This is a story of a parenting win. As parents, we need these.

I have plenty of days where I feel like I’ve failed: I spent too much time on work. My son spent too much time on the iPad. I failed to properly reward or discipline. I let him eat too much junk or get too little sleep.

But I find balance in the days when my son is super well behaved, when he asks to be excused from the table, when he happily plays alone for hours, when he snuggles up to me for an afternoon of talking or reading.

This month, though, a major victory came in the form of salad.

Who is this kid?

At lunch one day, my son had taken some chicken and then noticed that I was putting mine on a bed of lettuce. “I want to do that,” he said.

I did a double-take.

I gave him a few leaves of lettuce, piled with chicken and topped with my homemade red wine vinaigrette.

He ate it — and even said it was good.

Who was this child? Obviously, this was a fluke, right?

Then, a couple of days later for lunch, we had some baked breaded halibut, and my husband and I had a Caesar salad on the side. My son loves the fish, usually eating more than my husband or me. But catching me by surprise, he asked for the salad. I explained the dressing had dairy so he couldn’t have it. He was actually upset. So I promised the next time I made this meal I would pull out some romaine and croutons from the bag for him.

“Can I have the mommy dressing?” he asked.

And so the next week, he had a little side salad with his fish at lunch.

Proving it’s not a fluke, he’s had salad (well, lettuce anyway) several more times with my homemade dressings.

Modeling just might work

The funny thing is that for some time, my son has said that my favorite food is salad. Because I eat it so much. (The truth my real love is a good mac and cheese, but I eat that very rarely and never in his presence.)

My husband has some doubts, but I’d like to think that by modeling salad eating so many meals a week, we’ve finally made an impact.

Regardless of the reason, though, my 6-year-old eats salad. So, we’re gonna put that in the “W” column!