Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Thank God for Picky Eating

The Times has a new article on the genetic link that causes picky eating. There's even a word for it "food neophobia." All I can say, is thank God for this at the moment. It means that my kid who can not eat anything that contains wheat, oats, barley, spelt or rye (ie, just about EVERYTHING any other child might be eating at a given time) never feels left out. He doesn't want to go outside of his five foods. It makes his celiac disease about a thousand times more manageable. If we go somewhere with a huge spread, I don't have to worry about him sampling the bagels. He'll usually go straight for the grapes because he knows he likes them.

I really liked this article. It was the first one I've read that was so compassionate towards foodie parents like me, with kids who won't try ANYTHING. But the conventional wisdom here completely fails me. They say to offer things for two weeks, and eventually they'll try them. HA! I've offered things literally hundreds of times for years and years to no avail.

But it's not so bad. It's kind of a relief that he really likes a subset of allowed foods. I'll take it.

I just wish I didn't have to make separate dinners when we all eat together. That's getting a little old.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Another Sunday on The Farm

My dad is building a post and beam house out at their place in Colraine, MA. He's been working on the posts for the last six or seven years and he's finally putting the thing together. He lined the concrete foundation with granite rocks that he had to go to 3 different quarries before he found the ones he liked. The building will have a sleeping loft, running water and a copula. It will be fabulous. Right now the beams are just starting to form the shape of the external walls. But it's amazing to see how perfectly the wood slots together.

The Farm is grows many large walnut trees that, in October, drop tennis ball-like nuts every time the wind blows. It is very hard to stand in the yard and not huck the walnuts at the side of the barn, the trees and the voluminous backside of my significant other. They are just the right size and shape to be whipped something solid. But today, I performed a miracle with them, not once but twice.

I throw like a girl. I always have. My dad sighs with regret that he never taught me how to throw properly. (which is true, he didn't) But today, I was girl-throwing walnuts at the largest tree in the yard. And not one but two stuck to the trunk. It was like playing Velcro ball. Rich, my dad and my college friend Michael (none of whom throw like a girl) all tried to repeat what I had done, but nobody could recreate the walnut-defies-gravity trick.

We tried an experiment tonight and failed miserably. We attempted to take 8 people to eat in Shelburne Falls. We almost never frequent the 10 or so restaurants in town because me and my mom love to cook and we like to linger over long, delicious meals at home. But by Sunday night, we were pretty much out of groceries, and I thought, "Let's go out to eat." I packed a dinner for Eric the Picky Celiac (TM), and off we went to try out a new brew pub in town. They had to seat us at 2 separate tables, but I was OK with that, until I said, "We'll need a high chair."

There was no high chair. So, I got myself into a huff because I feel very unwelcome in a place that is so anti-kid there is nowhere for them to sit. Sticking Kaylee in a lap during dinner would not be enjoyable for anyone involved. She's a super, mega messy eater and doesn't sit in laps long under the best of circumstances. So, the thought of paying 25 bucks for a meal with a kid squirming in my lap did not appeal to me in the least, so we left. We tried to go to another, even smaller place that had a high chair. But they couldn't seat us because we had too many people.

Then we went to a different place. They had high chairs and large booths, and we were like great! This is fine! Then the manager came out and said we couldn't put the high chair at the end of the table because it would break the fire codes. Although they had high chairs, there was literally no open table there that we could use one at. The manager was practically in tears because watching a party of 8 leave, on a night when the restaurant wasn't even half full must have hurt. It hurt us too. We were hungry and tired and felt a bit doomed.

But what could we do? We gave up and went to the store to pick up a few things and I ended up boiling some hot dogs that Rich wouldn't deign to eat because they were made out of turkey. Whatever. He got a cheese stick and a bag of potato chips at a gas station, because he is the king of nutrition.

The underlying thing that makes this all so difficult is that we won't cook with or eat gluten around Eric. The only exception is if we're at a nice, clean restaurant, where the tables are wiped down between customers and the dishes are all washed in a restaurant quality dishwasher. But once it's on our hands, it gets on him if we need to grab him (which is not infrequent). So, if we're in a regular, clean place we can eat our food and go wash our hands before we touch him. But we couldn't just go to the pizza place across the street because he'd basically be sitting in gluten. It's not the cleanest place, and they're working with flour and it's just in the air.

So, I was crazy bitch mom tonight. But I really don't see what else I could have done. I had kind of a crappy evening, but at least it wasn't an expensive crappy evening, right?