Ketchup and Lies

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it still seems like it came out of nowhere. One day, they were eating almost everything I put in front of them. The next day, everything required ketchup.

Their future.

And I do mean EVERYTHING.

Roasted chicken? "Ketchup?" No big deal.

Cauliflower? "More ketchup!" I can handle this.

Beef stew? "No! Want ketchup!" Excuse me while Mommy suppresses the urge to vom under the table.

Some sliced grapes? "Ketchup, mommy!" My stomach literally turned at this one, a real-life horror straight out of the book If I Could Keep You Little by Marianne Richmond, which mentions finding out "you like ketchup with your grapes." Who knew it was a real thing? And can we never do that again, please?

I wouldn't mind so much if they weren't starting to scoop the ketchup straight into their mouths, bypassing the nutritious food entirely. We've now taken to dribbling the ketchup on top of the food to ensure they eat something other than lycopene and sodium for dinner.

And yesterday on the way to daycare I caught Periwinkle offering her stuffed bunny "More ketchup, Bunny?" Adorable, right?

On a related note, I'm now lying to my children with regularity. They will eat pasta only if you assure them that the red sauce on top is ketchup. Also, all meat is known as "chicken" because that is all Periwinkle "likes." Don't tell her she's recently had salmon, beef, pork, and ham, if you'd be so kind. I'm not sure she could handle the shock.

What do you mean this isn't ketchup?

And they now refer to spaghetti as "pizza" and meatballs as "robots." Indigo requesting "More bobots, mommy?" is perhaps the cutest thing in the world. I claim no part in these mistakes -- they are all them.

However, Periwinkle referring to a stuffed lion as her "binosaur" is definitely my fault. Their recent obsession with dinosaurs has led to some serious tiffs over Indigo's red dino he got for his first birthday, and which is suddenly THE toy after a year of being ignored. So the lion has an identity crisis now.

Don't judge me.