Just put a pinch between your cheek and gums

My son is a great eater.  A stellar eater.  It may take some coaxing, but he'll try anything.  And he likes most of it.  Thai noodles.  Octopus.  Wasabi.  The kid's a more adventurous eater at age four than  I was at age twenty.

This, of course, is not true of my daughter.

Sure, she's two and a half, so a lot of her fussiness is her way of exerting some influence and challenging authority.  But she's constantly refusing to try anything. Hell, you can give that girl a meal one day, have her love them,  serve her the same leftovers the next day, and get an "I don't want to try it."  And the logic of saying "you loved it yesterday" just won't fly.

Which brings us to today.

Claire fought me on everything at dinner. Tooth and nail.  Admittedly, the sweet potato was undercooked (my defense: I followed the recipe, Tyler Florence and the Food Network lied to me).  But it was bathed in honey and cinnamon.  It was like dessert for dinner.  She was being a pain on principle.  I coaxed, I bribed, I made train sounds, I asked her questions then shoved spoonfuls of food into her unsuspecting mouth.  I'm not proud.  But after a half hour of wheeling and dealing, I had to throw in the towel so I could get her to  her swim lesson.

Fast forward a half hour.  We're in the pool.  I notice something in my daughter's mouth.  How did she get a goldfish cracker?  Or is that crayon?  No. It's her last bite of sweet potato. My daughter has been sucking on a cube of  sweet potato like it's a wad of chewing tobacco.

Now, that damn tuber was a tad firm, but it wasn't that undercooked.  Of course, now I'm insulted.  I busted ass making a nice dinner - she was going to finish it.  "Sweetie, finish chewing." "C'mon, do it for daddy."  "We'll have to leave the pool if you don't finish."  Nothing.  Time for the heavy artillery.  "Please?"  That last one did it.  She spat the food out into the pool.  So I did the responsible thing.  We dodged the floaty morsel and swam to a different part of the pool.

I felt a bit bad.  Especially later when I heard a classmate say, "look, mommy, pukey!" But that faded pretty quickly.  After all,  it's a kids' pool at the Y. That's not even the worst thing my daughter's done in that pool.