I don’t want your pear peel.
Sep 7th, 2007 by Bethany
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I've mentioned before that Degen likes to eat pears and apples. He calls them both "po-po" (short for apple). He doesn't like to eat the entire pear or apple, only the sweet fleshy part inside the peel. So, what he generally does is take a bite out of the fruit, scrape the flesh from the piece he bit off, then throws the piece of peel on the floor.
We've been trying to break him of throwing bits of fruit on the floor, and try to get him to throw it in the garbage. We don't even try to get him to eat the peel right now–getting the peel in the garbage is close enough for me. However, sometimes a garbage can is not available, or we don't want to walk him to one and watch him throw the peel away with every bite, so we started telling him to give the peel pieces to us instead. It's kind of gross to hold a handful of ABC peel, but it's a better alternative than picking bits up off the floor and never knowing if you got it all.
Unfortunately, the handfuls of peel turned into something worse. Degen is learning to share, and he somehow got the idea that Colin and I wanted his peel so we could eat it. Of course, this turned into the even more fun practice of Degen insisting on putting each little piece of peel directly into my mouth. He thinks it's so funny! Even when I protest and say "No thank you, I don't want to eat your pear peel," he giggles and continues to push the peel into my tightly closed lips. Then I give in and eat his gross little bit of reject food, cringing until I realize that if I ever want him to eat his own peels I have to let him know they're yummy, not disgusting.
A less-than-fun mother moment: I have to eat his peel and act like I like it so that he'll someday want to eat it himself and in the short term not throw his peels on the floor. Goody.
