Our battles to get our two year old to eat continue. It’s not, as I mentioned before, a problem where he doesn’t like to eat. It’s that he wants to be in charge during mealtimes. For example, often he’ll look at his meal and ask for something else. When he does this, he won’t eat anything until he gets what he wants. The fact that he asked for the first meal you cooked him has no relevancy in this case. He’s simply trying to be the boss.

Needless to say, this doesn’t fly with us. It has become a full-blown contest of wills.

Not too long ago, I was home alone with the boys during a certain Girls Night Out. I was feeling lazy. So instead of cooking dinner, I pulled a bunch of mini-corn dogs out of the freezer. The boys love these things, and they seem at least somewhat healthy. I popped them in the microwave, made myself a sandwich.

A bag of chips and a couple of drinks completed the healthy dinner.

N immediately announced that he wasn’t hungry. He didn’t like corn dogs. He didn’t want to eat. He wanted macaroni and cheese.

It was a loud pronouncement, delivered with a great deal of gusto.

I took his chips away from him and told him he wasn’t going to be allowed to eat anything else until he ate his corn dogs. There are certain things, that you never expect to hear yourself saying as a parent. This would be one of them.

Anyway, while his older brother and I dug into our meals, the little guy carefully lifted each corn dog to his teeth and nibbled a little hole in the coating on the side. When he was done, he picked one up and held it out to me.

“Daddy! I can’t eat this! It has a hole in it!“

You have to give him points for creativity!