Food For Thought

All in all, I consider myself a pretty laid back mother, perhaps too much so. I don't mind reinserting the pacifier after it's hit the floor, or if my kid eats Cheerios from under the table. I can live with the knowledge that she's going to fall, sometimes hard and it doesn't stop me from letting Otter crawl into other rooms, only following behind after some time has passed.

But I admit it - I have stress triggers regarding SB. I suspect that all parents have them, and that they vary for each of us, depending on both external circumstances and personality. So whether it's my inner Jewish Mother rearing her head, or the fact that Otter's in the 5% for weight, but feeding her, and more specifically, making sure she's getting enough food, has been the bane of my existence for the past 12 months.

It was hard enough when Otter was on a liquid diet. Figuring out how much milk she was actually taking in (and, in her pukey case, keeping down) was wild guess-work on the best of days. Once we added in solid food, I thought it would get easier, as I could now somewhat control the variety and amounts of food that she consumed. And it was, initially.

But as Otter has grown, her once adventurous eating spirit has been curbed. And now we are once again negotiating through the 5 acceptable foods in all their limited combinations. On the GOOD list are:

bananas, yogurt, cereal, Cheerios, rice, apple and pear sauce, lentils, tofu (mostly), bread, pancakes, scones, muffins, peas, corn, and, inexplicably, almost anything with Indian style spicing (curry, cumin)

On the BAD list is:

Pretty much anything else. But especially meats, cheeses, eggs, other veggies, other fruits.

What complicates matters is that on top of the lack of variety, should an offending food be introduced, Otter may go on strike, refusing ALL food.

For a while, I thought this feeding dynamic was my fight to fight. It seemed that when it came to others, Otter was far more accommodating in what she considered an acceptable lunch, accepting potatoes from my mother, allowing Bree to feed her things she had squarely rejected when I fed her, and eating virtually anything given to her by Susana. But this past weekend proved that I am not alone in my struggle. Saturday afternoon, I got the following text from Bree:

"We're freaking done! Now after three spoons she won't eat PEAR sauce. Whatever kid..."