Any number of things are right now driving me completely and totally off my rocker. I need not list them; you likely all are dealing with similar. My children seem to be on a one-day-a-week school schedule (but an every day a week yell and scream schedule) and our comfortable 4-bedroom colonial is rapidly transforming into an igloo complete with ice roof and ice driveway that is NOT big enough to hold the likes of all of us. All of us can barely stand the sight of each other except for of course the baby, who will not let me OUT of her sight. This, now, has become a mutually dependent relationship–I had to take a quick jaunt to the ER last week, just for fun (if you call kidney stones fun and you know what? After a week in my house with America’s favorite snow-bunnies, or anti-snow-bunnies, my girls, I MIGHT call kidney stones fun). The baby came along because she, as mentioned, won’t let me out of her sight and it was judged by my husband and I, neither of us thinking clearly, to be the best course of action so he could be in charge of everyone else without her yelling at them. But then I found I was so happy to have her, at 3 am, to cuddle with on the ER bed as I was all whacked on painkillers–and like I said, mutual dependence is now firmly established.

Ok, but what is the MOST annoying to me now, beyond all the “big girls” pushing all the baby’s toys ALL. THE. TIME so they make SO. MUCH. ELECTRONIC. BABY. MUSIC. NOISE. is that my twins have decided they will eat nothing, nothing, NOTHING, unless it is shaped like a bar or a dinosaur.

Let me backtrack to say I was a picky eater. I ate nothing but fried eggs (dinner) and bagels and cream cheese (lunch) for a TWO year period. And that old threat offered by mothers everywhere, “Just wait till you have kids that do this to you”, double-downed in my case.

We can barely go out to dinner–they won’t eat anything. They eat: Special K bars. NutriGrain bars. And an occasional noodle. I said they ate dino-chicken but that is only if we’re yelling and feeding it to them.

It is absolutely absurd. But what can we do?

I'm wicked cute and sweet but wait am I feeling hungry?

Option ONE…”This is what’s being served. If you’re hungry you’ll eat it”. FAIL. Because they are hungry. And in the case of one of them, in particular, a tiny hungry means a GIANT meltdown.

YEAH I'm hungry, where's my bar-shaped FOOD?

So to avoid books being thrown all over the room, closets emptied, screaming commencing that lasts 60 minutes plus–I’m not talking worst case scenario, I’m talking that’s what just happened–you have to feed the kid. So you give her a Special K bar. And her lunch sits there.

Option TWO. “Find something you want to try”. FAIL. They refuse. One literally holds her nose if we try to make her eat anything and says all manner of food “smells”. Submitted for your consideration as “smelly foods”…Noodles. Pancakes. Even chicken. Is she a bloodhound with the most advanced sense of smell ever? Can we rent her out as a bomb-sniffing twin? And if we do can they get her to eat something while she’s on the road?

Option THREE. “No dessert”. See Option One. Fail. Because now not only do they not have dinner, there’s no chance for getting any food in ‘em at all, even some of the sneaky Deceptively Delicious vegetable desserts. And the beast comes out.

I am, quite literally, at the end of my rope. I tuck into my scrambled eggs (I don’t like ‘em fried anymore) and think to myself “Some day you’ll have picky eaters…may they be triplets”.

Suggestions, please?