Our 4 year old doesn’t eat.

Food has become the enemy.

We have to bribe her to eat six “bites” of anything and with every meal there is a battle, “How many carrots do I have to eat Mommy?”

Seven.

“Okay, so two?”

And so on and so forth.

She used to eat all foods, always in small amounts but at least she had some variety, now she has backed herself into a strange food corner where she limits herself to; warm milk (warmed in the microwave for 48 seconds and if she doesn’t get to it immediately, an extra four seconds), wraps (with nothing on them because she’s eliminated all meat, veggies or peanut butter and friends from her diet), grapes (four Mommy? Four grapes? That’s all I’m eating okay? Four?), pears and apples (in moderation), noodles (Mommy, can we have some noodles for supper? Mommy, can we have noodles? Ooh gross! Are these noodles? I do not like noodles).

She spends a disproportionate number of hours in the day telling me she’s starving but when I offer her cheese, vegetables, fruit, grains, foie gras, she turns her nose up at everything and says, “I’m not that hungry.”

I worry how it might affect her overall health, her growth, her bone structure and strength, her ability to function as a contributing member of society.

Food doesn’t seem to be complicated to Chloe. She eats out of necessity, not out of want and it’s usually a grand interruption of something far more pressing (reading Pinkalicious books) that just chews into what really matters to her.

Last night in her bed, four books deep it occurred to me she hadn’t eaten much more than the smell of an orange peel all day.

She gave me a hug goodnight, asked for the lights to be turned low, the blankets to be fluffed and whispered in my ear;

“Goodnight Mommy, I love you. Can I have a croissant?”