11 posts tagged “eating”

This morning, I took Dash for a follow-up visit with the doc who placed his ear tubes.  All is well on that front.  I then took the doctor aside and explained, "Hey, the kid's not eating any solid food, so please help me with the psychology of the thing... Can you tell him you're a throat doctor, check him out, and pronounce him fit to chew and swallow food?"  The doc played along... but Dash's response to an offer of food was still, "Soon, Mama, I'll eat it soon."

He's been going to eat "soon" since May 19.  As of mid-day, he has not chewed ANY solid food for two solid weeks. 

Then, we went in search of an obscure food store in Pennsylvania, a store that carries his obscure pediatric feeding supplement.  And while I deposited every box of the supplement on the shelf into my cart, Dash was looking at a baby -- not even a year old -- whose mom popped open a can of Gerber cheese puffs.  The baby reached in the jar, took a cheese puff, and ate it.  And Dash, eyes wide, YELLED, "MAMA!  THAT BABY ATE THAT CHEESE POOF WITHOUT CHOKING ON IT!"  Then the mom and baby fled, obviously freaked out by my alarmist child.  She's probably thinking "weird family" while I'm thinking "I need to chase her down and hug her and buy all of her groceries" -- because Dash then wanted to try cheesie poofs for himself.  I grabbed a jar, opened it, and...

HE ATE CHEESE POOFS, which involves chewing and swallowing, and he kept saying, "Hey, Mama, I'm not even choking!"  [Note here that he hadn't choked two weeks ago either; he had thrush, which made him feel like he had stuff stuck in his throat.  The thrush is long gone, but its ghost haunts him still.]  Of course, he won't eat anything else yet, because he didn't see the Magic Baby eat it.

He has watched his best little friend, his parents, his sister, and a ton of other people eat, but this MAGIC BABY inspired him.  Who was she?  A little Buddha?  The ReIncarnation of the Holy Mother?  I MUST FIND THAT BABY AND START FEEDING HER MEAT AND VEGGIES AND FRUIT AND EVERYTHING IN FRONT OF DASH.  If you know her location, I'll buy your groceries.

Since I'm not sure that a diet of soy supplement and cheesie poofs is going to sustain him long-term, we have an appointment with a feeding specialist next week.  So of course, he'll start eating whole sides of beef over the weekend.  And that would be just fine with me.

This morning at 7:30, Dash points to the window. "Mama, turn the lights off!"

I ignore him, as he sometimes talks in his sleep.

Dash, more insistent: "Mama, TURN THE LIGHTS OFF!"

Mama: "Dash, the lights ARE off.  That's the sunlight.  It's time to wake up!"

Dash: "No, I don't want to!  Make the sun go off!"  And then he groans, pulls the comforter over his already-sweaty little head, and dozes off for another fifteen minutes.

Thus was the start to another day of refusing to eat.  We're heading out for lunchtime milkshakes.  You know how they say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade?  Well, when life gives you a kid who won't eat, make milkshakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner -- sometimes sneaking in fruit and flaxseed oil or wheat germ.  He may be stubborn, but I'm tricky.  (I almost wrote that I'm smarter, but I'm not so sure about that!)

Tonight, Petunia, Dash and I celebrated au pair Maria's 21st birthday by throwing a dinner party with June, Wally and Beaver Cleaver.  It was a fantastic meal, all homemade: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas, salad (thanks, June!), fudge and Carvel ice cream cake for dessert (ok, so that was homemade by Carvel).  We will probably all still be stuffed tomorrow, except for Dash, who, as ever, refused to eat a bite of anything.

It is now an irrefutable fact that Dash goes on hunger strikes when he knows his father won't be home that night.  (The Guv is in California hopefully finding us a house.)

I was sure that seeing his beloved friends, the Cleaver boys, devouring their dinners would be enough to inspire him to want to eat enough to grow to be big like them.  Instead, Dash spent most of the meal pouring Virgil's Root Beer on his shirt on purpose -- that is, when he wasn't taking big gulps of it and burping loudly.  He refused even his beloved homemade mashed potatoes.   And let me just tell you that when I spend half an hour peeling potatoes to make his favorite food (even if it is for Maria's birthday), I don't take rejection kindly.

Of course, he did eat most of his piece of ice cream cake, but that won't exactly keep his belly full enough to let me sleep through the night.

