Fair exchange no robbery

Apparently, toddlers are meant to become fussy eaters as a biological imperative. In that, once they learn how to walk & start wandering off on their own, they must outgrow that babyish habit of putting everything in their mouth or risk death by brightly coloured poisonous berries and the like. Unfortunately, both my children were fussy eaters even before they hit that annoying no-eat stage, so the toddler close-down on tasting and trying new stuff has been (a) of epic proportions and (b) going on for ever round here.

I reckon Climber was about 7 before he'd even try something as radical as a hot-dog with sauce, but at least his sweet-tooth led him to try new stuff if it was coated with sugar. And these days he is reasonably good about trying new and different food -thank you Masterchef- although the incident with the snow-peas (both children in tears because I made them eat ONE DELICIOUS SNOW-PEA each OMG WTF) was a slight blip in his improving record. At least he tried to like the snow-pea - which is why he ended up distressed - unlike Cherub who viewed it with misgiving from whoa-to-go and was never going to like it, never. Cherub, you see, is just terrible, and even sweet stuff is viewed with distrust. I have to tell you that as chief food provider, I find it more than a little insulting, this suspicion in my child's mind that I am continually trying to find new ways to poison him.

Anyway. The menu at our house, especially where the children are concerned, is limited and repetitive. And then last Saturday night as I was scouring the fridge for something easy, nutritious and quick to serve them for dinner, I bethought me of boiled eggs and decided to give them a shot, knowing that Climber likes scrambled and poached eggs and in fact, greedily scoffed one of the boiled eggs we'd cooked for Easter decorating which had cracked and couldn't be used. So I boiled up the eggs and served them with raw carrot-sticks and the pumpkin-pea-and-corn fritters known as Shrek Patties round these parts. Climber said yum and proceeded to polish off everything, but I took one look at Cherub's face and knew that even if he liked the boiled egg, he wasn't going to like the boiled egg. We tried. We put salt on, we put it in on toast, we talked it up, but eventually I knew I was looking down the barrel of stand-over tactics (which I hate using for food, except for the bit where I use dessert as a carrot-and-stick ie all right then no icecream for you) or: Bribery.

And that is how, my friends, even though I am anti trading-cards (waste of paper and money), especially the Australian Rules Football cards that all Cherub's Grade One friends are mad for, to the point that I didn't even let Cherub use his own money to buy the stupid official AFL folder he's been begging me for, because we don't even watch or care about the AFL, that is how we came to this:



One stupid football card folder paid for with his own money in exchange for eating a boiled egg without whinging. I think the expression on his friend's face shows exactly my opinion of those stupid cards, but the good news is, he ate the egg. With barely any whinging and only slowed by his continually popping out of his chair to discuss and arrange exactly where and when he could go and buy the folder.