Celiac and the picky eater

Sigh. The entree of choice for Grace is cereal and milk, cheese sticks and chips and cheese. Sigh. She did eat baked chicken last night after much prompting and will eat veggies when required but she is SUCH the picky eater. Sigh. Thankfully she likes fruit.

We have no one to "blame" but ourselves. Grace was our "failure to thrive" baby who hit the charts once during a growth spurt (5th%) but other than that she has always been below the charts. She never was a baby who had to eat and even as a school age child she doesn't often ask for food - more like a "happy to starve" child. We got to the point that if she would eat it we didn't care "what" she ate as long as she ate "something." This weekend was the first time she hit 50 lbs - she has been 48 lbs for 2 years - she is 9 years old.

Her food choices before Celiac were very limited but they did include sandwiches, noodles, chicken nuggets and flour tortillas with cheese and her drug of choice - Lunchables. She does not like gluten free bread (I don't either), noodles (but Sam does) and only liked chicken fingers from Chilis or Whataburger.

We are working through this - encouraging her to try new things and she is somewhat willing - but it is a struggle. I wish mealtimes were not this hard.

When I was growing up you were not allowed to be picky - eating what you were served w/o complaint. We didn't not want our children to grow up with food issues - they did anyway. THIS is when Celiac is hard.