A list of items that real toddlers actually do eat (from moms on my message board):

Breakfast:

- Aunt Jemima pancakes & eggs

- Frozen waffles/french toast sticks

- Gogurt yogurt tubes

- Sweet potatoes

Lunch/Dinner:

- Sloppy joes

- Cut up bananas

- Rice made with low-sodium chicken broth (try mixing meat/tofu/veggies into the rice, sometimes they will eat things that way that they wouldn’t otherwise).

- Sandwiches (tuna, egg salad, peanut butter for older toddlers, turkey, hummus, etc)

- Grilled cheese (Lil Duck loves this, and it is easy to sneak in some pureed veggies with that cheese too).

- Steamed, cut up baby carrots, butternut squash, edamame (soybeans)

- Quesadillas & wraps

- Whole wheat pasta with any sauce/veggie

- Lil Duck LOVES my pasta melt, crazy baby!

If you give him eggs and grits, he will smear them all over the house, then eat dried pasta and lint.

If you give him pasta with veggies and chicken, he will use them to decorate the kitchen cabinets, then eat several sticks of sidewalk chalk.

If you give him veggie crackers and cheese, he will leave them all over the living room carpet, coffee table, and couch, while he proceeds to find anything chocolate-based and eat it, then drool it out of his mouth and smear it all over unwashable items.

Not just because I really don’t care for them - they are squishy and odd-tasting on their own, though not bad in smoothies - but now because of the little one. If you read my last post about bananas, you would see how much he LOVES them - seeing them, that is.
However, apparently bananas are not for eating. No, for what fun would that be, to actually put them in your mouth. You have to inspect them, squish them between your fingers, and then shred them apart with your fat little fingers. Then you take your little toddler feet and mash those little bits of squishy banana into the carpet. After dismembering the peel, all the fun is over, you may continue with your everyday activities.

So now, the evil banana has taken up residence in my carpet, waiting to resist my efforts to scrub it out. This is why I need a maid, and a few less bananas. That ought to teach me to actually BUY bananas at the store when he asks for them - never again, for sure!