Real Food in '08 (Dinner Update)!

So yesterday was Pumpkin's first day of school (I'll talk about that in a blog later today - I want to post his pictures). :)

I don't know if was the fact that I had a major meltdown yesterday (don't ask), or if it was the fact that our barely-slept-in-4 days daughter passed out around 6p, or if it was the fact that Chris and I both had the day off, or if we finally just realized that our Kindergartener is, in fact, old enough to progress beyond chicken nuggets, or it was combo of all of it... but we had family dinner last night.

Wahoo!

Chris made delicious steak with cilantro and veggies - squash, oyster mushrooms & shallots- yum! He made a tiny plate with a teeny bit of meat and a few pieces of veg for Pumpkin. He ate all the meat of course (for having a vegan mother the boy looooves red meat) but the veggies were another matter. Chris told him "I only gave a you a tiny bit of veggies - three pieces. You need to it all of it and then you can have more meat." After three bites - one mushroom and a bite of squash - he thought he was done and then burst into bitter, hot tears when Chris reminded him he needed to eat all of it.

"ALL of it?! You didn't tell me that!!!"
"Yes, we did."

Tears or no, Chris stuck with me, and we told him, "You don't want to eat it? That's fine. But that's the end of dinner. No more meat. No nothing." He kept saying, "But I want meat! I WANNNNT meat. But I want to!" Finally after he nearly knocked his plate over when I tried to take it, I told him, "If you want to eat it, eat it. But we are not going to sit here while you have a tantrum. Either eat it now, or you're done." And he scarfed all of it down. I think he was emotionally done though, because after all that he didn't even want the meat I saved him.

I even think he liked the squash (unlike the mushrooms, which required a root beer chaser). All around, not too pretty, but I consider it a success! Real food in 08!