by the time Wyatt is 3, I will have a P.h.D. in feeding a toddler

Fact: If my mother made my meals each day, I would eat WHATEVER she put on my plate.

Fact: A one-year old doesn't see it the same way.  Instead a one year old will just simply refuse something on the basis of looks, texture, color, or their mood that day. 

I've mentioned this before - but I have a REALLY hard time with thinking of new, fun, creative, healthy ideas for Wyatt's meals each day.  I know all kids are picky, but Wyatt is extremely finicky.  He actually eats a pretty decent variety of foods, but its his entrees/proteins that I struggle with. 

I found this awesome website, which I thought was just going to change my life.  It is full of creative recipes aimed at a child's palate.  It would be so great to have a stockpile of (healthy) foods at the ready in my freezer and I was going to have his dinner ready in just minutes each evening!  (Sidenote: I thought I was going to have tons of room in my freezer after I quit storing breast milk, but I was oh so wrong) Well, that didn't exactly work out.  I just recently dumped out a batch of noodle pancakes and very berry muffins because he refused to eat them on about 10 different occasions.  I've tried a few other recipes from that site with varying degrees of success.  But usually?  I'm just back to the normal cheese/spinach quesadilla, chicken nugget, whole wheat pizza rotation.  On nights where I don't do one of those three meals, he usually ends up eating fruit, carrot sticks, yogurt, and a cheese stick and I send him to bed not all that confident that he has a full belly. 

While I refuse to be that mom that feeds my child fast food all the time simply because it is most convenient, I also refuse to be that mom who says "if you don't want what is on your plate, then you'll go to bed hungry".  At least not while he's still a baby ....

I'm sure in time our dinner struggles will become easier and maybe hopefully one day I'll be able to fix one meal that works for our whole family each night.  (As opposed to now, where many nights I end up fixing THREE separate meals)

BUT.  Soon, I will have to start packing lunches for Wyatt each day and I know this will bring a whole other set of problems my way.  I was googling 'toddler lunchbox ideas' the other day and found that the latest craze is Bento boxes?  OMG.  And I'm dying all over again .... I have visions of sending Wyatt with these adorable lunches each day and getting great reports like:

"wyatt ate all his broccoli today"   or

"wyatt is such a great eater!  we never have trouble convincing him to finish his lunch"   or

"once again, wyatt was a member of the clean plate club!"

A mom can dream, right?