This morning, I cut up a bunch of Kesar mangoes that Chris ordered online through Say Weee, but a lot of them were a bit too ripe to eat as whole pieces. So he suggested we turn them into a lassi. Well, I did this, and while we both enjoyed them, Kaia did not. She took one look at the small cup I prepared for her, shook her head, and said “no!” in her usual high-pitched voice, ending in a higher pitch as though she were asking a question. After repeat attempts to show it to her and have her watch us drink it, she still refused and got no FOMO from it. She just kept rejecting it. So in the end, I just drank her small portion and let it go.

Kaia has embraced pretty much every fish we’ve ever introduced to her, so we thought it would be a no brainer to give her some of the white fish jook/congee we had leftover from dinner last night. Well, she initially refused it and fought it. But after watching me eat a few spoonfuls and make “mmmmm” sounds, she finally agreed to have one bite. Then, she ended up eating all the remaining fish in the bowl, as well as all the jook.

Toddler selectivity is definitely at play here. I know for a fact she would enjoy the mango lassi, as she’s had it before after she watched me have it and gobbled it up. Sometimes, I think she just refuses for the sake of refusing. It gets tiring and definitely tests my patience, but I am still not willing to give up on introducing new/different things to her. I recently gave her some apricot, which she also repeatedly refused, though she was absolutely obsessed with them this time last year. The problem with a lot of foods she’s had and loved before is that they are seasonal, so it’s not like she can have year-round access to them. So this ends up becoming a challenge to “re-introduce” these same foods to her.