Grilled Cheese Please!

My son is a picky eater. We like to go to restaurants to go out to eat. I used to not order him anything because he wouldn’t eat it. I thought once he was older he would eat there like other kids.  I felt bad when they would ask me what he was having when I said oh he’s fine. Of course he ate at home, I wasn’t starving my son.  There was usually bread or whatever for him to snack on. Sometimes I brought cereal, crackers, even applesauce.  I didn’t want to spend five dollars on a kid’s meal that I knew he wouldn’t eat. That’s crazy. I may as well throw the money in a gutter.  It was also wasteful.  It was kind of embarrassing to say just milk please.  As I started ordering him food I noticed the same basic crap on the kid’s menu. Hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, and Mac and cheese, which are all, kid friendly.  It is missing one very important kid friendly item. This isn’t steak or shrimp skewers I am aware that is more for the older under 12 age set. This item is really cheap to make and very easy.  I think that all restaurants that have a kid’s menu should offer grilled cheese.  So, easy to make and saves parents the horrible task of saying please eat. Eat your dinner and everything under the sun.  I am asking no begging and pleading that you alter your kids menu and offer grilled cheese.  I would be a very happy mom if you would just buy some bread, cheese and butter.   You don’t even have to go to a specialty store to find it and anyone can make it.  If it is a Mexican restaurant cheese quesadillas are fine.

I would like to thank the following restaurants for having grilled cheese on your kids menu:

Steak N Shake

Waffle House- Noah has never been to Waffle House but that is what I always eat there.

Leverock’s- the best seafood restaurant is ever located in St. Petersburg Florida. It is amazing. I have been going there for years and they have the best and freshest seafood.  It was always a place we ate at on vacation growing up.

Panera

Paradise Bakery

Applebee’s

Red Robin- This must be a new thing cause I don’t remember them having grilled cheese before when Noah was eating a cupcake and apple slices.

Chilis

Do you know any other places that offer grilled cheese on the kid’s menu?  I look forward to your suggestions.

My Thoughts on Eden's World

Have you seen the show Eden’s World? It is about 6 year old Eden Wood who used to be a beauty pageant superstar. It is on Logo and I started watching it On Demand. Let me tell you that it is a horrible train wreck. All of the pageant shows are train wrecks and I don’t think that dressing your child up to look like a grown up and skimpy outfits is an ok thing to do. It is totally wrong in my opinion and it makes little girls focus on outer fake beauty. All of the pageant pictures look like the little girls aren’t even real, like someone made them in to a plastic fake doll. I know that a lot of parents live through their child for the adults dreams of wishing they were beauty queens. 

Eden’s World is a horrible show. Sure I think she is cute but overly too cute. She seems that she is overacting and over the top.  I don’t want to sound like I am bad mouthing a six year old. My problem with the show has nothing to do with Eden herself.  I am glad that she is so confident, even though it might be a little too confident. Things I saw in the episodes of Eden’s World were not appropriate.  I know that it is not a kid’s show but there are kids present when a lot of the drama happens.  I think the stylist Fran is an evil and rude woman, she yells at people, gets in confrontations with other adults in front of young children, and her language is horrible. I would be so upset if my child heard the things she was saying as a parent.  Her Manager is the same way, she also is very short tempered, rude, angry and also uses foul language in the presence of Eden and other children. I also noticed that her manager is not being professional. 

My question is Mickie why subject your child to that? Why would you do a show like this? Why would you want your adorable 6 year olds name and brand attached to rude and nasty tempered people? I understand Eden really wants to become a star, but the E Team’s behavior is going to harm her more than it helps her.  People will quickly learn about the E Team’s temper and why would someone want to do business with Eden if her team treats others like dirt? I think that you should have probably passed on the show because her talent is what should get her out there, not some ridiculous show that makes you, your daughter and her dreams look like some big joke.

A Hard Parenting Moment

I recently wrote a post about letting people go.  Well, several nights ago Noah and I were talking, it was late, he had a cold and he started talking about my dad.  It broke my heart, without going in to personal details, basically he was saying things like I wish I could meet Grandpa. He is almost six and has never met my dad. He lives in England with his new wife and it just is far away. I haven’t seen my dad since before I found out I was pregnant with Noah.  Noah kept saying things like where is Grandpa? How far is England? Why haven’t I met him?  I didn’t have the heart to say anything. He went on to make a plan to go see him. He calculated every detail of the trip out to me.  I just went a long with it.  I felt the tears falling down my face because it made my heart hurt so badly.  We have never had the best relationship and again without getting in to all the personal details he has hurt me many times in my life, more than I can count. I had known this for a long time and it is who he is, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.  I was really hesitant to let him back in my life and now Noah’s life back in 2007.  It is really hard because he’s my dad. My five year old doesn’t know, it is sad that he hasn’t met him.  I already have seen him disappoint Noah and continue to disappoint me. I used to wonder if I did something wrong, if I wasn’t good enough growing up? I wondered if it was my fault. 

So, what do I say? I mean I am definitely not going to say the truth to my five year old. I don’t want him to know, if that makes sense. I guess I will just have to go along with it for now and not make any promises. It is not like he has made any effort to see us. He invited us out there when Noah was two.  That’s a long way from home and I would be worried something would happen and we would be on the streets in England to fend for ourselves.  He has never offered to come here once. When he was living in the states, he never offered to see us.  We actually moved to be closer to him and he took off to England.  He has never heard Noah’s voice other than on videos. He doesn’t call, Skype or anything. Noah has seen two pictures of him.  It makes me so sad, because who could want to not meet my sweet little boy. He is amazing and so smart.  It has really turned in to a very stressful and hurtful thing for me so I decided to just let him go. Let him have his life in England and all that and hope he is happy, but I can’t let him hurt us anymore. My heart can’t take it, I don’t want Noah’s heart to hurt or ever feel unloved  by him like I did for almost my entire life.  It just really stinks because Noah is asking about Grandpa all the time now and I know he is genuinely just a kid wanting to see someone he loves.