The Color of Food

Just a quick post tonight before bed before I forget some of the things Jonah said and did today.

He's been very sweet lately, saying things like "Thank you, Mommy, for making oatmeal for breakfast," and "I love you, too" when we tell him we love him. Tonight, he told Mommy that "in the morning I am going to eat the yummy oatmeal she made for breakfast." (It is a cranberry-apple baked oatmeal, and he's right... it is very yummy).

For dinner we made up some beef with broccoli with rice. Of course Jonah had no issues with the rice, but he adamantly refused to even touch the beef and broccoli. When we had this same dish in the past, he liked it. This time around, though, he wouldn't even put a piece of beef in his mouth. He got very upset, but I was able to calm him down to try to get some more information.  I asked him what he didn't like about it. Silence. Was it the color? Did he not like the brown? Yes, that was it.

So I offered to color the meat red. Would he eat it then? He said he would, so I grabbed a little ketchup and "painted" a piece of beef. He ate it, saying he thought it was really good. With this in mind, I thought we'd see about getting him to eat some more, so I offered to "paint" the rest of his beef with our "special red food paint" (I wanted to be careful about this and hope it doesn't come back to bite me the next time we do an art project with paint!). I even colored some of the broccoli red, and he ate that with "yummy" comments. In the end Jonah ended up eating a pretty good meal, even if it was a little colored with ketchup. Funny that brown isn't an issue when it is shaped like a cookie or cake!

At least Jonah ate, and even though he did, I'm sure he will still be hungry for Mommy's oatmeal in the morning.