Failure

I am so frustrated tonight. And the part I'm most frustrated about is that I even allowed myself to get frustrated about this. Again.
Here is a comprehensive and completely accurate list of what my children ate today.
Garrett:

• 2 frozen pancakes with syrup.  I do buy the syrup that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup, but still, it's basically bread and sugar for breakfast. Awesome.  This is what he eats for breakfast almost every day.
• I imagine he had a snack in the Leadership Room while Jason and I served, but I'm not sure.  It would be something like Goldfish, if he did.
• For lunch, which he was apparently starving for, he ate exactly two bites of one chicken finger and about 5 french fries.  He did drink 3 kid-sized cups of sweet tea though.
• At about 3:00, he ate approximately 8 club crackers for snack.  Which was really lunch, because he didn't actually eat lunch.
• Worried me to death about dinner from the moment I walked in from the grocery store.  When we finally sat down to eat, he ate approximately 3 slices of ham (which is quite good), but then when I asked him to try the scalloped potato dish I made for Jason and I to eat, he literally gagged at the dinner table over about a dime sized piece of potato.

Harper:

• About half a bowl of apple cinnamon chex for breakfast.  With milk.
• Same deal as Garrett about snack in the Leadership Room.
• Lunch, which she too was starving for, was about 10-15 pieces of fried okra.  Dipped in honey mustard.  She did pull the batter off about 5 of the 10 pieces of okra and just ate the okra.  But still.
• At about 3:00, she also had a "snack" (actually, lunch) was about 15 baby carrots.  That's not bad, right?
• When I got home from the grocery store, she too was about to faint with hunger, so I gave her a Yoplait yogurt.  Peach.  And it was full fat yogurt because I don't want her to have artificial sweetner. I do try, you know.
• Same deal for dinner.  She ate about 3 slices of ham (also good).  Same deal with the wretching about the potato.

This is very typical of what my children eat every day. Most of the time I try really hard not to care.  But I do.  Today what sent me over the edge was that I did NOT want to go to the grocery store this afternoon. I am leaving on Wednesday for a business trip and I'll be gone through the end of the week.  My mother in law is coming to stay to help Jason with the kids schedule, so he won't have to adjust his schedule to accommodate theirs. We are having dinner with friends tomorrow night, so I really only have to prepare 2 meals for my family this week.  But I needed to plan and buy food for what they will eat while I am gone. So I spent about 20 minutes preparing the menu and my list and then an hour at the store.  Then I walked straight in the door, unloaded the groceries (with Jason's help) while preparing dinner. And then when it was finally all done, both my children gagged at the table.
I am so frustrated with this.  I truly don't know how to go forward. I know one day, not so far from now, my children will both be bottomless pits that eat all day long. But that's not where we are now, nor where we ever have been. This is not a new issue.  Food has been an issue from day one with Garrett. I have tried for the last almost 8 years not to care.  I've tried all the tricks and tips on dealing with picky eaters.  I've cried, I've yelled, I've bargained, I've actually withheld food (not that it mattered). I have said I didn't care.  I've resigned myself to being a short order cook and I've determined that I wasn't going to do that anymore. But I do care.  I'm their mom.  I'm supposed to make sure they eat healthy, nutritious food.  And I fail. Every day.