That I couldn't hide my frustration with the boy when he refused to try even one bite of the little rolls I made for him out of slices of American cheese and deli-sliced ham. That I had to fight to suppress my anger with him when he wouldn't even hold a miniscule piece of a ham-and-cheese roll in his hand.
He has been known to eat American cheese, frequently. He has been known to eat deli-sliced ham, rarely. He likes the taste of the ham, but doesn't like its slipperiness on his fingers. Which would be why today I, decided to try rolling it in slices of cheese.
Cheese, and ham. Ham, and cheese. Two things he has eaten many times before.
And yet, if I put the two together in a roll, suddenly, apparently, in his mind, I am serving him a suspicious-looking object that is most probably poisoned.
Feeding it to his toy trains and cars didn't help. Unrolling the roll to show him exactly what was in it and how I made it for him didn't help. Eating a bite of the cheese myself, even though it was all covered in ham juice, and I don't eat meat, didn't help.
Even my clever Green-Eggs-and-Ham-based poetic improvisations didn't help. And I am the master of situation-based improvisational motivational children's poetry! The author, after all, of such smash hits as "Here We Go Brushing Isaac's Teeth," and "Even Thomas Trains Have to Go Night Night in their Cozy Box on the Bookshelf."
Heavens, I know this is normal behavior for a child with SI. But even after months of knowing why he acts this way, it is so hard for me to get used to throwing out platefuls of food . . . and still hard for me not to get angry, even when I know it's counterproductive.
*sigh*
7 comments:
Feelings aren't really ours to control, IMO. So you're angry, it's okay! I can see why you would be, and I can also see why ham and cheese together is totally different from ham. Or cheese. On their own. My husband and step-daughter both have aversions to mixing foods together. If there is one drop of ketchup, mustard, lettuce, ANYTHING on a hamburger, my husband will not eat it. And he's 35.
It's not so much the being angry as the acting angry that bugs me . . . although it surely would be nice if I could avoid the whole angry-when-not-necessary thing altogether! Heh.
It might have been easier for me if it weren't for the fact that just the day before yesterday, he ate a ham-and-cheese quesadilla.
Taht is normal behavior for any kid his age, Cammy does that quite quite often, and did i happen to mention how much better you made me feel by mentioning taht you guys spend 4 to 6 hunned a month on another blog, I don't feel like such the guttoness freak - cause while we do eat meat, we eat as healthy as possible and have the same coupon issues. coupons for everything we don't use... exactly
Does repetition help with it? I think I remember you saying sometimes it just takes a few times before he'll be okay with something.
I think you're smart for thinking of wrapping the cheese around the ham. I wouldn't have thought of it.
I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING THROUGH! I feel your frustration at yourself. My son does the same stuff and he's 4.
Alot of the stuff Seth doesn't eat goes to our dog. That's probably why she's gained about 6 pounds since he's been born.
Lisa, I really hope Isaac and Seth can hang out together sometime. Maybe they could convince each other to eat things ;)
I have only recently been able to eat foods that are touching each other, so I can easily see Isaac's point. That said, I have absolutely. no. patience. when my children (mostly Bub) refuse food. Probably because I know that I totally have this karma coming to me, after the years I spent (am spending) in open defiance of my mother's health-food edicts. Sigh.
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