Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss is awesome. My favorite book is The Lorax. I recently checked it out from the library and read it with T, who's almost three and beginning to read. Yes, really.

Green Eggs and Ham has been a favorite with him for some time - he likes to flip through and try to remember the lines as he looks at the pages. This morning, however, I caught him trying to read another Beginner Book, Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street? He was getting most of the words. Even though I'm around him all the time, I was surprised at how well he got some of the more difficult words, and how well he guessed at some he clearly didn't know by sight.

On an inspiration, I sliced up some of the ham Meme sent us home with yesterday, and colored a small batch of scrambled eggs green with blue food coloring. (They looked like they should taste minty, but I suppose that's just the food industry tainting my taste buds again.) He was so excited to eat them, and he ran and got the book to look at after lunch.

When he proceeded to read practically the whole thing to me. He got a little frustrated at the end by some of the longer pages, which are basically all repetition anyway - I think he was just used to it going a little faster. But seriously - I've tried to teach a young child to read before, and it was not this easy. I am absolutely stunned that he is picking this up with seemingly little interference on my (or anyone's) part.

So, an idea is born: theme meals. We've been working on T eating more variety (as previously mentioned, he likes everything sweet - breakfast foods, desserts, fruits...and not so much meat and veggies). He's already pretty clear on not liking beef very much, and he just won't give non-French fry-potatoes a fair shake. But other than that, we've been doing pretty well with the "you have to try a bite of everything on your plate" rule.

So, why not have a "letter of the day" like Sesame Street, and plan some part of the meal to revolve around that letter? Zucchini for Z Day, for example, or Cauliflower for C Day (except then I'd have to eat cauliflower, blech - one of the few veggies I do NOT like).

I'm pretty psyched about this idea, and about expanding his palate. He's surprised us already - who knew a picky 2-year-old could begin to like jicama (or spell it?), or black beans? He's got definite potential, this kid. Now, if I could just get him to like black beans and rice, or soup. So far, mixtures are beyond him. And yet, I have hope.