Broccoli

My boys love broccoli. It is amazing but they both really do. Austin has liked it for a long time, especially Chinese broccoli. It is his favorite dish that Xiao Ji (my helper) makes. Dinnertime conversations often go like this:

"Austin, if you want to have more broccoli, you need to eat all your chicken."

or "Austin, if you want some more broccoli, you need to drink some milk"

Maybe we have a budding vegetarian, because it is hard to get him to eat meat sometimes, but he loves fruit, bread and many vegetables. He even likes salad (pronounced "sa-yed"). Plain lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, he loves it and often asks for more.

Bennett was just recently introduced to broccoli and he loves it too! He seems to like most things I have given him, however I think he is partial to broccoli. We have (thankfully) mostly moved past all his meals being pureed or blended and he is onto table food. He now eats pieces of bread and pasta, rice, steamed pieces of vegetables, egg yolk and often still rice or oatmeal cereal. I recently steamed some broccoli and gave it to him in little bite-sized chunks and he ate it all. Most of the time now, half of his meal ends up on the floor and half in his mouth. But not the broccoli. Just today I gave him some steamed broccoli as part of his lunch, and guess how much ended up on the floor? One little piece. He somehow knows to be very careful with broccoli so he can eat as much of it as he can. I guess I am lucky that my children like vegetables. Now if I could just get Chris to like broccoli, we would be set. (They did NOT get their love of broccoli from their dad, though he will eat it raw).

(In case you think we are always super healthy, Austin also loves McDonalds, pizza, ice cream and just about any dessert. We don't just eat vegetables, but I am glad it is not usually a battle to eat them!)