Bribe attempts and blubbery

You know how before you get married/have kids, you say those "I'll never (fill in the blank)" phrases? And then, once you're married/have kids, invariably you realize that the "I'll never" statement was a bit brash and foolish? Yes, well, one of my "I'll never" statements was, "I want my children to eat healthful food without needing to be bribed with sweets or cajoled constantly."

And then Buddy was born.

From the time he was yanked out of my abdomen, we've struggled to get Buddy to eat well and consistently. The first few months of his life, he was labeled "failure to thrive," and we spent quite a bit of time with a GI nurse at our local children's hospital trying to figure out what was going on with him.

(This was before his diagnosis of Williams syndrome, which helped to explain the low muscle tone that caused eating difficulties, the reflux, the lack of weight gain, as well as the general difficulty in getting him to eat that is common among those with WS in the early years.)

Although he's now able to feed himself, for the most part, it's still an almost daily struggle to get him to put food in his mouth--even food that he likes . . . or has liked in the past. In general, I've tried to make sure that every calorie counts for him and have focused on giving him good foods that are packed with as much nutrition as possible. But, he has a few texture issues with some foods and still has low muscle tone in his mouth and lips, making it difficult for him to bite and chew certain things. And then there's his general disinterest in food.

However, somewhere along the way, Buddy discovered cheese puffs. And lately I've been realizing that if Buddy were (for some random reason) to be found along the side of the road with a sign, that sign would read, "Will eat for cheese puffs."

And I've decided to banish my "I'll never" statement and use cheese puffs to get him to eat. And it works (mostly). "Buddy, if you want some more cheese puffs, you need to eat your fruit."

Gobble, gobble, gobble.

"I want more cheese puffs, please."

I can't say that's it been a magic cure-all, but cheese puffs have defintely helped us through a few non-eating times, and I'm grateful for them and all their non-organicness. I figure the few bites of fruit/meat/healtful foods that he eats in order to get the puffs cancels out any potential bad effects he might get from the processed puff product itself (even though the packaging assures me they're "all natural").

So, tell me, what have your "I'll never" statements been?