Progress is Progress

Remember the "mom card" I'm supposed to play after Erik's well-child exam to get him to eat more? After the holidays, when the kids went back to school, I played my "mom card" well. He also accepted it well. When he wants his "hot chocolate", I tell him he can have it after he eats two carrots. Usually he does, sometimes he wants to have some apple slices or another fruit instead. He still won't touch any greens, but, progress is progress. Also, with the holidays over, the junk is gone. He doesn't think much of candy or other treats that he would eat because we just don't have any!

The best part: I had signed him up for a Mommy and Me cooking class which took place for three weeks on Thursdays. The first day, we read Stone Soup and the kids got to help cut up veggies for our soup. We also read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and they made their own coconut trees.

Cutting those green beans!

Erik enjoyed eating the letters and banana, He also enjoyed cutting up the veggies, but when it came time to eat the soup, it was a no go. Most of the other kids at least tried it, some ate most of theirs. I tried to get him to eat some of the alphabet noodles that were in it, but they were covered in the V-8 juice, so he wouldn't touch it. He likes nothing combined together! Later that day, he helped me prepare dinner. We made the soup again one time, but still no interest for him. Sigh.

His Alphabit cereal at the bottom of the "coconut tree'" went first.
(He was on my lap, so taking pictures was not easy!)

I thought it was delish!

The next week we read If You Give a Moose a Muffin. We made blueberry muffins and berry jam to go on top. They also got to make their very own moose puppets. Surprisingly, Erik did eat the blueberry muffin, minus 2 bites! There were real blueberries in it, so I couldn't believe it. Every other kid was eating theirs, so maybe that helped. I also gave him the first few bites without many blueberries in it, then just kind of shoved the rest in. (Yes, I did have to fee it to him because he wouldn't touch it and he didn't want anything to do with the jam.)

I still can't believe he ate those blueberry chunks!

The last day we read The Little Red Hen and made bread and butter.  We made the bread backwards so it would have time to rise and bake. The teacher had the dough ready for kneading when we got there. After it went to rise and bake, we started from the beginning and got to bring home the dough to make into bread later. Erik made his dough into a ball and an E. He loved it, but didn't want to put butter on it. Funny thing is, I make bread fairly often. Erik doesn't usually like to eat it, unless the dough is made into rolls, which he did with his dough. Usually, he just eats the dough when I make it, but he does help make it. At class, they showed us a stalk of wheat, something he'd never seen, and wheat berries, something he's sees all the time when I grind my wheat into flour. It was fun to make the connection with the stalk.

The wheat and the whipping cream in a jar that we shook like crazy!

The butter came out nicely!

I'll just say that it was pretty fun cooking with Erik when I didn't have to be the one cleaning everything up! We had a great time and I think it helped him. Today, he ate 3 muffins at home! They weren't blueberry, just plain whole wheat, but, progress is progress!