Faceoff between Mckade and Mom

For about a week and a half Mckade had absolutely no appetite. He loves milk and would drink that all day long if I would let him, but when it came to meal time he refussed everything (even cookies and candy). He wasn't acting sick in any way, just didn't want to eat. At first we negotiated, "have a bit and then you can have an m&m." Then the negotiating got harsher, "eat two bites or your going to your crib." I would follow through with putting him in the crib, but after a few days, it just became a constant parade between the crib and the high chair. I had finally lost my patience and said, "fine, just sit there until you fall asleep." Now at the same time Kade was learning how it's not ok to push little kids down by the neck. So we had about two days of what I felt like was constant punishment. Finally we both broke down and cried a few times. What really got me was one day after Kade fell asleep at the table during lunch, he woke up from his nap (we moved him to his crib)and pushed down Anna (the little girl I nanny) and I started scolding him but started to cry. He started to cry and then I said, "Kade mom loves you so much..." and he looked up at me with the sadest eyes and said, "no, no". It broke my heart. I'm happy to say the punishments have ended, and now we just have consequences: "you don't eat your dinner, that's fine, you can still play but you don't get milk before bed." We have yet to go to bed without some dinner and milk. I'm crossing my fingers that this works because this kids gotta eat to stay on that growth curve.

A few days after starting our new consequence method, I was reading in the old testament about the plagues the Lord sent to the Egyptians during the time of Moses and felt like I could relate. Sometimes it seems like you have to try a million different things before one actually works.

Here is a picture my Dad took when we were at their house in Indiana for Memorial day. It thought it was funny how sad/mad Kade would get about eating.