My good eater

Zachary is terrible at eating a variety of foods, and has to be seriously bribed to try anything new. lnevitably, once a new food hits his tongue, he declares it "disgusting" and that's that. As a baby, he was a great eater. When we were in the stage one and two baby foods, he would eat anything that Gerber made. Once we tried size three, which are the chunkier foods, the texture turned him off, and he refused to eat. For a baby who was previously drinking 48 ounces of formula a day, this was a big deal.

For a couple of years, Zachary lived on Schwan's French toast sticks for breakfast, and chicken nuggets for lunch or dinner. He would also eat French fries and peanut butter sandwiches. Today, as an almost seven-year-old, he drinks lots of chocolate milk, and eats Pop Tarts, hot dogs, pizza, yogurt, string cheese, chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, cheese quesadillas, rice, roast, and any junk or snack food that is made. The one vegetable that he will eat is edamame.

With Zoe, I vowed that she would eat what we eat, and so far, everything is going well. We started her on baby cereal at about four months, and she did not like that at all. Soon, we introduced the stage one fruits and vegetables, and while bananas aren't her favorite, she'll eat any baby food put in front of her. She's currently doing great on the stage three foods, and also loves all of the baby snacks like puffs, banana cookies, and Cheerios. Zoe has been eating table food off and on for a couple of months now, and she has tried and liked carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, zucchini, mushrooms, corn, bananas, blueberries, YoBaby yogurt, brisket, turkey, chicken, sausage, hamburger, bread, and many more things. At the age of almost nine months, and with two teeth, Zoe already eats better than her brother does. That's a shame!

I hope there's still hope for Zachary. He tried cereal with milk in the past year and liked it, and recently began eating scrambled eggs and bacon. We'll have to resort to some heavy negotiation to broaden his palate, or maybe the shame of his sister eating foods that he doesn't will do it. We'll have to wait and see...