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February 3, 2023

Recent Eats aka Feeding Kids is Hard

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Hello my friends! 

Sharing some random life snapshots in today’s post. First up in some very important news: we got new placemats for Christmas.

What do you think?

I love the color – our old ones were plain navy and these brighten up the room a bit, as well as being much easier to clean/wipe off than the old ones were (our old ones had lots of holes as part of the woven pattern which was very annoying for spills).

Pictured on our plates was a variation on my Maple Glazed Salmon recipe – yum, yum.

Obviously the kids refused to eat any of it and both ended up eating random other stuff – sigh. I’ve been extra frustrated lately by how picky they are, especially Riese. 

Please note in the picture above her plate has: 1) a reese’s (I just spelled it Riese’s and had to correct!) peanut butter cup, a large dinner roll with butter, and some string beans. I give up/whatever.

At least she genuinely likes a lot of vegetables like string beans, raw carrots (NOT cooked), and raw bell peppers. 

(And yes, we serve dessert with dinner rather than waiting until after or doing any sort of “you have to eat xx to get xx” situation which just leads to massive power struggles and teaches kids to not listen to their own hunger/fullness cues. Wes doesn’t realize dessert exists yet so he doesn’t get any. 🙂 ) 

Another night Matt and I had some enchiladas (I forgot an after picture, but it’s that recipe I linked to minus sweet potato and plus ground meat):

The kids had a deconstructed version of the mostly raw ingredients.

Wes had some guacamole (which he LOVES), cheese (which he has never liked randomly and did not eat), black beans (also does not like these and didn’t eat them), some of the cooked ground meat filling (HUGE fan of this, we gave him more), and raw bell peppers (much better received than cooked ones).

And yes, he’s still drinking from a bottle at 20 months.

We’re working on it – we’ve been switching his milk to open or straw cups at meals the past week and just do the bottle before nap and bedtime now, but not sure how we’ll move on from those two bottle occasions.

He’s way more attached to it than Riese ever was! For her, we switched from a bottle to a straw cup right at 12 months for milk and she was basically like “whatever.”

Wes has been fine drinking water from a straw cup since he turned 1, but he just doesn’t drink much milk unless it’s from a bottle, and not drinking much milk = waking up in the middle of the night or crazy early. Soooo yeah. Tips?

Anyway! For Riese on enchilada night, she had some cashews, crackers, cheese, black beans, and bell peppers. All things I knew she would eat, except for the black beans which I figured I’d try but as expected she did not eat.

I think I ended up giving her some rice after this, too, because she was still hungry. How much food she wants for dinner is always variable and simple meals tend to go over best.

One thing I have discovered though is that Riese LOVES tuna salad sandwiches. I always make it using this recipe: No Mayo Tuna Salad.

I love tuna salad so always happy to eat it! Sometimes if I’m making it for her in addition to me I’ll add a little mayo or plain Greek yogurt to dial down the zesty-ness of the dijon mustard for her. 

I’ve also been into chicken salad sandwiches lately – I whipped up a batch of my Cranberry Chicken Salad with Walnuts last week to eat on for lunches because we had a ton of leftover rotisserie chicken on hand. Yum! 

In other news, I’m slowly starting to build my running base in anticipation of the DC Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon coming up in mid-March! 

I had a great 5 miler earlier this week with my friend Katie – we went on a loop from our neighborhood that included some of the Mt. Vernon trail, which I always love. 

Katie and I have been doing 3 mile runs every Monday morning right after school drop off for months now, but as of this week we’re going to take it up to 5+ miles.

She’s doing the race as well, so thankfully was down for some extra mileage! 

My friend Kathleen and I are going to do our long runs together, but she has been out of town for the past month. She’ll be back next week and we need to get ourselves in gear ASAP! 

I’ve run a lot of half marathons (18 to be exact!), but the last one I did was in 2016, so it has been a LONG time since I did one and I’m feeling a little nervous about it! 

(Just took a trip down the blog memory lane to see when and where my last half was, and apparently in 2016 I went on a running tear: I ran the Charleston Half Marathon in January with Matt, busted out a very fast Rock ‘n’ Roll DC half marathon in March, and unexpectedly ran the Middlebury Maple Run half marathon in May as part of a blog trip! Wow. Very different time of life for me!)

middlebury maple run

Kathleen and I were supposed to do the March 2020 Rock ‘n’ Roll DC half and got mostly trained for it (we made it to 10 miles) but then it was cancelled.

