Sometimes, being a parent is tough!

A little background...We have two difficult eaters. Little Bit is SLOW, and it can take her an hour to eat her dinner. She will chew and chew and chew until her food is mere mush before she swallows, so this draws out meal times for an hour or more. And then there's Chipmunk. She crams as much food as she can in her mouth, chews as little as possible and then has the next bite in her hand ready to cram in her mouth the second she swallows (and sometimes before she swallows). Meals with her are frustrating too, b/c we're constantly saying, "Small bites. Chew your bites. One at a time. Slow down." So she's finished in mere minutes, and she's frustrated when we're still eating b/c she can't have any more. So basically we're rationing her food out to her one to two bites at a time so she doesn't choke. Basically...meal times SUCK in our house! lol

Back to the story about parenting being tough sometimes...

Tonight, Chipmunk, Jon and I were finished with our meal (around 7:00), and Little Bit was basically playing with her food. She gobbled down the pancake, but she wasn't too interested in the green beans, a food that she normally eats. (Yeah, I know, green beans don't go with breakfast foods, but the child needed veggies, and I had not one veggie in the house that would go with pancakes...are there any veggies that go with pancakes???...so, they got green beans.) Chipmunk and I headed down to the playroom, and I told Little Bit that if she ate her veggies she would get to come play with us, secretly hoping that would work, but knowing it really never does at this age. Jon struggled and struggled with her to get her to eat, and had to put her in time out b/c she was throwing the food on the floor, smushing it on her tray and putting it in the pocket of her bib to make him think she had eaten it (sneaky girl!). At 8:20 Chipmunk and I head back upstairs b/c it was time for bath (actually it was past time), and Little Bit was STILL in her chair. Her green beans were smushed to smitherines, and Jon was not happy. So I told him it was time for bath, and then I told Little Bit that b/c she played at dinner time, she wouldn't get to play at bath time. It didn't really mean much to her until I took her out of the bath tub while Jon gave Chipmunk the toys. Then the screaming and crying and kicking started. She even tried to hit me, but she realized mid swipe that it wasn't going to end well if she did, so she just hit herself. I calmed her down and explained to her why she wasn't getting to play, and we went about the rest of the bedtime routine as usual. When we got to her room she started crying again, and I asked her if she was sad b/c she didn't get to play in the tub. She answered with a very sad sounding, "Yes." So I preceeded to tell her again that tomorrow she would need to eat her dinner instead of playing, and she would get to play in the tub. So I asked her if she was going to eat her dinner tomorrow, and she said (with that same very sad voice), "Yes." I scooped her up and told her how much we loved her and how sad we were that she wasn't eating. Then we sang our nighttime songs, and she went to bed, but UGH!! It just ripped my heart out that she was so sad!!!

I have to come up with some way to get this child to eat. I guess at some point we should have offered her some applesauce or something else, but I don't want to teach her that if she won't eat what's on her plate that I'll fix her something else. She is under weight as it is, so she doesn't need to be eating only half her meal. I know she's a petite girl, and our ped doesn't seem worried that she is under weight b/c she's still getting taller. But it's getting increasingly difficult to find pants for her to wear b/c in the waist she still needs a 12 mo (at 22 months old), but in the length she need 18 and sometimes 24 month clothes. And I do not know how to sew, so she needs to get some meat on her bones. :)

Any thoughts??? I'm open!!!!