To Eat or Not To Eat?

Oda Mae is typically a pretty good eater. She likes vegetables a lot, she used to like chicken. Occasionally we give her a hot dog or a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch if we don't have leftovers or something better to give her, but that really is fairly rare. Lately, she has been becoming more and more picky. Suddenly, she doesn't like chicken. She has never really liked any kind of noodles and now she seems to hate everything we try and give her.

The other day I made a new Mexican casserole (which was really good by-the-way) that had chicken, pimentos and corn tortillas, etc. She wouldn't touch it. A couple of weeks ago we had a Mexican fiesta with tortillas, rice and beans (We love us some Mexican food around here!) She wouldn't eat that either until she saw me putting rice and beans on a tortilla. I noticed that she was trying to do the same thing as her Daden. So I gave her 1/4th of a tortilla with some rice and beans on it and rolled it up like a burrito and she went to town. Ate the whole thing, she did. I tried the same thing with the new dinner a couple of days ago and she got wise. She started taking the "stuff" out, and just eating the tortilla. There went that idea!

So here is my dilemma, do I let her go hungry trying to teach her to eat what is in front of her or do I just give her stuff that I know she likes? I bailed out this afternoon and gave her a tortilla so she would eat something. My gut feeling is to let her get so hungry that she forces down whatever we give her. What do you suggest?

HERE is an mp3 file of some words that Oda Mae has recently started saying.

TRANSCRIPT:
Tortilla (her first 3 syllable word)
Yellow
Blue
Light
Eddie
People
Puppies
Daden
Momma
Uncle


Have fun.

-OD