"Mom, I'm hungry!"

That's a phrase I'm hearing in an endless loop these days. Which is surprising, because it's a phrase that until recently was completely absent from Henry's repertoire. But my food-phobic boy has developed an appetite, and i feel like I now spend a good chunk of my day feeding him snacks. The turnaround is striking for a child who survived for years on chocolate milk, air, and the occasional carrot stick. I mean, this is a kid with whom we used to have to cajole, negotiate, bribe and/or force-feed almost every forkful of food that went into his mouth. A kid who got sent to an infant feeding clinic for evaluation at one year of age because he was so reluctant to eat anything at all. A kid whom I felt compelled to breastfeed for two whole years because it was his only reliable source of nutrients. That same kid is now putting back near-grownup-size portions of fish, oatmeal, pasta, meatballs--all kinds of crazy things. Well, to be honest he's still pretty picky about what he'll eat. Vegetables, for example, are pretty much off the menu (He has a remarkable ability to make himself vomit if we push too hard on the veggie front. He did it the other day after we harassed him into a second bite of sweet potato. Count it as a lesson learned). But the quantity is astounding. And he is broadening his palate ever so slightly. I just about fell over backwards last week when he asked if he could have salmon--salmon!--for dinner. You see, salmon is fish, which is Baryonyx food, and if Henry can pretend to be a kind of dinosaur while he's eating, he'll put away extra bites. The more gruesome, the better. A few days ago I got him to try quesadillo by cutting into triangles I told him were t-rex teeth, and I added some veggie content by serving it with a blob of tomato salsa I described as "carcass" that he could dip the teeth into for the full prehistoric predator experience. He went for that. So that's how it goes with a picky eating almost-4-year-old: fresh vegetables = out, decaying animal flesh = in.

Little boys are delightful.