There were four things I was adamant about before having a child.

Before Child:

1. “A child of mine will never eat French Fries.”

2. “A child of mine will never be allowed to watch the same movie over and over again.”

3. “I will never make separate meals for my child. He/she will eat what the rest of us eats.”

4. “A child of mine will never eat pasta every night.”

After Child

1. There have been some meals where I actually try to get my child to eat a French Fry. Not because I’ve had some crazy change of heart about the healthiness of fried food. But because my child won’t eat. And after a while, I have succombed to the fact that a French Fry is better than no food at all. Especially if your child is like mine and has complete melt-downs when he has no food in his system.

2. Not only have I allowed this, but I often encouraged him to watch movies if he’s in a bad mood or I have something that has to be done.  I don’t even care what movie it is or how many times he has seen it.

3. Well, I don’t want to force my child to eat spicey Thai or Mexican food. WIth all do respect, he has eaten fish a fair number of times. But my problem here is that if he doesn’t eat dinner by 6:00, he will have one of those melt-downs I just mentioned. And as hard as I try, I have a tough time getting the family meal ready by 6:00. So it’s either eat so many snacks that he won’t even eat dinner when the rest of us finally sit down, or its fix him something to eat while I’m still cooking dinner. Usually the latter scenario wins out.

4. See French Fry scenario above. At least pasta is a little more healthy. And he doesn’t eat it every night. I swear.

P.S. And I’m pretty darn good about desserts, for what it’s worth.