Identity Theft

I like tricking my kids. 

Not in the humiliating way, either. I like the good ol' fashioned, healthy, "take advantage of how gullible toddlers are" type of trickery. 

My kids (Calen in particular) hates vegetables unless they are of the carrot or tomato variety. 

Don't you dare try to tell me tomatoes are a fruit. My husband tries to pull that one on me all the time. It grows in a vegetable garden and it tastes veggie-like and Calen eats it and needs as many foods in the "vegetable" group as possible, so according to me they are EXTREMELY veggie like. 

So I got this great recipe for zucchini fries that my neighbor friend made us the other day. They are baked and seasoned and salty and delicious and they do not taste like zucchini. That is the key factor. If I handed Calen a few sticks of zucchini, he'd laugh in my face. Actually, he would yell "NO!! EWWW" and run as far in the opposite direction as he could. But when I handed him a zucchini fry, I tricked him. I did not tell him it was zucchini. I told him it was a French fry. And he snatched it up and devoured it. Then he asked for two more. And if I told him afterwards that it was a vegetable, he would suddenly decide it was the most disgusting thing he's ever eaten and wouldn't touch it again, so we stick to the lie. It's a French fry. It will ALWAYS be a French fry for as long as he lives. He'll be 32 coming home for dinner some day and I'll be like "Here have some French fries" but they're really zucchini fries. And he'll still have no idea. He'll be like "this looks like zucchini?" and I'll be like "Oh my God really? I had no idea! That zucchini STOLE the French fry's identity! What trickery is this?" And he'll be like "seriously this is crazy call the police! We have a vegetable identity theft crisis!"

zucchini fries. Or are they french fries? One may never know...

Today for lunch, I made Calen some leftover tilapia that we had for dinner last night (if you never had tilapia, it's a very light and doesn't really taste "fishy"). I placed it in front of him and told him to "eat his fish". Instantly, without even tasting it, he goes "I no like fish YUCK!!" So I said "fine!", snatched up the plate, shredded the fish, squirted some ketchup on it plopped it back in front of him and said "Here, have some chicken nuggets." Same plate, same food (but he doesn't know that), five seconds after I gave him fish. He takes a bite of the "chicken nuggets" and says "Mmmm yummy I yike (like) chicken nuggets!" And he ate the entire portion of fish "chicken". 

Who cares what he THINKS it is, as long as he's eating it, right?

Yummy "chicken nuggets" that is actually fish.

 

 

 

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