It’s Broccoli, Dear.

Nate is a really fun little guy.

beachNate
Originally uploaded by Teckelcar.

Look at that dimple.

He loves going to the beach; running around, digging in the sand and frolicking in the waves. He hasn’t encountered a sport yet that he is not game to try. The folks at Peak love his enthusiasm. His baseball coach calls him sparkplug.

Fruits and vegetables, however, are another thing entirely.

He refuses to eat anything green. He grudgingly eats a couple of raw peeled baby carrots at dinner. Corn is one of the few veggies that he actually enjoys. He likes French fries and potato chips, but all other forms of the spud are no good. This includes *gasp* latkes.

With fruits we have a few more options. Clementines, apples and melons are acceptable. Sometimes grapes are all right. The rest of all the yummy fruits out there are suspect unless they are in jam form and safely tucked into a peanut butter sandwich.

Tomatoes (It’s a fruit! It’s a vegetable!) can only be eaten in sauce form, i.e. pasta or ketchup.

The tomato thing I can understand, I refused to eat raw tomatoes until about 10 years ago. I then finally got over the texture and learned to appreciate the taste of a fresh ripe tomato. Mushrooms, on the other hand, are still vegetable non grata.

Anyway, I wish I could get him to eat more fruits and vegetables. Jake was a very picky eater for years, but just recently he has started to broaden his food horizons. Maybe it’s an age thing and Nate will ultimately out grow it. For now I guess we’ll keep giving him vitamins and keep on offering him a variety of foods.

But until then, I keep thinking of this cartoon whenever I serve him vegetables.