse. Congratulations, feckless parents!

In this entire year, Henry has pretty much stuck to his original diet. He added two new foods to his repertoire: baked beans and grilled cheese. The latter makes it much easier to go out to eat. The former means at least he’s getting some fiber, albeit with more sugar than I like to think about. True, these foods would not have entered his repertoire without our cajoling, but looking back, I think we won a couple of battles but in doing so lost the damn war.

Here’s what we accomplished: Henry now knows how deeply we care about what he eats. He knows it’s pretty much the one thing we can’t make him do. And most of all, he knows that he’s got us. He now delights in telling me all about what he’s not going to eat. He tried tomato sauce and loved it, but now, he says, he’s never going to eat it again. Same thing for peanut butter. And carrots. And pierogi. And about 36 other items.

(Parents of younger children, take note: do not give your child even the merest hint that you give a flying fig about what they eat. Don’t even look at their plate. Serve them whatever you made (or ordered) (or microwaved) and consider your job done. Because I am telling you, once your kid senses that they have the upper hand, you’re done. Heed my words! Heeeed! )

So now that every one of our tactics has backfired, I have officially given up. I have ripped up the food chart. I am done begging and punishing and even suggesting. I told him that what he eats is entirely up to him, but that I would no longer make him a different dinner from ours.

We’ve been doing this for about a month, and it’s made absolutely not one smidgen of difference in his diet. I more or less wimp out every night and make some kind of a pasta with dinner—the difference being that it’s part of everyone’s dinner and not just his special foodstuff—so he eats that. So in other words he’s not eating differently, but I am, and sweet Moses I’m sick of macaroni and cheese. (At some point I will gather up the courage to make a dinner that doesn’t include one of his greatest hits, and deal with his keen disappointment at the absence of beige foods laid out before him. I’m sure he’ll go without dinner that night, but at the very least he has to learn that it’s not the end of the world. Right? Someone’s anecdote of their kid who never ate anything and now eats snails cooked in tripe would be appreciated just about now.)

The only thing left for me to do is just be okay with what he eats or doesn’t eat. I am trying, lord how I’m trying, to think positively. What he likes, he really, really likes. And that’s good. He could eat 56 containers of yogurt a day. He derives more satisfaction from blueberries than I previously believed possible. He gets positively dewy-eyed over the thought of pasta mixed with ricotta cheese. If I keep pushing, I’m going to dampen his enthusiasm for what little he does eat, and pretty soon he will eat nothing but sand. Just to spite me. Kids are nuts, did I mention?

So these days when he refuses any and all foods I do my best to laugh gaily, tra la, as if he just told me he’s not going to do my taxes. And I say, “Someday you’ll eat that,” and he agrees. “Someday,” he says, watching me for signs of discomfort, “but not now. And not soon.”

Wow.

You sure are opinionated, when it comes to the eating habits of preschoolers. And many of you are also lurking about, apparently, because then you de-lurk and all hell breaks loose. It's okay--you may return to your former lurkiness. I see you, there in the hedges. Hi! Now you’re waving!

I have learned much from the 400-plus comments on the last post. (Yes, I did read them. Do you think I have anything better to do?) Here are my learnings!

1. Compared to some of your freakish offspring, my child enjoys a healthy variety of foodstuffs. (My favorite is the marshmallows-in-the-Lucky-Charms diet.)

2. The children who eat everything make up for their sophisticated palette by refusing to sleep (thankfully, we don’t have that problem at the Finslippy household).

3.The children who eat everything and sleep well belong to people I don’t want to talk to.

4. I’m kidding about that last part.

5. Forcing your child to eat certain foods will invariably lead to vomiting on the Fiestaware.

6. Not forcing your child to eat certain foods will either result in healthy eating habits or crippling food issues.

7. Many people take the time to comment and only write “Hi!” or its more formal variation, “Hello!”

8. Many people who read Finslippy live in my neighborhood, and are watching, ever watching. And that's fine! Excuse me while I lower my shades!

No, seriously, I liked all the comments! I did! I felt all popular and stuff. I wanted to mail all the comments I got to my junior-high tormentor who would send me threatening notes in Social Studies. YOUR UGLY MEET ME AFTER SCHOOL SO I CAN BEAT YOU UP. (If you’re going to spell it out for me like that, you think I’m going to show up? NO THANK YOU I AM GOING HOME TO WATCH THE LITTLE RASCALS AND EAT CHEESE SANDWICHES.) I don't know if she can receive mail at her mobile home, though, HA HA HA HA HA.

Who am I kidding. She's probably rich and her kid eats kimchee and octopus.

Anyway, I have a newfound appreciation of my son’s dietary habits, and smile tolerantly instead of screaming intolerantly when he squawks in horror at the sight of nutrition. He’s not eating any better, but I sure as hell am drinking more. And that works for me.