Breakfast of Champions

Typical weekday morning when Gun doesn't go to Mother's Day Out consists of; getting up at 645, making sure Gavin gets ready for school (teeth brushed, deodorant on, hair washed and combed, etc) and on the bus.  Then I wake Gideon, dress him while he is still asleep for the most part and put him in car.  Both of them eat breakfast at school.  When Gunnar and I get home my first question is, "What do you want to eat?"  On this morning, he goes to the fridge, holds the door open and looks inside, "Ummmmmm, no, no, no, no, no."  In a sweet tone.  Then he goes to the pantry, "Ummm, no, no, no, no, no."  This time pointing at items as he looks at everything.

I start suggesting "How about oatmeal? Cereal? Eggs? Waffles?"  "No, dank you."  I make my morning shake and tell him.  "You need to decide, I am going to start workout after I put this in the fridge."  He says, "O-tay."

Before pushing play on my workout DVD, I say, "Okay Gun, last chance, what are you going to eat?"  He just smiles and nods no to me.

So, I push play to start my workout, he won't starve in an hour.  I am about 35 minutes into my workout and in walks in Mr. Gun, with a can of corn.

I am breathing hard, "Gun, you want corn? Really?"  He nods yes, "Uh-huh!"  I tell him to wait until the water break and warm his corn in the microwave.  As the bowl of corn turns on the turntable, I think "What kind of Mom serves a can of corn for breakfast?  Cornflakes, are they really made from corn, that makes this better, right?  I really shouldn't give him this many options, he's only 2.  Didn't I learn that corn has almost NO nutritional value in school?"

The microwave timer rings and he runs in, "I need a poon."  I reluctantly give Gunnar corn for breakfast.  He ate the WHOLE can.  I offered other foods after and he said no.  For lunch he ate broccili and rice, I felt a better about his intake at that point...

The moral to this story, I pick my battles.  Even with the adorable, curly headed, opinionated, out spoken 2 year old.  He is healthy, a can of corn for breakfast once in a while won't hurt him.  It's better than me forcing him to eat what I want him to and then he pout, smack the bowl of whatever on the floor, me get mad, yell, spank then spend 15 minutes of my busy day cleaning up a mess and compromise my workout time.  I think corn for breakfast this day was win-win.  He was given the opportunity to choose, he did and he ate breakfast.  I won because I got all my workout in, no extra attitudes, no extra mess.  Corn, anybody?