Food for Eating

Doodles is still having food issues. He loves his Veggie Booty, Cheerios, Goldfish, graham crackers, fruit puffs, and animal crackers. Notice something about these foods? They all crunch. I tried to give him a piece of bread at lunch today while we were out. It was good bread. Normally he wouldn't deign to even pick it up, but he was looking at the couple at the next table, and he grabbed a handful of Booty. The bread was hiding admist the Booty and he shoved it all into his mouth without paying attention. Now, this was a pretty small piece of bread. And the boy can chew well. He's got six full teeth and two that are just starting to jut out. But when he detected the foreign object in his mouth, he began to gag and make a face as if I'd fed him his own poop--which--I should add--on occasion he has tried to put in his own mouth (as well as wood chips, sand, and plugs). He could barely choke that piece of bread down.

This past weekend we went to the birthday party of a friend of his. The friend's mother asked if Doodles could have cake. Once upon a time, I had these lovely ideals about what Doodles would eat. "All organic," I would have insisted. "No sugar at all. Lots of fruits and vegetables. No jarred meats." Ah, the days of my romantic food notions. Now, I'm so desperate for Doodles to eat anything that anyone who wants to take a go at it is welcome to feed my child scraps of pretty much anything. There's something hardwired in moms, I think, that they are convinced that they're the ones who can fix any problem. I know I feel that way sometimes when I hear about a baby who won't sleep--"Oh, I know how to make a baby sleep!"--which is complete bulls*** because every baby is different and there's no way I could get someone other than Doodles to sleep. But it doesn't stop me from thinking I can. So inevitably some mom will say to me, "I'm feeding JoJo some pasta. Can I give some to Doodles?" Or "My Monkey is eating green beans. Would Doodles like one?" And I always say sure. And the other mother will try to cajole, trick, or sweettalk Doodles into eating and every time, Doodles purses his lips, turns his head, and pushes said food away. And the mother will say, "Well, that's odd! He really won't eat!" Um, duh. Didn't I say that?

So at this party this weekend I gave the go-ahead for my friend to feed Doodles cake. Evil? Perhaps. But I feel like if he tasted more foods he'd realize they're actually good! So she brought over a luscious piece of Rosie's Bakery chocolate cake. Adam and I distracted Doodles and my friend stuck a finger with frosting in Doodles's mouth. Doodles's little face screwed up into such a pout, he let out an angry scream, and didn't let any of us near him again with any food. Which means he's not my child because as anyone who's known me for more than five minutes knows, I live for frosting. Give me a tub of vanilla frosting and a spoon, and I'm in heaven.

Of course, he's not Adam's child either. I now offer Doodles a piece of everything I eat. And fourteen out of fifteen times, it's something relatively healthy. But today we were out shopping and I picked up an iced coffee (no, I didn't give him any of that, although he sure tried to get at it) and a couple of Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts. I offered him his very own Munchkin. He took it. He looked at it. And then he chucked it. Definitely not the product of Adam's loins. (Which brings up the pertinent question, "Whose child is he?" Beats us!)

Oh, and another nifty little food-related quirk: when he was done eating, Doodles would signal it by picking up whatever was on the tray and one-by-one drop the pieces of food over the edge of the high chair. But after enough "No throwing food," he stopped. I was pretty impressed. Until I realized what he does now when he's done is pick up the food in his fist, slide his fist next to him in his high chair, and drop the food into his seat next to his leg. When I go to take him out of his chair, the food just rains out. And every time I catch him doing it, all I can do is laugh. It's so cute! Such a clever little Doodles.