What a Sorry State of Affairs!

I am a horrible mother. I failed with my eldest. When she was a little bitty thing, fresh from China, she ADORED veggies...all veggies, any veggie (even veggies I can't stand...I like most of them!). She loved vegetables more than anything else that is edible. Unfortunately, Grant and I had been childless for our first five years of marriage and I had adjusted my eating habits to Grant's...translated, that means every meal consisted almost exclusively of meat (occasionally Grant would eat a starch with his meat (potatoes, corn, or pasta). I TRIED to keep up the whole veggie thing with toddler Darcy...but, a day or two would slip by without veggies (other than starches) and one morning at about the age of two, to my utter horror, I discovered that my child who had originally ADORED vegetables, could no longer stand the taste of anything plant-wise, except for corn and potatoes. I couldn't believe her taste buds had changed so completely. The change has remained permanent. Believe me, I feel GUILTY...I know I blew it!

Fast forward to present day...I have a 13 year old who sides completely with her father regarding what is edible and what is just plain disgusting. (They were both thrilled with the recent study that showed vegetarians suffer from brain shrinkage at a rate of six times faster than the meat eating population.) Well, the two of them needn't worry...between them they haven't eaten enough non-starch plant matter in the last decade to fill a good sized salad bowl! Which brings me to my present story. Darcy's has the responsibility of feeding and watering our dogs. I expect this to be done without me having to remind her. She used to be TERRIFIC about this, but, in the last few months, she has begun procrastinating and gotten into the habit of waiting around until I remind her to do it. (She did it flawlessly for a years without reminders, but since turnning 13, she has slid backwards in more than one area...including this area.) I am trying to make my consequences fit the offense. So, today, when I came home for lunch and discovered that Darcy had once more NOT fed the dogs I decided that this was ridiculous. I am not reminding her any more...she has to take responsibility to do it without cuing. So, I decided that the consequence from now on for failing to feed the dogs will be that she only gets VEGETABLES for supper. So, I stopped by WalMart on the way home and picked up the makings for a really good salad. Knowing she would simply choose go without supper if her choice was "veggies or nothing", I calmly explained to her that she had to eat all the salad I had placed in her bowl and that until she ate it all, she would not get anything else to eat. She picked at it and spent an hour just gagging down two or three bites before dog class tonight, so I had her wrap it up and put in the refrigerator. On the way home from class, I suggested to her she might want to finish her salad tonight so that she would not have to eat it for breakfast. Then, seeing where the wheels were already going in her mind ("I just won't eat, then...eventually Mom will give in and throw the salad away"), so I headed her off at the pass and casually mentioned, "Oh...and by the way, I won't let you go to school until you have finished eating your salad." Incredulous, she exclaimed, "You mean you would MAKE me miss school?" I said, "Nope. I'm not making you miss school...you are CHOOSING whether you eat your salad or miss school." (You have to understand she is OBSESSIVE about perfect attendence so that she can win the reward at the end of the school year for perfect attendance--a trip with other students to Silver Dollar City. She drags herself to school sick. We have to forego planned extended vacations because DARCY can't miss ANY school.) Thus beaten, she came home and plopped down on the sofa and set to eating her salad in earnest. As she picked it apart, looking for all the world like she was eating wriggling worms and grubs(!), she held up one particularly offensive vegetable and asked me, "Mom, is this white BROCCOLI?" (It was cauliflower.) A few minutes later she was asking, "Well, what is THIS?" I told her, "It is a piece of CUCUMBER." "Oh...you mean like LARRY? I don't know if I can EAT a CUCUMBER...that just doesn't seem right!" I knew I had failed my eldest daughter nutritionally...but I didn't know how deeply I had failed her until I saw that she honestly could not even correctly identify the basic ingredients of a salad!

Meanwhile, her little brother and sister both had TWO bowls of salad after eating their spaghetti. They both LOVE veggies. Thank goodness I haven't let their taste for veggies lapse. The two little ones always join me eating veggies...while Grant and Darcy disdainfully pass on them.

(Anyone want to place bets on whether Darcy forgets to feed the dogs ever again? My bet is that she will never require prompting again...because I would dearly LOVE for her to forget just so I can get at least one more bowl of veggies down her! ...It was a really nice salad, too....lettuce, green peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, green onions, cucumbers, tomatoes...)