Way to start off with a bang, eh?

You remember which road that was that was paved with the best of intentions, right? Ah, well. Life happened. What else is new?

Round here, it's been a whole new take on dinner. Well, the dinner battle that occassionally happens anyway . . .. We had a come to Jesus meeting. Yes, it really was that serious.

See, in our household Little is far more picky than Big. Which says a lot, since it isn't like Big is exactly adventurous. So, when Little opted for "meatballs" for dinner one night (she's not so big on the spaghetti part, but she'll go for meatballs and tomato sauce) I thought I was set. See, Big decided that she *loved* meatball subs last summer. They're nothing fancy, but at least they're somewhat balanced - a whole grain bun, meatballs, tomato sauce, and some parmesan cheese. She'd scarf one down and beg for a second. At least that was how it'd gone every other time I'd made them (see a bit of foreshadowing there?).

Perhaps it was because it hadn't been her choice? But, Big dug in her little sock-clad heels. She was NOT going to eat a meatball sub that night. Not one bite. And she didn't. What drew the full wrath though, was when I informed her that I was not going to throw away the 2 meatball subs I'd made her (yep, I'd made 2 from the get-go, thinking that she'd be so pleased to be allowed 2; that was my mistake), only to make her a whole other meal from scratch. Just. Not. Going. To. Do. It. Alas, neither was she.

She whined. She cried. She begged. She stomped. Lather, rinse, repeat. I stood my ground and informed her that without eating dinner that she would not be getting any sort of "treat" (of the small dessert-y sort), and that the next meal would be breakfast before school the next morning, around 6:30am. The choice was hers.

And she made it. And went to bed hungry. Not ideal, but hopefully a teaching moment.

The next day we had a LONG talk about how we didn't always get our favorite meal every night. About how meals were about "fuel" not just "fill" (a phrase borrowed from another blogger I'd just read for the first time: Dr. Mom Online), and thus needed to be healthy and balanced (at least somewhat!). I challenged Big to come up with a list of possible dinner options, which I then reviewed and helped tweak a bit for healtfulness (explaining the changes/additions as we went). I then told her that since *she* had made that list, that anything and everything on it was fair game for dinners.

So far, so good. I'm hoping to continue with this for another week or so, and then introduce a new phase: 1 night each week is going to be "new food" night. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting to launch directly into anything overly exotic. Simply to branch off from the designated list a bit. Hopefully discovering a few new foods to *add* to the list as we go.

What can I say? I'm an optimist.