Category Archives: food

October 15, 2013 · 12:07 pm

Invasion

Editor’s note: 

I wrote this post several months ago, but for some reason or another, I never published it.  October is Sensory Processing Disorder Awareness Month, so I thought this was a good time to finally put it up on the blog.  Even though this “Invasion” happened a while ago, it easily could’ve happened yesterday, and it  most definitely could happen today or tomorrow.

To learn more about sensory processing disorder, visit www.spdfoundation.net. A great book to read on the topic is “Raising A Sensory Smart Child,” and for personal insights from a Sensory Mama (i.e. me), check out my posts tagged with “sensory processing disorder” and “food issues,” including this one.  As always, feel free to ask me any questions. 

I’m not an expert, but I am a Mama.

* * *

“Yesterday was the worst day ever,” said my son when he woke up.  (For the record, he says that a lot. When you’re six years old, the world is concrete.  Up or down.  Black or white.  Good or bad.  Thankfully, he also often says, “This is the best day ever!”)

“Why was yesterday the worst day ever?” I asked.

“Because I cried a lot.”

He sure did.  The evening before, we went to the Food Truck Invasion that visits our neighborhood park every Tuesday.  I was really excited to take him because I looked online and saw that there would be a pasta truck there.  He recently faced his fear of spaghetti and decided he loved it (as he does ziti and elbows…but not penne because penne has ridges and ridges are scary…except for ridges on potato chips, which aren’t scary at all).

Adding spaghetti to his short list of acceptable foods was a mixed bag.  It was another carbohydrate when what he really needed in his diet was protein (and God forbid something green!), but it was new, and every new food he tasted chipped away at the brick wall he’d built up around himself.

My son was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder a few months before his fifth birthday. He spent the next year in intense occupational therapy – swinging, jumping, leaping, stretching, and strengthening – to find comfort in his own skin, overcome his fears and anxieties, lessen his sensitivity to sound and touch, and build confidence.  After treatment, he was, quite simply, a different kid.  My scared, listless, there-but-not-there child shed the skin under which he was trapped to illuminate his true self – a bright, funny, and outgoing boy.

Transformation aside, to say he’s cured would be false.  His progress has been nothing short of amazing, but he’ll always be sensory sensitive, and we work daily to help him overcome the fears and negative behaviors to which he still clings.  The biggest obstacle that remains is food, for which we have three goals: (1) introduce new food, (2) teach coping skills for when faced with unacceptable (to him) food, and (3) generalize (for instance, spaghetti home tastes just like spaghetti at a restaurant).  What we want more than anything is to help him succeed (i.e. eat) in as many environments as possible, including school, camp, birthday parties, friends’ homes, restaurants, and now the food trucks.

In the center of the Food Truck Invasion at the park was a bounce house.  Not surprisingly, we started our culinary adventure there.  After about an hour of bouncing, I said, “Okay, let’s eat.”

“Spaghetti?” he asked.

“Spaghetti,” I confirmed.

There was no prouder Mama at the park than me to be able to finally purchase food – plain spaghetti with Parmesan cheese – for my child, but when we finally sat down at a picnic table and I opened the plastic container that held his dinner, something had happened.  The plain spaghetti with Parmesan cheese morphed into plain spaghetti with melted Parmesan cheese.

He shut down.  He refused to eat a single bite.  Not even one cheese-free strand.  He threw his fork on the ground.  He threatened to run back to the bounce house.  He cried.  He screamed.  He cry-screamed.  He melted like the cheese on his spaghetti.

The end.

Except it wasn’t the end at all.

There was more crying, more screaming, more cry-screaming, a dramatic scene where we abruptly left the park, a long time-out at home, more crying, a silent bath, and a hasty bedtime, but the thing about food and fear and sensory processing disorder and my son is that the moment he lost it at the Food Truck Invasion at the park was as much about me as it was about him.

