dinner time

hayden is a horrible eater. just horrible. he has about 4 things that he will eat and if you put anything other than those 4 things on his plate, he freaks out. he loves frozen waffles. and by frozen waffles i mean that they are still frozen when he eats them. usually covered in applesauce. and when we can get him to eat frozen chicken nuggets, those are also still frozen. i make him allow me to heat up the frozen baby corn dogs for a couple of seconds seeing as though he would never be able to bite through them otherwise.
we really don't even know when and why his pickyness started. as a baby he was a great eater. when we started him on the jarred baby foods he ate all of them. and by all of them, i mean he even ate that gross disgusting meat. then he moved to solids and he still was a pretty good eater. then little by little he started refusing foods that he used to eat all the time. and now we are in the position we are currently in.
and even though hayden hardly eats anything all day long and he is in constant motion, he still is a total brick house. well over a year ago we cut out all snacks throughout the day so that he would be hungry for mealtime. but he doesn't care. his will power is much stronger than that.
finally the other week i had decided that it was enough. i was tired of making 2 different things for all of us to eat and i was tired of the same old fight every nite. how would he ever try anything if we didn't make him. so i decided to start making him eat what we were having. and by that, i simply mean i would put it on his plate and the rest would be up to him. i still will give him some applesauce and about 5 crackers but he gets nothing else for the rest of the nite if he doesn't eat what we're having. it has gone exactly the way i knew it would go. he had a freak out fit when i put it on his plate and then refused to eat it. and him not being allowed to have anything the rest of the nite usually doesn't effect him.
until last nite. i made a chicken dish that consisted of chicken, tortillas, onion, cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup, cheese and some spices. he had a fit. typical. but suddenly he was really interested in getting to eat some pop rocks. so he started bartering with me. 3 bites? how about 5 bites? all of it, really?! but bit by bit, he did it. he ate everything i put on his plate. now sure, it took him about an hour to do it and we were long gone from the table but he ate it. and didn't really complain.
think it'll go that well tonite? i doubt it. but he'll eventually realize that this is the way our house is running now. so he'd better suck it up and eat. if he doesn't....i'll just continue to save money for when he's in high school and i can't get him to stop eating.