Hunger Strike

Actually, milk strike. Elliot has fallen off the milkwagon (or did he climb aboard?).

Over the last two weeks, the child has forgotten how to eat anything except milk. He also eats hot dog. And the occasional dried blueberry or Cheerio. I admit that he will also wipe a little yogurt on his lips from time to time, but I honestly think it's done more in the spirit of decoration than anything else.

We are brought low.

We stand before you as the same proud people whose cosmopolitan kinder formerly grazed on, let's see . . . pad thai. Hummus -- he ate it straight! Organic peanut butter right off the butter knife (the way I also like it). He would work his way through a bowl of plain unsweetened whole-milk yogurt with Uncle Sam's breakfast cereal sprinkled in it, flax seed and all, for godsakes! That's some sophisticated business right there. Most adults won't eat that.

What the hell happened?

Even peas. He loved peas. Now he will sometimes consent to put one (1) in his mouth. But then, about two seconds later, he reaches into his own craw with a rather grim look and plucks the unmolested pea right back out, sets it on the tray, and looks around for the milk.

It doesn't help that the pediatrician blandly advised us (some months ago) that Elliot should probably have no more than about four cups of milk or so per day, so as not to spoil his appetite for solid foods. Well so much for that. What now, Mr. Genius Pediatrician? What you got? My boy stares down a spoonful of food like it was yesterday's trash.