I was naïve.  I wrongfully built up the night before it even happened.  I researched menus, mapped out the night (bounce house then plain spaghetti with Parmesan cheese then ice cream!), and, as a result, forgot how unpredictable six-year-olds – with or without sensory processing disorder – could be.  I also didn’t account for the fact that Parmesan cheese melted when inside a hot, closed container.

I was angry.  Because I paid $8 for plain spaghetti and Parmesan cheese and he didn’t say thank you.  Because I couldn’t think of anything more delicious than melted Parmesan cheese.  Because he didn’t trust me that it would taste good.  Because he behaved so poorly.

I was confused.  Sensory processing disorder is a tangled web of physical and behavioral problems.  Where did one end and the other begin?  I didn’t want to punish him if his neurological system was out of whack, but I couldn’t tolerate cry-screaming over melted cheese either.

I was exhausted.  I couldn’t prepare his food perfectly for the rest of his life.  I couldn’t cut the white rind off of every single wedge of orange, toast a waffle just so, and make sure bread was free of crumbs forever.  I couldn’t promise that he’d never be faced with melted Parmesan cheese again.

I was scared.  I love food.  I live for food.  Many of my most cherished memories are connected to food.  If I close my eyes, I can taste the peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches I ate on the beach as a child and the sand that ground between my teeth with each sweet and salty bite.  I can feel the steam rising from my mom’s matzo ball soup.  I can hear the sizzle of my dad’s Sunday morning chocolate chip pancakes on the griddle.  How was he going navigate life without food?

I was guilty.  (Oh so guilty!)  I’m the one person in this world who is supposed to love and accept him unconditionally, but in that moment at the Food Truck Invasion at the park, I wished he were different.

I was negligent.  I convinced myself that his food issues had improved when the dysfunction was simply hiding behind procrastination and avoidance.  The spaghetti breakthrough was a success, but it wasn’t enough.    I stopped pushing him because doing so almost always made me feel naïve, angry, confused, exhausted, scared, guilty, negligent…and sad.  Sad for the unwelcomed, unwanted, and uninvited Invasion in our lives.

I went to sleep sad that night and woke up sad the next morning.  To my son who told me yesterday was the worst day ever because he cried a lot, I replied, “Yesterday was a pretty bad day for me, too.”  Then we got dressed for the day.

The end.

Except it isn’t the end at all.

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Filed under diet, food, food issues, Proud Mama, sensory processing disorder

September 4, 2013 · 10:20 am

Grown-Up

On the phone recently, a friend described to me how grown up she felt when she looked at the construction going on in her house. They put down wood floors and are in the process of turning one of their garage bays into a new bedroom for their third child on the way. You’d think the baby – the third one – would make her feel like a grown-up, but the truth is that it doesn’t. The secret of parenthood that our children won’t learn until they become parents themselves is that no matter what we look like on the outside, we’re all children on the inside wondering who in the hell put us in charge.

We went on to talk about how grown up it would feel to have new (i.e. not hand-me-down) things like patio furniture, complex wood grain counter tops, and window treatments (as if interior design is a symptom of adulthood).

She described to me how her kitchen table came from her parents and her dining room table came from somewhere else. I laughed as I told her about our family room coffee table that was Mike’s when he was in college, our bedroom furniture that was also Mike’s when he was in college and Mike’s father’s before that, and the dresser in Dylan and Riley’s room – the one covered in stickers (not my decorating idea, by the way) – that was mine when I lived on my own for the first time in graduate school. My Dad bought it for me at a wood furniture store and stained it himself in the backyard.

“I don’t even have a headboard on my bed!” I let out with a gasp on the phone. I’m nearly 40 and I still don’t have a (new or hand-me-down) headboard. At this point, I’m not even sure I want one. (Unless it’s from West Elm. Then I want it. I’ll pretend to resent it and all it stands for, but secretly a void in my heart will be filled.) Indeed, a headboard would be admitting defeat. To what, I’m not sure, but I won’t give in. I won’t allow it to happen. (Unless it’s from West Elm.)

