My situation is the other way round. By bio daughter is such a fussy eater. I'm trying to go for the "try X. number of bites of something new" at least and then I try that same food again a few weeks later. Seems to be working a little bit - hopefully! SD will eat and try anything new, which I think is having a bit of a knock on effect on my own daughter.

Did someone piss in the cereal of the poster above by the way? Unbelievable harsh judgmental comments, when you were just asking for a bit of advice. Geez. I am v. new here, but those sorts of comments are enough to put me off posting.

My kids (his, mine and ours)learned by age nine not to whine about being bored. Bored? Here, here is a list of chores you can do if you can't find something to do. Bored lasted about two seconds before they were off finding something to entertain themselves with that didn't include chores.

"Any suggestions on how not to have to make a different meal for just one child? "

Are you perhaps feeding into this by racing off to the kitchen to fix the child an alternative meal? At nine years he's old enough to try what's served, if he doesn't like it let him march himself into the kitchen and make himself a p&j sandwich or lunch meat or whatever you think is suitable. My kids would usually manage to eat what everybody else was eating if I took a few minutes while preparing the meal to make a few exceptions for which kid was picky over this or that meal. Sometimes it was a matter of setting aside a simple plain chicken breast and a handful of veggie to plainly serve to this one or that one because they liked the meat and the veggie but not mixed and put together in say a casserole. Or when grilling chicken on the grill I'd make a little foil boat to make their breast plain or this or that sauce/seasoning so it didn't mix with the sauce/seasoning everyone else liked. I had one who hated potato salad but liked baked potatoes. That one I would simply zap a potato in the micro for while I made potato salad for the others.

I think the comparing becomes a bit hard when you have one child who lives a complete different way at BM's house with different foods and dining styles and then two kids who live in your home and do things one way 24/7 365. Your 24/7 kids really don't know they might be able to get away with stubbing their noses at their meals because they don't get the other lifestyle of being allowed to eat crappy meals and be picky butts. All you can do is continue to be consistent and have expectations in your home (example, trying different foods and at least tasting it). You're not going to change your home's rules and eating habits every other weekend or a month in the summer just because one kid doesn't like it or is use to having things differently at the opposite parents house.