Update to Picky Eater

So last night, after making Dahlia one of the four dinners she'll actually eat (Grilled Cheese and Green Beans), I sat down to have my own dinner of which the main course was chicken (I know, we eat a lot of chicken). Dahlia spots me from across the room, walks over to me and hovers over my plate as she often does on the nights we don't get a chance to eat together as a family. "What's that?", she asks, pointing at my chicken. "It's chicken. Do you want some?", I ask through a chuckle, 100% sure she that, after the chicken battle of the previous week, she would run away screaming.

"Want some. Yessss!", she replied. "Yeah right", I thought, and held up a big chunk of breast meat on a fork. To my astonishment and utter disbelief, she opened her mouth wide, chewed, swallowed and asked for more! I yelled across the room to John to come over and repeated the feat...TWICE!!

I fed her nearly all of it and spent the rest of the night trying to wrap my head around it. Two days before, I could have water boarded her and she wouldn't have touched that chicken! Indeed, she demonstrated that she would rather eat nothing at all than take even a single bite. Yet, there she was, eagerly eating chicken off my plate!

I still can't explain it. Pushing a child to eat a food is supposed to put them off of it... right? I spent at least two hours last week with a plate of chicken in one hand and a tub of ice cream in the other saying "If you eat your chicken, you can have some ice cream" or " Come on, just take one little bite" or "Mmmm... chicken is so yummy". By the end of it, I was sure I had put her off chicken forever. Oh well. I think I will give up on understanding this one and just be happy it is one more food we can all share together.