KID FRIENDLY FOOD? UGH.

I hate to admit this, but I'm totally one of those moms that stresses at every single meal that her child isn't eating enough. I read somewhere that Branson should be getting 1300 calories a day. WHAT???????? That is CRAZY. But they also said that you should look at it all spread out over a week. I could bore you with all the studying I've done on this topic but I won't. I will bore you with what I do that seems to be working. Number one, if I sit back and think about it, I'm pretty damn proud of how good of an eater my little man is. An example: yesterday we went to sushi. Of course Branson didn't get any raw fish, but he did eat cabbage salad with walnuts (ok, so he ate mostly the walnuts), edamame, shrimp tempura, veggie tempura, and sticky rice. Pretty darn good for a 17 month old, in my opinion. One of my tricks when cooking at home is to hide veggies. In everything. Eggs, mac n cheese, grilled cheese, quesadilla's, mashed potato's. I also offer veggies in their natural form at least twice a day, so he knows that they will be served and they are expected to be eaten. Usually he just eats around them or feeds them lovingly to the dog. But every once in a while, when he thinks I'm not looking, I'll see him take a bite of broccoli, celery, or something else "healthy". And there are veggies that he loves: cheesy broccoli, sweet potato's, beets, hearts of palm. I also refuse to make more than 1 meal. If he doesn't eat lunch, he's SOL until snack time. And usually the snack is raw veggies with ranch (I'm evil) and maybe some crackers. But hey, if he's hungry he'll eat it! Speaking of ranch, this kid loves anything dipped in ranch or ketchup, including but not limited to asparagus, raw veggies, meatloaf, veggie corn dogs, eggplant meat balls. So I'd say all around I'm pretty lucky. He loves his fruit, tolerates his veggies, and of course he thinks bread and dairy were put here just for him. I think so too.