Battle of the Beans

The battle lines have been drawn. It is the beans against Max this time. When we were in for Maxwell's 11 year old check up his pediatrician was MUCHO unhappy about the fact that Max eats neither fruit, nor vegetable. She said that at his age, it is time to eat them....or else. And took QUITE the hard line against it. Her instructions were, specifically, that Max is to eat 4 bites of vegetable BEFORE any of the other courses are offered to him. So while everyone else can dig into their steaks and what nots...Max must first tackle his broccoli or whatever else is served in the vegetable lineup. The other night was, in fact, broccoli. You could tell he was miserable and there was much drama over consuming that one whole little broccoli top. In addition to the veggies first rule, there is also the stipulation that if Max, for any reason, decides to throw up, then the mess is to be cleaned up (I vote by him!) and he is to be served the same vegetable again. Now, honestly, this is a scenario that I TOTALLY see happening in our house. We will see. Tonight we had dinner at grandmas. She too, has been informed of the rules and had several nice veggie choices available to Max. I quickly knocked off the two easy freebies (potatoes and corn on the cobb), which left the choice of okra and tomatoes medley or green beans. Under great duress he chose green beans. I gave him a whopping TWO of them. Long story short....Max passed on dinner (which the doctor assures me is JUST FINE). And so now...it is green beans (with ketchup at this point) for breakfast tomorrow morning. I just can't wait to see what tomorrow holds for us. I mean...such anticipation...NOT!!!!!! I imagine my day will start with a healthy dose of vomit...which will mean making Max clean it up...which will SURELY NOT be to my standards...which will mean I have to clean it up myself....AND mop the floors...just to be sure. Oh yeah...big excitement tomorrow coming our way. These are the real moments of parenting that you could NEVER have imagined when you pictured what raising children would be like. I mean....sucksville...big time. Worse yet...I KNOW without a doubt that when I take Clara in for HER checkup in two weeks, the doctor is going to ask me about Max and the veggie quest. And it will totally suck to have to admit that my child is still a veggie virgin. No siree...that is MOST unacceptable. Thus...we press on...and it's green beans for breakfast. Let's hope the battle is won right there. We are going camping tomorrow and I really, really don't want to pack this baggie of green beans to take with us! Pray for us! Pray for me! Pray for a spirit of compliance and a real tempting and craving from the holy spirit for greenbeans!!!!