After the party ended and we were preparing to head upstairs to bed, I tried one last time to offer Dash food again.  He rejected everything from waffles to pancakes to bananas to oatmeal... all usual favorites.  Then, he spied a spent candle lying in the cake box.  He grabbed it, plunked it in the Quaker Oatmeal Breakfast Cookie from his goodie bag, and demanded a light.

So, I did what any savvy mom would do, and I made a deal.  "Sure, Dash, you can blow out the candle... but first, you have to take one bite of that cookie."  And he did.  I lit the candle, he sang the Happy Birthday to You version where everyone lives in a zoo and stinks, and he blew it out.  And asked "again?"  For every bite of cookie, which became every bite of Yo Baby yogurt, that he took, I lit the candle, he sang his song, he blew it out, he asked for more.

At the end, with only a bite of cookie remaining and all of the yogurt gone, he announced that he was all done.  "But I like fire, mama!" he added.

Pyromania at 3... hmm, I think I'll work on that later.  Tomorrow, though, Dash will get a big bowl of oatmeal for breakfast with a candle in it.  I never thought that access to fire would trump access to father, but hey, the hunger strike's over (tonight, anyway).  I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep.

The Guv has returned from his annual golf vacation, rested and (finally) victorious, cradling the trophy for the year.  He has many funny stories to tell, and tonight, I will enjoy hearing them.  That's right, I will enjoy -- a word that hasn't been seen in my last few blog posts! 

There is peace in our kingdom, for daddy is home at long last.  Dash, who was beginning to take on a rather sickly appearance, decided to EAT!  in celebration of his father's triumphant return.  He munched on some of his favorite Starbucks vanilla scones, Burger King french toast sticks, cheese pizza, katsu chicken, rice... he ATE!  And, needless to say, he was pretty much instantly a different child -- an enjoyable, happy, fun little boy with whom I wanted to spend time.  We kicked rocks all the way around the cul-de-sac.  We posed dead worms.  We counted three deer, one bunny, one squirrel, one robin, one very angry bluejay and too many dandelions.  We laid on the grass and looked up at the cloudless blue sky.  This is how every day with him should be.  Instead, this is one of very few days we've had like this over the past school year.  I will remember this day next time he's refusing to eat, because I need to believe that he eventually will eat.  I also need to figure out how to convince him that eating makes him happier -- because think about it: if YOU didn't eat for four days straight, wouldn't you be miserable (and make everyone around you miserable) too?  Thank God that soon, after his ear tubes are placed and especially when we hit the Green Mountains for the summer, he will be pleasant like this more days than not.  I'll play with dead worms all he wants to if he never cries at me in anguish all day again.  Too bad he's too young to make that (gross) trade.

So tonight, the Guv put Dash to bed, I read Petunia a very scary section of the fourth Harry Potter book (the Guv should expect a middle-of-the-night visitor over that one), and I held some guinea pigs, who have been sorely neglected as I've struggled to keep my head above water over the last few days.   It's a nice way to end one of the roughest patches of my parenting career.  And end it, we have.  Guv, get the Goldschlager!  Time to celebrate.

Over the weekend, the Guv took the kids to McDonald's.  We have a general rule that Petunia, our tall child who's built more like Emme than Kate Moss, is allowed to have seven of her brother's fries (because she's seven) but has to order apple slices as her side dish at McDonald's.  (She's okay with that; she actually likes to eat her fruits and veggies.)  Dash, on the other hand, who's built more like Kate Moss than Emme, woofs down fries and chicken nuggets whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Here's our conversation about their dinner with dad:

Mama: Where did you guys go?

Petunia, groaning: McDonald's.  We always go to McDonald's.

Mama: What did you have to eat?

Petunia: A hamburger and fries and fruit-punch mixed with Sprite.

Mama: Uhh, fries?  What happened to apple slices?

Petunia: Yeah, I don't know what's up with that.

***

And Mama doesn't know what's up with that either.  On the one hand, we've talked a lot with Petunia about healthy eating, and she does eat more healthfully than any kid that I know.  On the other hand, I really don't want her eating fries.  I actually don't want Dash eating fries either, but, totally seriously, he couldn't live without them since he only eats five things, and forms of potato are the first three.  Pizza is the fourth, and lollipops are the fifth.  I wonder, actually, what other people do in this situation where one kid has more of a need than another to eat more healthfully than the other.  We have made great efforts to carefully manage Petunia's diet and to carefully teach her good eating habits so that she remains at a healthy height/weight balance.   But fries?  Soda?  McDonald's at all? 

