Mommy, I HATE oatmeal.

I have two kids. One loves almost everything I cook, even experiments that come out looking odd, lightly burned food and new foods he's never seen before. If he was my only child, I would think that feeding kids is easy, fun, simple and satisfying.

But I don't think that. Because I have another child. She keeps me very, very humble. She grumbles, she cries, she refuses food, she begs for junk food at the store. And, worst of all, she has a habit of suddenly proclaiming that she now hates foods that she used to like.

Just yesterday, she walked into the kitchen, dressed in wildly mismatched clothes, and ready for a tough day in 1st grade. She glared at the saucepan bubbling on the stove.

"I hope that's not oatmeal because you know that I hate oatmeal now."

I said the stupidest thing possible, having not had any coffee yet: "You don't hate oatmeal!"

"I do," she sighed, shaking her head at my lack of maternal mind-reading skills, "but don't worry about it. I'll make myself an English Muffin."

For just a moment, I stopped packing lunches/making coffee/feeding the cat/unloading the dishwasher. I thought to myself about the section in Feeding the Kids on not making separate meals for kids. I though about how hard it is on kids (and parents) when they let kids decide what to eat and then the kid's diet becomes restricted.

But then I thought about her going to 1st grade hungry, about the crying fit she'd have if I gave her oatmeal, about how a whole-wheat English muffin is healthy after all. I opened my mouth to say go ahead and make the muffin. Then I closed it and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry you don't like oatmeal anymore. But that's what we are having. You don't have to eat it, of course, but it just doesn't work to have everyone having different things for breakfast."

She cried. She pleaded. She used the "I'll starve" technique. She stormed out of the kitchen. I felt terrible. I doubted myself. Was she really going to skip breakfast before school?

But then, to my relief and amazement, my daughter trudged--frowning-- back to the kitchen. She added huge amounts of milk, walnuts and dried fruit to her bowl of oatmeal. She topped it off with some brown sugar.

And then she ate the oatmeal. And the next day? Well, we all had English Muffins.