Despite my efforts to serve nutritious meals, my children think
the four food groups are: sugar, sodium, caffeine and
cholesterol.
Despite my efforts to serve nutritious meals, my children think the four food groups are: sugar, sodium, caffeine and cholesterol.
Maybe I’m not giving my son and daughter enough credit, but when I serve anything with natural coloring, as in something that actually came from nature, I spend hours preparing it. Then, later, I spend 30 minutes scraping the leftovers down the sink. If I had enough postage and Tupperware, my family could stop world hunger in a week. The eating phases my children have gone through would scare the tooth fairy into collecting dentures.
The first eating phase I ever experienced was “the transportation phase.” Every night at dinnertime, our table became busier than a commuter route at rush hour. I recreated the sounds of planes, trains, cars or anything I could fly around the table on a spoon, and land in my son’s mouth. The healthier food I served, the more details he wanted.
“Open the tunnel, here comes the train” worked for most pasta dishes. “Vroom! Vroom! The winning race car in the Indy 500 is arriving for a pit stop,” worked for steamed vegetables.
The second eating phase – at least it has been for generations in my family – is the “everything with ketchup” phase. That’s when children decide everything tastes better red.
We decided to stop dining in public when my daughter entered the “food as an accessory” phase during dinner at a Mexican canteen. She wore olives on her fingertips, sour cream lipstick and a tortilla hat. Her picture was taken by a group of tourists, who were sitting at the next table, and is probably to this day, still displayed in a foreign consulate, as an example of American restaurant etiquette.
She eventually went to the “let’s-make-a-deal” phase, where every meal was like eating with a 5-year old used car salesman. “Eat four or five more bites,” I would beg, pushing the plate toward her, “and then you’ll get ice cream.”
“One or two,” she said.
“Three or four,” I countered, “and I’ll throw in chocolate syrup.
“Two or three,” she paused, “and whipped cream.”
“Deal.” We shook hands over the salad.
This stage lasted through my son’s “food-as-a-weapon” stage (when he tried to hit the cat by catapulting his corn off the table with a fork), and his “food-as-a-filler” stage (when he stuffed peas into every accessible body crevice).
Now, I’m lucky to get my kids to the table, since they’re in the “I’m too busy to sit down at the table phase,” and instead, they’re insisting that they can eat dinner while talking on the phone or watching TV. All of these phases make it really weird when a meal goes right.
I remember recently when my children set the table and waited patiently for their meal. I watched my son eat his carrots all by himself, while my daughter finished the main course. No one had the TV on in the background, no telephone was connected to my daughter’s ear, the train sounds were long gone, there was no bargaining, and the ketchup bottle was even tucked away in the refrigerator. It was so quiet I could hear the sound of silverware on the plate. A knot formed in my stomach and I pushed back my chair.
“Where are you going, Mom?” my daughter asked. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“It’s too quiet in here,” I said, as I carried my plate to the sink. “I can’t eat a single bite.”