I think we're going to stick with Whole Foods for subsequent Daddy dinners.  There, Petunia loves to raid the salad bar, making a beautifully colored plate that usually holds broccoli, carrots, Skyr yogurt, melon, granola, half an egg and maybe a little cheese.  This, when she can have anything in the store.  Dash can munch on pizza, and she chows down on granola with a big smile on her pink-cheeked face.  Perhaps I fret over nothing.  Or perhaps Mickey D's needs to get with the program and offer more healthy choices geared toward little kids.

Tonight's dinner conversation:

Mama: "Dash, are you going to eat a taco?"

Dash: "No taco."

Mama: "How about a pancake?"

Dash: "With cinnamon sugar?"

Mama: "Sure."

Dash: "Okay."  When served a pancake: "No thanks."

Mama: "Dash, you have to eat something for dinner!  What do you want?"

Dash: "Nothing."

Mama: "How about a banana?"

Dash: "Banono."

Mama: "What?  No banana?"

Dash: "BA-NO-NO."

1. The Boy Stunt: The fissure in his gum is nearly gone, though he does have some bruising on his cheek.  He has stopped pulling the pillows off of the couch and stopped jumping off of it of his own accord -- this week, anyway...

2. Ear Tubes: Dash is getting another cold, which almost certainly means another ear infection; that's how he rolls.  The ENT doc with whom we consulted -- who, as I've mentioned before, is old as dirt -- suggested that Dash did not need ear tubes since a course of antibiotics cleared up his ear infection.  But when I've talked to various pediatricians about this, repeated use of antibiotics for ear infections over the course of a few months is one of the chief reasons to get ear tubes. As well, with many children, sleep and behavior issues -- AND EATING -- improve with ear tubes.  Dash has significant issues in all of these areas.  If you want to learn more about ear tubes, click here for one of the better sites I've found.  Because I've come to believe that Dash needs tubes (and his pediatrician agrees), I made an appointment with an ENT doc at CHOP -- for April 30.  At least I'll believe we're in good hands then, even if I'm not too happy about the wait.

3. Eating: This subject is on hold until either the feeding program at CHOP lets us back in, until we consult another nutritionist or, better yet, until Dash gets ear tubes.  He has -- finally -- grown out of his 2T pants in time for his 3rd birthday, so that's news, even if his 3T pants fall right off more often than not.  I'm looking at the up-side: he'll be able to pull his pants down for potty breaks more easily!

So, that's the news that I'll share for now... we have lots else going on, and posts have been slow because I haven't wanted to write about any of it.  Suffice it to say that change is a-comin' -- and not just in the Presidency.  But it's all good, and we're having a blast making attempts to plan our life, which never follows a plan no matter how hard we try to draft one.  For me, that's the fun of it all, and that's especially what I enjoy about being with the Guv -- we just sort of go where the tide carries us.  Even with the stress of kids and guinea pigs and a 3300+ square foot house full of "stuff", it's lots of fun.  More on that front soon...

Today has been a very strange day. 

For starters, I drove Petunia and Wally Cleaver to school with Dash tagging along, as au pair Maria is still under the weather and needed (at my behest) to sleep in.  After dropping off the big kids, Dash demanded to go to Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart has never been a choice destination for me, but I go there a little more often since Target banned Salvation Army bell ringers three years ago.   Mostly, we visit the Wal-Mart store because it has a McDonald's, which is the only place that Dash eats regularly.  (In all seriousness, we are not evil parents trying to obesify our kid; we are under orders from a medical doctor to feed him McD's as much as he wants because he is so underweight and eats so little.)  So, when Dash wants Wally World, to Wally World we go.  And it's great that we did; he gnawed his way through two McGriddles and half a hash brown before we even hit the Matchbox car aisle so that he could pick a little reward for such good eating.

In any event, our Wal-Mart/McDonald's routine recently expanded to visiting the PetSmart next door.  The kids and I are fixated on getting a pet, and, since none of us are ready for a dog quite yet, we are visiting the store's guinea pigs regularly.  Today, I talked with a vet tech at length about guinea pigs, which are neither pigs nor from Guinea.  In any event, she plied me with pamphlets on these animals, which are well-suited for life with small children.  I'm still dragging my feet, but I think that even the Guv will go for a pair of these critters. 

