Tricks of grandparents!

Not about food here. A few years ago our grandson aged just 3y used to have a tantrum when it was time to come out of the sea.

One afternoon I was taking him in and our daughter said ‘good luck with that grandma!’

How lucky was I that after our paddle, when it was time to come out, he was just about to throw a wobbly when I spotted a little boy on the edge of the water. ‘No, stop it’ said I. ‘You’ve has your turn, now it’s this little boy’s turn’. It worked! Led him back up to the sunbeds as good as gold ...

Bradfordlass72, do you write cookbooks? Just wondering, with the reference made to your publishers...
As for fooling children, yes! One little girl, the daughter of my first partner, would only drink one brand of milk, which, at the time, came in a glass bottle. This milk was more expensive, and we lived on very little money - bought a bottle of milk for one visit and after that refilled bottle with our milk - she never knew the difference. I did eventually tell her...
The son of my friend would eat no veg except tomato sauce on spaghetti - so I would make a sauce with all sorts of veg and puree it - when he found out a few years later, he declared it "naughty sauce" as in , I was naughty for putting all that good stuff in there - he loved it and even as a young man on a visit, he came into the kitchen where I was cooking a sauce and said "mmmmm smells like naughty sauce"!

My publishers wanted me to include a section at the back of my 2nd book for parents whose children wouldn't eat vegetables.

After explaining that pretty much every vitamin they wanted children to eat was also in the (sometimes more acceptable) fruits, I proceeded to devise several ways of hiding vegetables in secret places.

My sons were never fussy eaters but the younger boy would occasionally come home with a fad:
'I hate tomatoes' - the day after he'd eaten and enjoyed them.
'Why?'
'Because Daniels doesn't like them.'
Solidarity with a best friend has a lot to answer for.

Friend had children who liked spaghetti, but for some reason would not eat macaroni, as in macaroni cheese.

He told them that spaghetti was the centre part of macaroni and that is why it had a hole in the middle. They promptly started eating macaroni because they realised it was just the outside of spaghetti.

Isn't it good when we manage to fool 'em!

Jolly good idea for those fussy eaters.