Monster has never been a picky eater. Since he could eat, he's eaten everything and anything. He used to eat raw tofu cut into chunks. Now, as he's grown older, his tastes have become more, shall we say, refined. I call it picky, but compared to most of his friends and his sister, he is far from picky. He's just pickier than he was at one. For the most part, Monster will eat anything I put in front of him. He knows he has to eat everything on his plate and he also knows I won't give him a lot of something he doesn't care for. We rarely, and I mean once every two or three months rarely, have "dessert". To my kids, dessert is dried fruit.
Sunshine, well, she's definitely a finicky eater. When she was one, she ate like her brother. At about 18 months though, that all changed. We can't get her to eat dinner most nights. However, we also don't give in and give her junk we know she'll eat. We're very proud of that. We do tailor her meals much more than we do his because we want her to eat, but we don't make her a separate meal. We just leave off sauce or butter (things she doesn't like), but she basically has to eat the same things we do. She goes to bed hungry a lot of nights. She, unfortunately, takes after me with my sweet tooth. She had her first cookie about 2 months ago and has talked of nothing but cookies since then. For Nana's birthday, we made a cake and hasn't stopped talking about cake. Funny thing is, she's not thrilled with cake, just the frosting. She had her very first ice cream just a couple weeks ago and she loved it! Now, these things luckily aren't common for us. We are not the people who keep these kinds of things in the house.
I've very proud of the way my son is developing with his tastes and the good choices he makes with food. He would rather eat fruit than a piece of chocolate. I'm really hoping Sunshine learns from his example. Aside from limiting my children's "junk" intake, I also try to feed my children, good, natural foods. We only do canned vegetables in the winter, and even then I buy fresh as much as possible. We don't do canned fruit unless we're headed out of town in a day or two and run out of fresh, so twice a year, maybe? My children have never had plain old white bread at our house. My children have never had pop (which I'm actually shocked my how many children my kids ages have had it!). My kids will choose water and milk to drink above anything else. And that's white milk, not chocolate. In fact, neither child has ever had chocolate milk. In our house, we have never bought milk with hormones. We buy local and organic as much as possible. We never eat fried food. My kids turn up their noses to fast food (which we've only stopped for twice ever while traveling because they don't like it). In fact, my kids have never heard of Wendy's or Burger King and they think McDonald's is where they sometimes get yogurt and Mommy gets coffee. While other kids are snacking on chips, my kids are eating raw spirulina chips.
I'm not saying parents who feed their children differently than I do are wrong. I'm just saying I'm proud. I'm proud that I'm hopefully teaching my kids better eating habits than the ones I have.