French Toast Croutons, Anyone?

This morning I made French toast, with the futile hope that Tyler would eat some. I'm really trying to get some protein in him and French toast has eggs...

He refused to eat it. Piece by piece, he threw it in the floor and he wouldn't let me put any in his mouth.

So I put another piece in the oven at 170 degrees for an hour.

And then I left it sitting out until it cooled.

By this time, he was ready to eat again and I hoped the French toast was sufficiently crunchy.

He let me put one piece in his mouth! Yay! He chewed for the longest time and finally put another piece in his own mouth.

He threw all the pieces in various directions. His favorite was to see if he could throw it across the table. I kept giving them back to him and he kept throwing them. But he was having fun throwing them. This was different from the this-is-so-mushy-and-gross-I-can't-stand-to-have-it-on-my-tray throws.

Yes, I fed my child off the floor. I'm sorry, but I was limited on the amount of crunchy toast I had and I really wanted him to learn to eat it. All the experts say to let a picky child play with food. And how does Tyler play? He throws things. He might even eat a banana if I let him throw it down the stairs.

He loves to throw books and shoes down the stairs. Laundry baskets, too. He's figured out how to turn a laundry basket upside down to empty it and he runs to the top of the stairs and heaves it over the baby gate.

Anyway, about the French toast. Tyler insisted on having something to play with while he was eating. (He always has to be distracted in order to eat.) So he forgot to chew sometimes and it took him 30 minutes to eat 3 "croutons" of French toast. But he ate the second and third ones on his own! Success!

We then moved on to the staples: baby food and dried fruits and Cheerios. In all, it took him about an hour to eat. Between the two of us, Brian and I feed Tyler 5 times per day. Then we have to clean up the floor. I'd say we spend at least 5 hours a day on Tyler's meals.

Last night, we were even giving Tyler a milkshake while he was in the bathtub. Here's the conversation that went with that one:

Brian: How many kids do you think get milkshakes right before bedtime? In the bathtub, no less!

Jaime: We're awesome parents, aren't we?

Brian: Too bad he doesn't know it!

And Tyler was frantically doing the sign for "milk" and grunting so he could have more milkshake.