Anna vs The Sandwich

My oldest child Anna is extraordinarily bright.  She is clever and funny and wonderfully independent.  Unfortunately she is also extremely strong willed.  When Anna was about 6 months old we discovered that she was highly allergic to milk protein.  This made preparing meals for her somewhat difficult as she couldn't have many of the foods that were 'off the shelf.'  Add that a suspected peanut allergy and we were left with a somewhat limited menu.  To top it all off, she is a VERY picky eater.  It's the perfect storm.  She won't eat combined foods, like spaghetti with tomato sauce.  Not having anything to do with it.  She will even go to the point of disassembling a hamburger and eating each component separately.  Meat and bread only, and separately.  She chews the breading off a corn dog then eats the corn dog. 

To that end we found ourselves at the point where all she would eat where chicken nuggets (sometimes), hot dogs, salami, plain pasta and disassembled hamburgers.  Because of this I had turned into a short order cook.  Cooking one meal for the family and t hen playing a food game to find out what Anna will eat.  Now that her brother is 1, I can no longer indulge in this behavior.  I don't have time to prepare separate meals for everyone in the house, nor can I continue to allow her to eat such a limited selection of foods.  Therefore today I prepared her a sunflower butter and jelly sandwich.  I know she eats jelly sandwiches at preschool, so this wasn't a real stretch.  We went to the park to meet a friend and The Sandwich came along.  When we sat down to have a snack, Sam greedily chowed down his banana and Anna was given her sandwich.  When she turned her nose up at it, I advised her that there were no other snacks and this was it.  She staunchly refused without even a lick to taste The Sandwich.  When we got home she stated she was hungry.  I pulled out The Sandwich.  Now understand, this is not a 'new' food.  She's had this type of sandwich before.  If this was a completely new food this would be a very different situation.  However, as she's had this kind of sandwich before The Sandwich was going to be eaten. 

So, we're back home from the park.  Anna is hungry.  She doesn't want The Sandwich.  She wants anything else but The Sandwich.  So I provide her a choice. She can have The Sandwich or she can go have quiet time in her room.  She chooses quiet time. 

After quiet time she asks for a snack.  She gets, The Sandwich.  Not interested.  She persists in asking for fruit snacks, crackers, anything as long as it isn't The Sandwich.

Dinner rolls around, I make myself dinner and I bring out The Sandwich.  I might have pulled out a plate full of cow patties and served it up with a side of worms.  She shoved the plate across the table and yelled, 'I don't want that!'  Thus began a 2 hour ordeal, I refer to as Anna vs The Sandwich.  I set the time and informed her that her options were to eat the sandwich or go to bed when the timer went off.  She immediately asked to go to bed.  Unfortunately for my beautifully strong willed child, that would not happen for another hour and 45 minutes. 

She sat at that table for another45 minutes before she decided that perhaps, just perhaps, The Sandwich was not so bad afterall.  She took her first bite, smiled and said 'Yummy Mommy!' That was the last bite she took for another 30 minutes.  After which she finally asked for me to help her eat the sandwich.  Four extremely painful bites later, she declared that she was not able to continue to eating.   Thirty minutes later, she was off to bed, no fuss, no defiance, out in 5 minutes.

And so The Sandwich, sits in the refrigerator waiting for breakfast...