The "Spiderman" Effect

My boys have come to understand that if they play their sister's game, they can pretty much get out of eating things they, for some unknown reason, have deemed too "yucky to comsume". Now, over the past four-ish years, these foods have been just fine. Tastey, in fact. But, now we have big boys in the house. Big boys who know how to drive a hard bargain. Boys who know how to dig in their heels and get what they want. They simply say "Ohhhh, yuck! I don't like asparagus/X food! It's gross!"

Uh huh. Apparently, they forgot their mother is the master manipulator herself! How do they think I've managed to sway their father into many a thing he didn't want to do? (Kidding, we really do discuss, I'm just good at persuading, that's all!) They also seemed to forget that even though Maddy may claim she hates something, Mommy is the meanest mommy in the world and makes her eat the teeny tiny portion I put on her plate. I keep hoping beyond hope that one day she'll love salad, but I doubt it. She barely tolerates it, but she'll eat it only because she knows the woman with the iron will sits beside her at dinner and it's just not worth the aggrivation to not eat it.

So, last night, John proclaims asparagus is "yucky". Well, bud, you're outta luck seeing as I bought way too much asparagus this weekend and we need to use it up before it goes bad. Besides, mommy likes asparagus and darn it, you're going to eat it! We literally cries all the way home from daycare (yes, my children are strange; they need a blow by blow on what dinner will be as soon as they leave daycare).

I about had it. I'd tried everything to get him to be open to the stupid asparagus. Tried telling him it tasted like candy, that it was good for him (yeah, an instant failure, by the way), that I would force feed it to him if he didn't willingly eat it...nothing worked, until!!!!

Until I told him that it was too bad he wasn't going to eat the asparagus because that's what Spiderman loves to eat. In fact, that's how Spiderman is able to spin his webs. Well, holy moly did his attitude ever change! Apparently, now that Spiderman's a big fan of asparagus, it's good enough for John. In fact, he might even be able to spin a web himself if he ate enough.

Alas, he was not able to produce his own web last night, but I suspect Spiderman's next favorite vegetable---green beans---will be helpful in that department, don't you think?