Do You Like Being Tortured?

It’s Christmas Eve day and we’ve had an interesting battle ongoing since last night.   My husband made Christmas-colored pasta for dinner with my parents.   There were green, brown, red and regular colored noodles in varying shapes (some fancy pre-packaged set) in the pot.  The sauce was his regular sauce and the chicken parmesan was the same as always.   But my son wasn’t having it. 

He is six now and my husband and I weren’t having it either.   We told him nothing would be available until he ate that bowl of pasta, even if it went into breakfast.   We thought he’d give in, knowing he’d like it if only he’d taste it.    He held out and unfortunately we went into this morning with him waking up and remembering of his own accord the pasta eating requirement.  

He didn’t eat it for breakfast and tried about twenty-seven different tactics on why he couldn’t eat it, he shouldn’t eat it, it was the wrong spoon, wrong seat, not hot enough, too much sauce, not enough sauce, had gotten cold again, etc.   My parents came over and went and the pasta went uneaten.   My in-laws arrived and the pasta wasn’t yet eaten. 

My son told me, “do you like being tortured?”  He explained, at length, to me how making him eat that terrible, horrible bowl of pasta was cruel and torturous.  He protested in a loud scream, “I’m going to die!” and then collapsed into a fit of crying.    He worked himself up so much he threw up, just from tasting the tip of the spoon,

It is now almost five o’clock on Christmas Eve and my son has had about four bites of food all day.   This is a battle that must be won, and we’re holding firm.    He was sitting at the table, watching his sister decorate her gingerbread house while he sat in front of the bowl of pasta.    He decided to take a bite and then told me, “it’s actually pretty good.”    I thought we were in the home stretch.  

But no, then he came up with a new theory, saying he couldn’t eat any more because—get this—“if I eat one more noodle I’m going to go back in time and I don’t want to see this all over again.”

I don’t want him to miss Christmas morning breakfast, dinner tonight or opening presents, but this is a battle we must win or the next time he stands up to us he’ll know all he has to do is hold out long enough and we’ll give in.    As parents, you can’t do that if you plan on staying in charge. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was angry about having to eat his pasta for breakfast this morning.   He walked into our room after waking up and said with the grumpiest face he could muster, “you’re going to have the worst Christmas ever for making me eat that pasta.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is helping me take care of some friend’s cats over the break.   She had a lot of fun feeding them treats.   She moved slowly because she can’t see where they are well, which didn’t frighten the cats.    She said things like, “he’s a cutie.”  “He loves treats.”  “He likes me.”  “I love her.”