Food Art

So I have been trying to figure out ways to get Audrey to like trying new foods. At times it seems like she has a huge fear of "new" foods. Sometimes it is just that we haven't had a certain food item in a long time and she had forgotten that she used to eat this. Other times it is a food that she eats regularly but it looks different, such as pizza from Little Ceasar's vs. pizza from Dominoes vs. pizza from the freezer etc. And when she doesn't want to eat a specific food it won't happen. And when she gets into the I'm dead set against it and you try to make her eat it, she WILL throw up. No if's, and's or but's about it. Nothing will stop her from throwing it up.

Lately I have been trying to get around that problem. I will warn her before I start making dinner that I will be making something new. (Mostly this something new is just a different sort of pasta, she seems to think if it isn't Spaghetti noodles or Macaroni and Cheese that it will not work.) She hates new shapes of food. I have tried explaining that noodles are noodles no matter what shape they have, they will taste the same. I have even gotten her to taste different noodles without sauce. She says yum, and then will have no more of it. I have had her help me cook it. And help me put it together so she can see all that goes into it. But no matter what she will not generally try it.

I still offer the "new" foods to her. Just recently I started the, "You must try at least one bite, before I make you other food. But if you don't eat all of this "new" food, you don't get the treat of your choice for dessert." And this worked the other night. I don't know if it will continue to work. Though it did work on getting her to eat some Shells and Cheese that we made the other night. She even asked for it for dinner the following night. Score!

What I would like to talk about next is that I tried letting them paint food yesterday afternoon for lunch. I found 14 different flavors of food that were "paintable". I filled a muffin tin and 2 bowls with the flavors. Some of the flavors were of things they had tried before and some were not. We had peanut butter, applesauce, ketchup, chocolate malt sauce, caramel sauce, whipped cream, powdered sugar, shredded cheese, ranch dressing, grape jam, homemade (hm) strawberry jam, hm raspberry jam, hm peach goo, and reduced sugar strawberry jam. The paint brushes were carrot sticks and the canvas was a flour tortilla shell.

 The girls thought this was pretty cool. And I had Audrey promise me before she could start that she would eat whatever she made. I decided that I should join in to get them started and show them what they could do. And the party started.


They were trying new flavors, and eating carrots. They were having fun. Ellie ate a few nibbles of her tortilla. Audrey and Ellie tried the applesauce and ate some of it.

 I unfortunately ate a few carrots and had to take a benedryl, so after my 2 tortillas were done I left them to their own devices. And this is where things went wrong. Neither of the girls ate any of their artwork. So I had to put Ellie down for her nap. But before I put her down they figured out a way to get peanut butter on the walls, and applesauce on the door behind them. Oh well it was mostly a success as they did eat something and tried other things. Yay!