The time with the breakfast... part 2

If you read this week's post you know we've been dealing with our oldest choosing not to eat his food, making this an emotionally taxing week.        

We've never had this problem before; our kids have always eaten pretty well. Plus, where I come from, you eat, you just do; there's no "I don't like that food" or "I don't want to eat that", you taste everything, you learn to eat everything, period.  

I was hoping this would only last a day, but boy was I wrong.

On to day two.

The day started very similarly to the one before: I made a sandwich for each kid, which they were to eat before having the last bit of apple-cinnamon bread (aka yummy apple cake) we had left. My oldest, the six year old, ate most of his sandwich, which consisted of a slice of black forest ham and cheddar cheese between two pieces of WHITE Wonder bread (this evil mom didn't even try to feed him wheat bread)... But, like the day before, he refused to eat the last two bites, those last two bites, you know, the ones that don't taste anything like the rest of the sandwich. 

My husband was off from work that day so I was really hoping that having daddy at home would make a difference, since they usually don't like disappointing daddy, sadly it didn't!

That morning we were babysitting for a friend, so after she dropped off her adorable two year old, my son seemed a little more motivate to eat (instead of three hours, it only took him one hour to finish the last two bites of his sandwich). Maybe we should watch adorable two year olds more often. 

In that time, we read a book and watched Finding Nemo; he only missed half of the movie.

"On the bright side, at least its getting better" I thought to myself, despite the usual drama and the constant visit to the living room to "tell me something..."  (FYI: the "something" he needed to tell me was always along the lines of "I don't like it" or "I don't want to eat it" or  blah blah blah)

I just can't wrap my head around it sometimes, how this kid smart, this very smart kid (and I'm not just saying it because he's my son), will from time to time make choices that seem a lot less logical than those made by his younger siblings; then I remember: he's also very strong-willed. I guess that's what you get when two strong-willed people marry and have children. 

As sad and frustrating as it can be sometimes to raise a [wonderful] strong-willed child, I try to constantly remember [and pray] that God can do amazing things in and through this strong-willed child. The things that we see as stubbornness today will become tenaciousness tomorrow.






We don't always see how God is working in our own lives when we are in the middle of raising kids, because raising kids is not easy; being obedient and doing what is required of us is not easy. We forget that God gave us this child, and our other two kids, to do amazing things in us as parents too. We want to raise kids who will do what's right because they love God and they love people; because one day these kids will become part of society and these strong-willed kids will become leaders. Are we going to continue to raise a generation of entitled brats or are we going to raise world changers?