Temper Tantrums - choosing battles

Oh Jude. He is firmly in the tantrum age.  I can see already that Jude will butt heads against Brian and me well into his future.  Jude has quite the pig-headed stubbornness about him, that the rest of us lack.

The latest battle of wills is over dinner.  If Jude had his way, he would never eat dinner and live on breakfast and lunch.  I try to insist that he eats something off his plate at dinner.  Brian insists that he eat dinner, especially if it is something scrumptious that he has prepared.  We don't make separate dinner for the boys.  Jude refuses the food often, which upsets Brian as well. Of late, Jude may place a bite in his mouth, but then promptly down a glass of juice in an attempt to wash it out.  And he cries.  Cries!  If he doesn't want it, he doesn't want anyone else eating any of it either. If you take the food away, he cries!  If we attempt to cut up the food after he has seen it on his plate, he cries! Cries!  I so want a quiet dinner, but then I have Jude go to his room where he works himself into a fit.  Usually, he cries for awhile in the room but will come back out eventually stating that he is happy again.  However, some nights it escalates.   This time, Jude cried when he tried the food, cried when we cut it up, cried in his room, cried some more, cried so much he threw up on himself...cried in the shower for clean up (which he hates).   It is hard to know that he is throwing a fit over something you had started...but I know he won't starve for not eating a dinner.
Sigh.
I know Tamlin went through a picky phase, but he never went this far with his refusals.  Now, Tamlin is much better at eating, though his table manners are still quite horrid.
Sigh.
We'll keep plowing forward with a dear stubborn boy.