Kids’ Crazy Tastebuds

1st birthday

Everyone knows tastes change, but it is really strange to watch someone’s tastes change radically and suddenly, as my oldest’s have been lately. He has always been a huge fruit eater. On his first birthday his big treat was letting him eat as many strawberries as he wanted, (and then the next day taking him to the doctor for diarrhea. Oops. But I figured if people let their one year olds stuff their little mouths full of as much cake as they can eat, how bad can strawberries be…) And then when he was four and I put him on a rotation diet for about a year as his food sensitivities settled down, fruit was an absolute life-saver. Whenever I thought there was just nothing I could feed him, fruit, any fruit, could always be served and he’d be happy while I scraped together something else to fill his little belly. His love affair with fruit has continued, unquestioned, until last week when something abruptly changed. His morning side bowls of strawberries started returning to the kitchen untouched. He didn’t like the blueberries this season, which means I got to eat them all and I can attest they are awesome, as always, this year as opposed to my son’s critique of, “they taste kind of rotten.” To his nearly constant statement of “I’m hungry” I have offered apples which he’s refused, and this kid has eaten one to three apples almost every day of his solid foods life! Even he is perplexed by this change, offering, with a shrug, “maybe grapes?” But no, the grapes were barely eaten and actually fruit isn’t even all of the newly unloved food, suddenly he doesn’t like quesadillas with beans anymore, a staple for years! I guess this should all give me hope that my younger one will suddenly start liking other things than the few foods he allows to pass his lips, but it is just so sudden it leaves me a bit unsettled.