Lima Bean Aversion

Dr. Pediatrician did the grocery shopping this week. He bought mixed vegetables with lima beans. Despite the fact that I really actually like lima beans, no one else seems to be able to snarf them down, so I usually go for the frozen mixed vegetables without lima. Today for lunch Ms. Crazy Preschooler asked for mixed vegetables. I cooked up the only kind we had, with lima beans and explained very reasonably to her that she could just put the lima beans on the table and eat the rest of the vegetables on her plate and it would be just like she had a heaping mound of regular old mixed vegetables. To my surprise, she was very OK with the idea.

She scooted the limas off her plate and had a few pieces of corn, some green beans, and when she came to the peas and carrots she insisted that they didn’t taste right. She told me they made her want to throw up. I said, “Let’s not be ridiculous; you just ate the corn and green beans. These taste like regular peas and carrots.” She fussed and fumed and said they tasted like lima beans. I tasted them. They tasted like regular peas and carrots to me. She fussed and then popped a few in her mouth. I continued to spoon squash into the ever-gaping hole of Banana’s mouth.

Suddenly I heard a strange cough, an about-to-vomit kind of cough. I turned around and Ms. Crazy Preschooler had very big eyes. “RUN to the bathroom!” I yelled. And sure enough, she threw up all the mixed vegetables.

I think next time it’s worth it to get the bag without the lima beans. I feel pretty guilty because I really thought she was just trying to get out of eating her veggies. (I remember a similar episode with my Auntie Nancy and spaghetti sauce when I was about her age, and to this day I still can’t eat spaghetti sauce . . . I can’t even stand smelling spaghetti sauce) She was so nice about the whole thing, too. She explained so reasonably after her stint in the bathroom that it wasn’t the flu, just the lima beans, and that she’d be perfectly willing to have regular mixed vegetables next time.