Let her eat cake!

It's been a while since I've made a post (although I did update the "Recent Progress" list earlier this month), so we're more than past due for an update.

This past weekend was Ella's cousin's birthday party. Ella had quite a lot of fun at the party, and managed to do a few new things as far as eating goes. The most notable was that she ate cake without incident. In the past (even as recently as this summer) Ella was not able to eat cake, as the crumbly texture caused her to gag. That is a good thing as far as mouth control and texture tolerance goes.

She also tried a hot dog (well, a pig in a blanket) for the first time, and succeed in biting a chunk off and eating it. It is only very recently that we've been successful in getting Ella to bite chunks off of larger food items, and it's even better that she did it with something "unfamiliar". She's been fairly resistant to eating foods outside her normal day-to-day foods. Fortunately her day-to-day foods comprise a fairly balanced diet with all the major food groups represented, but there's not a lot of variety there.

In general Ella's "safe" foods are:

chicken nuggets of most any sort
turkey meatballs
peanut butter and jelly topped pancakes (a little weird, but she likes them)
Dr. Praeger's spinach pancakes
Dr. Praeger's broccoli pancakes
Earth's best spring vegetables and pasta (yes, it's a baby food, but she loves it and it's vegetables.)
American cheese
yogurt
Cheerios, Kix and Rice Crispies
Any common fruit (esp grapes, blueberries, and canned pineapple)
french fries
a variety of crackers and cookies.

All in all, not too shabby for a fussy two year old. You've got meats, vegetables, dairy, and grains in there. I'd be happier if she was more adventurous in her eating, but at least its a healthy diet, and we're not fighting to find a vegetable she'll eat.