Eat Your Veggies

Violet loves fruit. Be it mandarin oranges, pears, or applesauce, the girl has a sweet tooth and I'm glad I can offer her a healthy version instead of letting her eat ice cream and cake.

The problem is, she would much rather eat her fruits than veggies. (She'd rather eat fruit than almost anything else on the plate, but definitely more than veggies.) I'm guessing this is a pretty typical problem (unless you're my husband, who prefers cauliflower to almost any fruit). But I'd like to start Violet off on the right foot when it comes to trying things on her plate and appreciating, nay, enjoying vegetables. So far, the vegetable she seems to like the most is the tomato, which, no surprise, is in the middle of the age-old it's a vegetable no it's really a fruit tug-of-war. Tomatoes and Pluto, poor things never can quite figure out where they belong.

Anyway, here are some vegetables (and fruit) that both Violet and I can agree on.

Aren't these sweet? Violet got this set of enticing produce for her birthday from Mimi, and they look almost good enough to eat (Violet has indeed tried). The detail is adorable, right down to the banana that really peels and the head of lettuce with removable leaves. Plus they are soft and squishy and just right for little hands. And completely machine washable (mom bonus!).

Only the Swedes could come up with a produce mix for little children that includes not just your standard grapes and carrots, but mushrooms, leeks and a head of garlic. (Perhaps they have a bit of a vampire problem in Sweden.)

Here's a bit of trivia for you: the name of this Ikea product is duktig, which happens to mean "clever". I love Ikea's protocol of using random Swedish words to name their products. That being said, this little set is rather clever. Ikea's website claims these toys will "encourage role play". Here's hoping they inspire Violet to take a bite out of a real vegetable one of these days!