Soooo, yeah. This will be my first half marathon in 7 years, since having kids (Riese in November 2017, and Wes in June 2021)! Crazy! 

I’ll keep y’all posted on my training! My plan is to run 3 days per week – two of those will be with mom friends from Riese’s school right after school drop off, and then Kathleen and I will do one long run per week starting next week. 

The other days I’ll be doing yoga to try to stay limber amidst the extra running 🙂

And that’s all I have for you today! Have a great weekend and see y’all back here on Tuesday!

- anne
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22 comments
  • Morgan February 3, 2023 · 9:46AM:
    We had the same issue with the transition from bottle to milk in a straw cup (but yes - water in the straw cup was totally fine - go figure). We ended up meeting in the middle and using a 'trainer sippy' which was a soft nipple like spout and not a straw, but not a bottle. These Nuk Learner cups are the ones we use! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0835XVJV4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 good luck!
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 3, 2023 · 11:12AM:
      Thanks so much, I'll check those cups out!
      Reply
    • Ashley February 4, 2023 · 6:46AM:
      I was also going to recommend a transition cup. We used these: Thinkbaby BPA Free No Spill Sippy Cup, Light Blue (9 ounce) https://a.co/d/8kq6HAE Also, I can definitely relate to this post and all of the comments. FT working parent here, and my kids eat a lot of chicken nuggets 🤷🏻‍♀️ I will put veggies and fruit on their plates and see what happens. And my 6 year old almost always eats a treat for dessert.
      Reply
      • Anne
        February 6, 2023 · 11:14AM:
        Thanks for the sippy cup link! Love ThinkBaby, have some of their stainless steel straw cups!
        Reply
  • Lisa of Lisa's Yarns
    February 3, 2023 · 10:40AM:
    It's helpful to hear that even as a dietician who has done all the right things, you struggle with selective eaters. I have a lot of shame over how few things my kids will eat. I have tried to do all the right things, but it's hard, especially as a FT working mom. The kids eat well at daycare and apparently they eat more foods there than they eat at home. But it's very frustrating. Our pediatrician keeps tell me to not feel bad and that things will get better but it's still hard! We struggled more with the transition for our younger son. I exclusively pumped for our oldest and he drank the milk cold so switching over to a cup wasn't hard, I think because it tasted so similar since it was the same temp. It was harder w/ #2 who BF. I nursed him until around 16 months so for awhile, we just didn't serve milk w/ dinner since he wouldn't drink it out of a cup. Our pediatrician was fine with that. Then he started to drink milk at school and we started serving it with meals at home.
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 3, 2023 · 11:12AM:
      Feeding kids is so hard! You are not alone. :)
      Reply
  • Ana February 3, 2023 · 12:32PM:
    I remember a post by a professional chef about how she poached up a beautiful chicken breast for her toddler: "he looks, he tastes, he spits it out!" So I guess it's universal. At least yours like veggies in some form! It sounds like they're getting a good variety of food despite spurning various offerings.
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 3, 2023 · 1:18PM:
      It's helpful to hear even the chefs struggle with feeding their kids!
      Reply
  • Trackbuddy February 3, 2023 · 1:06PM:
    Thank you for sharing that even as an expert, feeding kids is really hard! My youngest one is 8 and is **still** a very picky eater. So, I gave myself a huge gift over the summer - I pulled an Elsa and LET IT GO. I just don't bother feeling guilty/bad/anything any more. She eats healthy food generally, so that's good, but still just doesn't like a lot of things. Occasionally we are able to successfully introduce new foods (recent win: cucumbers!) and we celebrate every victory, however minor. But she is old enough now that she recently asked if there is something wrong with her that she doesn't like more foods. I was very grateful to be able to say, with conviction, "NO! There is nothing wrong with you for liking the foods you like. You are listening to your body, eating healthy foods, enjoying the occasional treat and occasionally trying and enjoying something new. You are allowed to do this on your own pace, at your own time, and no one gets to make anyone feel bad about this."
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 3, 2023 · 1:19PM:
      Let it goooo!!! Yes, LOVE this! And love what you said to her in reply to her question. What a great and supportive response!
