We have made progress!

Tonight, for the first time ever, my youngest child put a vegetable in his mouth and attempted to chew and swallow it.

I held a kernel of corn in one hand and a chocolate chip cookie in the other. I threatened to eat the cookie myself unless he ate the corn. After a few minutes of screaming "COOOOKIE" repeatedly, he realized that I would eat the cookie and he succumbed to my bribe.

He bravely put the kernel in his mouth and chew, chew, chewed it. When I asked if it was all gone, he opened his mouth to show the mashed up kernel. We cheered him on and he chew, chew, chewed some more. After about 5 minutes of chewing and showing, he finally spit the kernel out.

I gave him the cookie anyway. I figured that despite it being just a little progress, it was progress none the less. He put the corn in his mouth. It didn't involve me grabbing cheeks and shoving a vegetable in*. He actually did chew the corn. That was way more than I ever thought he would do. Maybe next time he will swallow the corn. I can only dream.

*That only happened once, I swear. I was really frustrated. And anyone who knows me and my vegetable eating habits as a child should be shocked and dismayed at my treatment of my child. I realize that. It is totally contradicts everything I ever said before the age of eighteen when I finally hated dining hall food enough to start eating vegetables. I swore I would never make my child eat something he/she didn't like. At least he hasn't thrown up at the table from being forced to eat green beans or peas (I'm sorry, Mom & Mr. Ryan.) If it ever comes to that I will give up my campaign of trying to get him to eat his vegetables. I didn't want my kids to go through what I went through because of my picky eating habits. I didn't like spending the night out and I never went to camp all because I was afraid of not being able to eat the food. It was a constant worry for me when I was a kid. So far, I've been able to instill decent eating habits with the first two but I failed miserably with this last one. Oh well. I guess I grew up and started to eat real food, he will too.