The day continued with my mid-day tennis drill, after depositing Dash with a much-better and well-rested Maria.  At my drill, I was asked to join the USTA team for the club.  Since I was pretty much always the last picked in gym class, being asked to participate on this team means a lot to me.  But it's weird, it's weird -- athletic competition has never been my bag, but for this, I am ready.  Or I will be, come April, when the matches begin.

And then... I picked up Petunia from school to visit the Guv's far-away office with Girl Scout cookies in tow.  Her sales were outstanding, but we still have waaaay too many cookies left to sell.  Clearly, Mama had some sangria in her when placing the order.  So, we drowned our victory and our upcoming pavement-pounding-with-cookies in some Baja Fresh, which truly makes the world seem like a saner place -- an important thing after your seven year-old Girl Scout has spent the entire drive demanding to know why dictators kill people, why we are at war, why some people oppose the war, why 9-11 happened... hold on, need more sangria...

So here's my takeaway from this insane day: 1.) Guinea pigs rock.  2.) Dictators suck.  3.) Tennis rocks.  4.) Baja Fresh heals all ills, but the guac sure does come back on you.

No, the Guv didn't buy Rent tickets, though he did give me the green light.  Something more amazing happened:

DASH ATE DINNER.

Oh, the irony: this morning, I called CHOP's feeding program to schedule a follow-up for Dash, as his eating is backsliding and his weight gain has gone nowhere.  As in, the kid has not gained one ounce since March.  Not an ounce.  Not one.  He has grown in height, which basically means that it's very, very hard to look at him naked.  You can see every rib, every vertebrae.  Our behavioral psychologist at CHOP described him as stubborn, and she doesn't know the half of it.  Days have passed in which Dash has eaten fifteen Cheerios, a few cups of soy milk, and nothing more.  Total.  For days. 

I promised myself long ago not to freak out about his growth.  He is happy and is meeting developmental milestones.  He appears healthy to everyone, which, of course, is part of my angst.  When your friends and family tell you, "but he looks fine," and you know, as his mother, that he's pretty freakin' far from fine, despair results.  It's a lonely battle, but I know that it's worth fighting because Something Is Not Right. 

And then, tonight, I made tacos for dinner.  Sitting in his high chair, Dash demanded a taco.  I had already put some chicken-flavored Uncle Ben's rice in the nuker, in hopes that he might eat a few tablespoons.  But I also always offer him what we're eating, so I dutifully prepared a taco, in a crunchy corn shell that immediately fell apart.  Dash expressed some extreme dissatisfaction with this outcome, so I whipped out some soft corn tortillas, which I softened under a damp towel in the microwave (else they break, too), and filled with cheese and meat.

And the child ate the whole thing.  The thing made of three ingredients that he doesn't eat: corn, meat, and cheese.  And then, he ate another half of one.  When I took him out of his high chair, I lifted his shirt, and his little belly, which is usually concave, was convex.  It was the most beautiful belly I have ever seen.

But the night of magic was not to end there.  As I laid down with Dash to put him to sleep, I gave him his usual kiss goodnight and told him that I love him.  And he rolled over, put his arms around my neck, and said "I love you, Mommy," gave me a kiss, and said, "I love my good mommy so much."

Since I can count on one hand the amount of times that Dash has told me he loves me unprompted, that was a pretty sweet ending to one of the best days I've ever had since he was born.  I wrapped my arms around him tight as could be -- something else he never allows -- and let him fall asleep like that, after he took my hand of his own accord.  Feeling his little fingers wrapped around mine, I just soaked in the wonder of it all.

P.S. Yes, I'm still going to keep the feeding program appointment because, sadly, I'm pretty sure that we'll need it.

Note: I have not been drinking or ingesting any mind-altering legal or illegal substances.  The following is to be believed, cheered, perhaps even worshipped:

Today, Dash ate the following:
3 whole waffles (Eggo cinnamon flip-flops)
1 whole pancake (Eggo whole grain) doused in Trader Joe's maple syrup
1 chicken taquito (Whole Foods brand)
2/3 of a Dannon Sprinklin yogurt
1 Kavli rye cracker
2 banana chips
1/2 cup Kraft grated parmesan cheese
1 1/2 Ian's Chicken Sticks
and
Three penne noodles with sauce

Also involved was some green frosting licked off of a pumpkin cookie and various Cheerios he found in the couch cushions.

He actually seems heavier already.