Yes she is picky. No we didn't do anything to deserve this.

People are assholes, you know. Apparently those of us who have kids who just won't eat, did something to deserve that. I've been told to "stay out of the junk food aisles", "stop feeding her prepackaged crap", and that if I offered her healthy food, she'd eat it, because after all, that works for everyone else's kids. Now, I don't doubt for half a second that it works for everyone else's kids. Hell, it works for Orren! As for the other two BS suggestions, I seriously wonder if these people even know who they're talking to. Thak's single biggest complaint in our marriage is that I don't keep "snacks" in the house. (Apparently his parents used to buy chips, and cookies, and stuff like that at the commissary and have a whole cabinet full of them. I would never do that. Keeping that stuff in the house is a recipe for disaster.) I also don't buy prepackaged foods. Have you ever seen the price of that stuff? Who pays that?! No, we eat pretty well. Erin just won't have anything to do with it. It's not because we haven't tried. It's not because she's spoiled. Contrary to society's belief, we didn't do anything to deserve any of the things we deal with courtesy of her. (Hey, this is kind of like the school principal blaming us for her learning disability!)

I'm also really sick of the Captain Obvious advice everyone gives us when they find out what she's like. Don't you think, in seven years, that we've tried pretty much everything imaginable? None of it works. Yes, even that thing that worked miracles for your best friend's cousin's nephew's dog walker's best buddy's son. Shockingly, we tried it, and just like everything else, it didn't work.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum, the people who say she's got to eat SOMETHING, and that if she doesn't eat her food, and we don't get her something else, it's abuse. Sorry, but a 7-year-old choosing not to eat the food that's placed in front of her, is not the same as a child who has been denied food. It's not bad food. Her brother probably ate three plates of it. That's probably why he's as big at 2 as she was at 4.

Erin is home from school today because she refused to eat yesterday and has made herself sick. She ate a waffle and a banana for breakfast. Then for lunch, she refused to eat the chicken she had asked for, instead choosing to eat only her tomato, kiwi, and cookie. Then she refused to eat even a bite at dinner. So basically, she ate next to nothing yesterday, and today she's sick, and couldn't go to school. Honestly, if I thought I could get away with it, I'd send her to school like this, and hope she put two and two together on this at some point that when she eats, she feels better, but I would be the one on the receiving end of the ass chewing for sending my kid to school sick, so I let her stay home. She's still asleep. My guess, she'll wake up any minute, dry heave for a while, then eat a banana, feel better, and ask if she can play outside. (Nope. She's going to clean that disaster she calls a room.) Honestly, I can't wait until she's old enough that it's widely accepted that she's largely accountable for her own actions. When she reaches that age, if she's still doing this, she WILL go to school. Choosing not to eat is not a way to get free days off.