Speaking of bananas...

My son eats three foods. And this is making me insane.

Okay, maybe a little more than three. Here’s the list. Anyone who’s not a parent is signing off right abouuut… now, so without shame I can show the rest of you…

Everything My Son Will Ingest:

Milk and soy milk

Cereal

Oatmeal

Muffins

Yogurt

Blueberries

American cheese

Macaroni and cheese

Ricotta cheese with pasta (but only certain shapes, and those rules change all the time)

Ravioli (sometimes, and you will never know when

Applesauce

Raisins

Hummus (when he’s feeling generous)

All forms of pudding

Ice cream (duh), cookies (dar)

And that’s it! And don’t think I’m forgetting something. “Surely pizza!” you might say, but no, not pizza. “What about bagels? Every kid loves bagels!” Not my kid. Shut up.

I know this is a control thing. I know if I make a big deal, or any kind of deal, over this, it’s only going to get worse. I know many kids go through this. I know he’ll grow out of it, someday, maybe. But right now it makes me nuts at just about every meal. Okay, not breakfast. Breakfast is okay. And for lunch, I’ve just given up—I hand him his two containers of yogurt and I lie down on the ground until he calls for me. So really it’s just dinner.

Last year at Thanksgiving I broke down in tears because he wouldn’t consider a single food. Not a cranberry, not a single chunk of yam. Turkey? HAHAHAHAHA. At some point during his second year he fixated on macaroni and cheese as the Ideal Dinner, and this festive evening was no different. So my sister said, “Just give him macaroni and cheese every night. He’ll get sick of it.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHhhahhhhhah. Heh. Hmm.

So here we are, over one year later. Every night, either Annie or Amy provides him with his dinner. (I have tried making it myself, but homemade macaroni and cheese was deemed the worst crime any mother could commit.) For a while he would enjoy peas or green beans with it, but no more will he even tolerate the sight of the green horrors. Such an atrocity cannot even remain on his plate.

And fruit! Oh, how he used to love fruit! Clementines and mango and bananas and apples and everything else! Kid liked fruit!

Even a few weeks ago, he would request apples and bananas. Request them! No more. These days, fruit is of the devil. Fruit will not be tolerated. Don’t even think about it, with the fruit. Except blueberries, which are currently $45 a pint. I’m not buying them. Or applesauce, and is that even really a fruit? When a fruit has been sauced, may we still call it fruit?

His pediatrician recommended that we cease commenting on his eating, but that we also make sure that we’re eating well in his presence. Somehow being around a variety of foods, even if he’s not ingesting them, will have an effect. But I do! I do that! She also stressed the importance of the family dinner, and we can’t seem to manage that because my husband for some reason can’t come home at a reasonable hour even when he leaves home early and that’s an entirely different topic that’s making me want to cry every day, but as for me, I eat so well! (At least as far as he knows).

He’ll watch me eating, he’ll cook with me, he’ll smell the food we’re cooking or I’m eating and he’ll exclaim over the wonderfulness of the smells, and like a fool I begin to hope. I let myself believe that maybe he’s interested, that maybe he wants to (I can barely write it) taste something.

And then my mouth starts to open and my brain is screaming SHUT UP SHUT UP DON’T EVEN SAY IT, but I do! Because I’m not smart! I say, “You want a taste?” and then it’s all over. I might as well have suggested that I whip out the kitchen shears and snip off his tongue. He clamps his mouth shut and presses both fists over his mouth and emits the worst sound ever made, a sound I can’t even describe except it makes me want to scoop out my eardrums with a grapefruit spoon rather than hear it for one moment longer.

Everything I read, everything I hear, is telling me to LEAVE HIM ALONE, but I have such a hard time LEAVING HIM ALONE. I don’t even worry that much about the nutritional challenges of his limited diet; we indulge often in smoothies that I pack with all manner of supplementary materials, and/or muffins that are crammed with vegetables and exotic grains. I know he’s getting what he needs. What kills me is that we can’t just eat the same damn dinner. That I can’t share with him food that I know he would like if he would even have a tiny bite. That going to a restaurant is a near impossibility. He won’t even eat the foods that are bad for him, that’s he’s supposed to like! Like French fries! Or grilled cheese! Or those nuggets composed of mashed chicken parts! Or ketchup THE KID WON’T EAT KETCHUP WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM.

