Dietary Allowances

I'm told there's a time in just about every toddler's life when his food pyramid goes from looking like this:


...to looking like this:
How many parents have been wracked with guilt due to that cursed pyramid? (Thanks a bunch, USDA.) Ben's pediatrician told me not to worry about it, so I guess I can put all those months of toiling over homemade vegetable baby food cubes behind me. Ben will put anything in his mouth, but these days it is often politely but firmly spit out and handed back to me (rejected food has no place on Ben's tray; it must instead be banished to Mommy's hand). We do not try to cram healthy food into other people's mouths at our house (we've tried to with poor results).

As I've mentioned before, Ickie spent the large part of 28 years eating only brown things, and my diet has always included a range of nature's colorful bounty, which just goes to show you that genetics beats vegetables every time (Ickie is 6'2" and I am 5'3" with two pale, wimpy arms nicknamed "cream and sugar"). Besides, every now and then the boy surprises me by scarfing down a bunch of healthy stuff.