My Little Cheese Snobs

I’ve got a couple of cheese snobs on my hands. I’m not even talking about Zachary – he loves cheese & will eat just about any kind of cheese we give him (with the occasional exception of blue cheese – sometimes he’ll eat it, and sometimes he’ll say that it makes him throw up…which, for the record, it has NEVER made him throw up before – I don’t even think he knows what “throwing up” really means…). My cheese snobs are Josh & Liam. I knew Josh was a cheese snob from the beginning. He’s just not much of a fan. And it’s not like he only likes fancy cheese or anything – no, he just only likes white cheese. Mozzarella? Good. Provolone? Good. White American? Good. Yellow American? Eeewwww! Cheddar? NEVER!!! This has always puzzled me because I’m like, if it tastes good, who cares what color it is! But I can’t really even get a piece of yellow/orange cheese in his mouth to see if he would like it – he just gets hung up on the color & won’t touch it (the one exception to this is white cheddar – he won’t touch that either even though it’s white, and I think it’s because he generally associates the word “cheddar” with “yellow”, so when you say “white cheddar” he ignores the “white” part and focuses only on the “cheddar” and refuses the cheese). Maybe I should do a blind taste test…Anyway, so ever since Liam started eating table foods, I’ve tried giving him cheese, since Zachary loves cheese so much (he used to eat a piece of cheese every day – now he’s cut back on the cheese but he eats at least one yogurt a day now…the boy does love his dairy…). The first type of cheese I tried giving to Liam was that processed American cheese that comes individually wrapped. Yes, I know it’s probably not REAL cheese, but it tastes good. I put a piece in his mouth and he promptly took it out & handed it back to me. About a month later I tried giving him a piece of that yellow/white marbled Colby-Jack cheese. Put it in his mouth and he removed it & handed it back. I was starting to get frustrated because I can’t imagine any child of mine not liking cheese. Then yesterday when I picked him up from school his teacher told me that they had “cheese sticks” for their snack. I asked her what kind (not sure if she meant like string cheese or those hot mozzarella things) and turns out it was string cheese. She said that he ate his whole piece and then grabbed another kid’s piece and ate it too. Although she did say that he won’t eat it whole, but if she breaks it in half he will gobble it up – which is funny because if you try to break Zachary’s food in half he flips out. So last night we were trying to get dinner ready and Liam was in his high chair going nuts. We had some Provolone in the fridge from something we made last week, so I took a slice of that out, ripped it into small pieces, and put it on the tray and he gobbled it up like he hadn’t eaten in days. So, it turns out, he DOES like cheese after all – he just only likes WHITE cheese! Like father like son. Although, he will eat yellow cheese on a burger, or in mac & cheese (which Josh won’t even do). But seems when it comes to just plain cheese, only white cheese will do.

Liam is also becoming quite the little garbage disposal. His teacher said yesterday that they barely had his lunch down for like 2 minutes before he had eaten it all. Then he stole someone else’s string cheese later in the day at snack time. This morning when Josh dropped him off he said that there were a couple of kids in the classroom eating their breakfast (Josh & the kids eat breakfast at home before he drops them off). Josh told me that Liam walked over to where the other kids were eating and started eyeing up Declan’s breakfast. I guess any other kids who find themselves in Liam’s class over the years will learn to eat fast or else Liam will steal your food. Hopefully he will grow out of that. I seem to remember being told by daycare when Zachary was about this age that he tried taking food off of another little girl’s plate one time, and she scratched the crap out of his face. He had a nice little scratch mark for weeks. I don’t remember him stealing food from others much more after that.