Cheese bribery.

While I still foresee the coconut curries being the next trend, tonight I made Turkey Tamale Pie.  I thought it was good.  The Wife thought it was good.  The Boy went into full Boy-cott mode.

Several weeks ago we decided the incessant whining for, "SNAAAAAAACKSSSSSS!!!" on arrival home each and every night had to stop.  We talked with the daycare provider and learned that he did have a snack in the afternoon, but it was usually about 2pm.  Now he gets a second snack at about 4pm to tide him over until dinner.  This, overall, has been much better in the way of whining, but it has increase his obsession for snacks.

He has still been eating dinner fairly well, but last night - and now tonight, he flat out refused to eat anything substantial.  Last night he had his portion of naan and decided that he'd rather not try my coconut curry, but wanted more snacks.  We attempted to tell him all about the lovely things he likes in the curry, and how he's tried it before and loved it, but to no avail.  All he wanted was snacks. He went to bed, I'm sure, hungry.  And woke up quite early and quite hungry.

So with tonight's stated boycott, I thought about my own need for sleep, and decided I'd resort to cheese bribery.  This was after about half an hour of convincing the child to come to the table at all for his dinner at all (he was in his high chair, but we do not pull it up to the table until the bib is on, and prior to dinner boycott, it was bib boycott - *sigh*).  I pulled out some cheese.  Made ooohs and aaaaahs over it as I cut it up into small squares.  It used to be that I could convince him to eat about anything with the prospect of a bit of cheese, a blueberry, or bite of yogurt, it was a simple, "you want this, ok, then eat this," and before you know it, he'd finished the entire plate...  No more.  I told him he could have a square of cheese if he ate a bean.  This took much convincing.  I even tried putting the bean on top of the cheese.  He looked at me as if I'd defiled the cheese.  Actually cried.  But finally, he picks up the bean.  And eats half of it.  And so I give him just a crumble of cheese.  Then he eats the rest and I give him the rest of the square of cheese.  We did this - both the Wife and I - for nearly an hour, bean by bean and crumb by crumb.  I think he may have ingested a grand total of maybe a quarter cup of tamale pie and half of one baby carrot (and a slice and a half of cheese).

My mother tells tales of how stubborn I was.  I think Mozart may be following in by footsteps.
We may be in for it.