Tonight I failed, once again, to leave him alone. I dusted apple slices in cinnamon and sugar and ate them in front of him. He ignored me. I waved the sugary slices in front of his face and made yummy noises, but he continued to pointedly ignore me. Finally I said, “Apples with cinnamon! Mmm! Want a piece! Sure you do!” and he did the clamping-fists-indescribable sound. THEN he demanded “just plain cinnamon.” I refused him this. He immediately dissolved in tears. “Just plain cinnamon! Just plain cinnamon!” he repeated, approximately 57 times. Then I lost it. I explained, at a somewhat (aherm) elevated volume, that I was not going to simply hand him the cinnamon shaker, that if he was going to have a snack, which was by no means required, it was going to have some sort of nutritional aspect to it. Then he cried like I told him his teddy bear was going to Hell. Then he screamed repeatedly, anguished yawps of cinnamon deprivation. And I yelled, because I was trying to provide him with a model of how not to behave. He didn’t seem to get the message, because he yelled back.

Then! Because my mind was still not working right! I launched into a long and convoluted explanation of why he needs to eat nutritious foods, how such foods will make him big and strong. This didn’t work because he informed me that he doesn’t want to ever get big and/or strong. Then the rest of my brain died and I came up with the brilliant idea of a chart! We would make a chart, and every time Henry ate a new food we would put a star on the chart, and when the chart was full Henry would get a toy!

He liked this idea—focusing, as he was, on the word “toy.” We went to the refrigerator. “I’ll have a yogurt,” he said, “then we’ll get a toy.” I explained to him what “new” meant. There were more tears. I tried to take back the chart idea, but he couldn’t let it go. “We’ll have some milk,” he said, “And then, toy.” Once again I explained, no, ha ha, he already drinks milk. How about some black bean soup?

More tears. More attempting to take back the not-very-smart chart idea I had. I tried to get across to him that the chart would not result in instant gratification, that he would need to try 1,2,3,4,5! new foods. Then I said we should forget it and play and LOOK OVER THERE! IS THAT A SUPERHERO IN OUR CURTAINS?

He continued staring into the refrigerator. Finally he said, “I want to try black bean soup. I think it’s going to be,” he squinted, “a little good.”

I attempted to remain calm. I heated a few teaspoons of soup in the smallest bowl we own, and placed it before him. He took a tinier sip than I thought a human being could take, smiled, and said, “Okay, where’s my toy?”

P.S. Apparently this is International De-Lurking Week, and although I am not fond of the term "De-Lurking"--implying, as it does, that you are obligated to comment and if you don't you are creepy--I still like the idea of the Week and it's nice to hear from all of you. So! Say hello, why don't you?

I have separation anxiety.

Henry started preschool last week, and it’s been a tough transition.

Not for him. For me.

We’re still in “phase-in” mode--the classes are only half the size and half the length, and the parents are in the next room enjoying bad cake and insanely bad coffee while the children warm up to the idea of school. For the first couple of days, I sat there chatting with the other parents while one kid after another was escorted into the room for a few minutes of reassurance from his or her parent. I dreaded the moment when Henry emerged, weeping, from his classroom.

Then I waited.

Then I was wondered why they were keeping him in there.

When he probably needed me.

Time passed. I couldn’t hear any crying. I had already been admonished by the teacher for entering the classroom, so I held off. I wasn’t happy about it.

“What do you think they’re doing in there?” I asked one of the parents, who looked at me like, what do you think they’re doing? Getting facial tattoos? Being forced to consume the still-quivering brains of a dying rhesus monkey?

The faint strains of “The Wheels on the Bus” could be heard from their room. “I’ll just bet they’re singing,” she said slowly, patting me on the arm. If I had at that moment opened my mouth and drooled coffee cake all over my chin, I don’t think it would have surprised her one bit.



One of the parents had to enter the classroom to deal with her heartbroken child, who apparently loves her mother more than my son loves me. She came back to tell me, “I heard your son telling two girls that he’s a ‘puzzle master’?”



“That’s my boy,” I said.

“It’s great that he’s doing so well in there,” she said.

“Yes,” I agreed, choking down more coffee cake.

By the third day the teacher told me I didn’t have to stick around the school. “He’s doing so well,” she said. “We’ll call you if there’s a problem.”

The school is two blocks from my home. I could have gone there. But I was sure there was going to be a problem—I was so sure! So I went to the library and tried to look at books and wondered why my stomach hurt. I checked my cell phone 27 times or so. It seemed to be working, but it never rang, so I worried. And returned to the school.

“I just can’t get enough of this cake!” I said to the two puzzled babysitters in the room with me.

