Like Father, Like Son

We have all had this type of moment. I mean, stories about yourself as a child that your parents and/or other family members tell ALL THE TIME about you that are semi-embarrassing. We all have them, and no matter how often they are told we all laugh about how funny it is to us now. Well, we had history repeat itself in our house last night. I am sure everyone on Ben's side of the family will have most likely heard a story about him from when he was a kid that is identical to what happened in our house last night. Ben's version included goulash and milk, so just change the two items involved for Cooper to a peanut butter sandwich and milk and you will have about the exact same story minus the train bribe.

It's no secret that Cooper is a picky eater. Always has been, probably always will be. I have tried to get him to eat a sandwich forever, and he is just starting to eat bread. He has also refused peanut butter forever too but lately will at least take a bite of new things. I was attempting to strike while the iron is hot to finish a bribe we started long ago. Ben and I have tried to bribe him for quite some time (about a year) with a wooden railway Spencer train if he would eat a peanut butter sandwich- the whole thing. I am tired of this train being in my nightstand so recently we told Cooper if he didn't eat his peanut butter sandwich soon we were going to find a new home for Spencer. So, last night he decided he would go for it. I won't go into details on all the stalling tactics he tried to employ, but suffice it to say he took his sweet time in having a bite. We finally said OK, Spencer will find a new home and he then decided to try to go for the whole thing. He said he liked it, and kept taking the world's smallest bites to work at the sandwich (one piece of bread cut in half, nothing monumental). He kept asking for milk to drink. He had one glass, we gave him a refill. He agonized over every bite and kept drinking milk. We gave him a 10 minute warning. More tiny bites, more drinks of milk. We gave him a 5 minute warning. More tiny bites, more drinks of milk. He was into the last minutes of his time and still had about 1/2 of the sandwich to go. More tiny bites, more drinks of milk. We talked about a new family for Spencer. More tiny bites. more drinks of milk. Finally, in an unexpected ending where he neither finished the sandwich or thew in the towel, he vomited up all the milk he drank and the part of the sandwich he had eaten. Ben and I both immediately thought about his experience with goulash that he didn't want to eat and how he drank so much milk he puked too. Cooper was upset about what had happened and I tried not to laugh as we got him ready for a bath and bed. I guess that's one way to end us trying to bribe him to eat new foods!