It’s possible that I’ve confused being grown-up and being stubborn. Case in point, I may or may not have popped into Anthropologie for a quick look around one day last week. As soon as I had one garment of clothing in my hand, a salesperson appeared from behind a rack of tunics to ask me if she could start a fitting room. “No, thank you,” I said. “I can carry it.” The thing is, I was denial about the fact that I was shopping at all and her seemingly innocent request made my debauchery all the more real. Of course, every time I added an item to my growing pile of loot, she appeared again and asked to take it all to a fitting room. I couldn’t help myself. “No, thank you. I’m fine.” Then, “No, thank you.” Then, “No, thanks anyway. I’m good.” Then, “Beat it, lady.” (Okay, I didn’t actually say that last one.)

It wasn’t because I didn’t want the help or that I’m philosophically opposed to having someone assist me with a fitting room. Rather, it was because she kept asking and it irritated me. I refused her help until I was good and ready to walk into a fitting room on my own, and as a result, I was a little bit of martyr and very much an ass.

Perhaps my headboard issue is a result of this same kind of stubbornness, a sign not necessarily of growing up, but rather of getting old. In the end, I bought one shirt, but I digress.

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is tomorrow. When I asked Dylan if he would to go to the children’s service at the temple “…because your friends will be there and it will be fun,” he quickly said, “No.  Don’t make me go.” I wish I knew what to do about my son’s disdain for organized religion. If I were a grown-up, I’d know the right thing to do.  I’d know whether to force him to go because he can decide what he believes when he’s older and he’s had a chance to learn a thing or two or to accept his lack of interest as a valid choice. If I were a grown-up, I’d see the forest from the trees and not worry today about what to do in the future.  If I were a grown-up, I’d know when to calm the “eff” down.

This religion conundrum of mine isn’t new. Every fall at Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, every spring at Passover, and every winter when Hanukkah and Christmas collide, I struggle with what’s supposed to be important and what actually is important.

If I were a grown-up, I’d remember that I’ve weaved in and out of interest in religion all through my life and that regardless of whether I was into it or not, I’ve always had pride in my heritage and an interest in my family’s history and roots. If I were a grown-up, I’d be honest with myself about what being Jewish means to me (and what it doesn’t).

It’s about family. It’s about togetherness. It’s about food. (It’s always about food.) Quite frankly, it’s about matzo ball soup. My mom’s matzo ball soup. It brings us together in the kitchen. It begins a family meal. It heals us when we we’re sick and holds us up in good times and bad. A few months ago, my mom defrosted a container of her matzo ball soup for no good reason and fed lunch to three generations of our family gathered together around her dining room table. The soup is our family’s glue, and it’s what being Jewish means to me.

Tonight, Mike and I are hosting Rosh Hashana dinner at our house for the first time. I put Mike on brisket duty because I’m definitely not grown up enough to cook a brisket, and I tackled the soup. The best part about making it – besides the magic that turns chicken, vegetables, and water into soupy, fragrant deliciousness – is that my mom helped me from start to finish. Like 1-800-Butterball on Thanksgiving, my mom was my helpline. How much chicken do I add and what kind? How many carrots? How much water? When should I remove the chicken? When do I add the salt? How much extra matzo meal do I add to make the matzo balls thick and heavy like yours?

My mom and I were on the phone on and off for most of Sunday while I chopped vegetables, simmered soup, and boiled matzo balls. It was a labor of love, and in the process, a family tradition was passed on to a new generation.

I may not have a headboard, I most definitely have an unhealthy relationship with Anthropologie, and  I am growing old and stubborn, but now I know how to make my mom’s matzo ball soup and that makes me feel (a little bit) like a grown-up.

Happy New Year!

What makes you feel like a grown-up?

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Filed under family, food, religion, shopping