      Reply
  • Jen February 3, 2023 · 2:49PM:
    Thanks for keeping it real, dinner time is so unpredictable 💕
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 3, 2023 · 3:02PM:
      It's the hardest time of day TBH.
      Reply
  • Roadrunner February 3, 2023 · 9:17PM:
    Most enjoyable, Anne, bless you!😉. And good luck with the training! I suspect you will find that the ability is still there and just needs to be rediscovered!
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 6, 2023 · 11:12AM:
      Had a great 6 mile run this morning, so, I think you are right!
      Reply
  • SLF
    February 3, 2023 · 10:22PM:
    I just wanted to share that my four-year0old started eating raw spinach leaves because only she was trying to eat leaves and grass from the yard. I put a piece of spinach on her plate and said "Look, a leaf!" and she ate it. Now she will eat spinach leaves if I put them on her plate and has fun eating them too because she can pretend to be a dinosaur. (Read somewhere online that someone suggested this, and it worked!) But yes, otherwise only RAW veggies and deconstructed meals. Also she invented her own taco "recipe" that involves beans, cheese, avocado, and part of a coconut cream pie Larabar, which sounds terrible (and probably is), but she eats it all every time. If it tastes good to her, and there is some nutrition in there, why not!
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 6, 2023 · 11:14AM:
      Hahha love the taco "recipe" with the coconut cream pie Larabar! Kids are soooo random. I'll have to try the raw spinach tip - good idea! Riese does like microgreens randomly, which has been nice for putting into her sandwiches!
      Reply
  • Emily February 4, 2023 · 9:40AM:
    Thank you for this post. My four-year-old twins hit a phase and all of a sudden subsist exclusively on cheese quesadillas, blueberries, bananas, and peanut butter toast. Maaaaybe some broccoli if you catch them in the right mood. I've also been struggling with how to handle them wanting to snack all throughout the day. We'll have just finished breakfast and they're asking for a snack, or they'll want to snack all afternoon after school. I grew up in a very controlling environment around food, so it's REALLY hard for me to say no or wait for dinner when they come asking for a snack. Oh, parenting. :-)
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 6, 2023 · 11:15AM:
      Yes, the endless snacks!! No answers, just solidarity.
      Reply
  • Ellen February 4, 2023 · 11:40AM:
    Oh, I am so acquainted with the frustration of feeding picky kids! Both son and daughter grew up hating vegetables and still do to this day. Now my sweet granddaughter is following in her mother’s footsteps. She started out eating peas and watermelon but now won’t touch it. Her mom feeds her chicken every day, bread, cheese, and that’s pretty much it. Bland and boring! I don’t get it cuz I’ve always loved vegetables and Most foods. I can’t offer advice except to say keep trying. At least you seem a lot more patient than I am.
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 6, 2023 · 11:16AM:
      Oof. It's tough!
      Reply
  • Philippa
    February 5, 2023 · 8:19PM:
    Hi Anne - I'm a longtime reader and this might be the first time I've ever commented! First off, I hugely admire your work, your drive, discipline, and positivity. You're a pleasure to read. I'm not a parent but many friends of mine are and those whose kids have been selective eaters have all found this blog post from many moons ago very helpful - I share it in the hope you might find it helpful too :) http://gourmetgirl-friend.blogspot.com/2010/09/fussy-eaters.html Sending you good vibes for all the training runs too! xx
    Reply
    • Anne
      February 6, 2023 · 11:17AM:
      Thank you so much for your kind note, Philippa! I appreciate you being here. <3 And thanks for that link - will check it out now!
      Reply
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anne mauney fannetastic food
Hi, I’m Anne! I'm a Washington D.C. based Registered Dietitian, mother, runner, and lover of travel, adventure, and the great outdoors. I've been blogging since 2009, sharing a mix of lifestyle content, recipes, and fitness tips. Come for the recipes – stay for the fun!
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anne mauney

I’m Anne, a Registered Dietitian and mother. I've been blogging since 2009 and love showing others that eating nutritious foods and staying active can actually be fun rather than overwhelming!

When I’m not writing or cooking for fannetastic food, you can find me running, coaching nutrition clients, or on an adventure with my family. Feel free to reach out - I'd love to hear from you!

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