When he finally came out he seemed so happy that I was of course suspicious. “How’d he do?” I asked the teacher. My eyes pleaded for a full and detailed report of his every move and thought, but she was deftly avoiding eye contact. “He was great!” she said. “See you next time, Henry!”

“Did you have fun?” I asked him, “What did you do? Did you make friends? TELL ME EVERYTHING.”

And he said, “They called Malcolm a rubber boy and he was bouncing and Lizzie said you’re a rubber boy and he was bounced and then the little bear went up into the cave and had a nap without the big bear.”

“Wha--?” I said.

“I want lunch,” he concluded.

Tomorrow he’s going back, and I might go home, maybe. But I’ll have on my running shoes, you know, just in case.

Spinning wheel, got to go ‘round.

As the Child hurtles past the 2 1/2 mark and careens toward 3, his mood swings have begun to last for days, if not weeks. So: we’ll have a marathon of intense horribleness, followed by a leisurely stretch of unbridled lovability. It also seems that, the more horrible he is, the more lovable he’ll be later, and vice versa. (Of course, if this were strictly true he’d be escalating in every cycle toward a state of almost inhuman badness or goodness, so I guess it’s not strictly true, but whatever, I’m not a scientist.)

You’d think this could mean that I could ride out the bad period, because I’d know it would soon come to an end. Like during the last Black Period, when we were at the bookstore and, for no reason I could see, he threw a book at my face and screamed one of his charming nonsense words that sounded exactly like “Bitch!” (To all the shocked caregivers surrounding me, some of whom gasped and clutched their bosoms: he wasn’t saying “Bitch,” okay? I mean, if he was going to repeat the cursing he hears in our house, he’d call me an asswipe or a douche. You know! All sophisticated-like!) Or at the playground, when he collapsed into a frothing, shrieking mess because it was time to go home, and I had to haul all 40 pounds of him into the stroller and somehow buckle him in and he kept kicking me in the teeth. You’d think I could laugh these episodes off! Ha, ha! Kids!

Nope, pretty much I can’t.

But now! Oh my god, the sweetness, the cuddling, it's almost too much. Unbidden, he will request a kiss and/or hug. He will come up with statements like “You're my best pal” and “Your hair is cute” (I swear I’m not making this up) or “I’m enjoying this wonderful day with you, Mommy.” During walks he’ll ask me the names of different flowers and then expound upon the wonders of that particular flower. This child, according to him, has an infatuation with tulips that borders on the inappropriate. He is hot for tulips. Today, as I ate my lunch, he stood next to me watching, a huge smile on his face, and as I ate the last bite of my sandwich he said, “That was your last piece!” and I agreed and he said, “And now the Last Piece Monster is coming to kiss you!” and he started kissing my arm.

The Last Piece Monster. Can you stand it?

He’s been this way for a while. It could all change at any minute. No storm clouds will herald the darkening of the Child’s mood. He could go down for his nap with a smile, and then wake up to announce that I am in a world of shit.

He’s napping now.

I’m afraid.

Ernie loves only himself, his rubber ducky too.

My group of FWAP (Friends Who Are Parents) all exert considerable amounts of energy bitching about the sorry state of today’s Sesame Street. “It used to be so great!” they moan. “Remember Kermit? And Gordon wearing bellbottoms? And how Bob was a young guy, not a gray husk of withered tissue, neither alive nor dead? And how Mr. Hooper wasn’t a pile of decomposing remains buried under Big Bird’s nest? Remember?”

But most of all, they hate Elmo. They hate all the other new Muppets too, of course. (And I agree with them about Baby Bear. Yes, we get it, you’re wee. Now shut your puppet-hole before I stab you in the wee little eye.) But Elmo apparently represents all that is bad in this world. Elmo is George Bush/Bin Laden/Jennifer Love Hewitt* in a fur suit. Down with Elmo. Boooo. Boooo.

(*I dislike Jennifer Love Hewitt.)

As an all-too-frequent viewer of Sesame Street, I have watched Elmo in action plenty of times. And I have to say, he doesn’t particularly bug me. Partly this is because my son is in love with him; it’s hard to hate someone your son discusses with such dewy-eyed reverence. But also he strikes me as benign, if alarmingly cheerful. No, the character who really causes me distress is an old favorite—an old favorite who I believe is in dire, dire need of retirement.

Ernie.

Before you start hissing at the screen, have you people watched Ernie in action lately? He does nothing but wreak havoc wherever he goes. He’s a sociopath.

Let us compare and contrast:

Elmo: Uses amiable, albeit imaginary, conversations with his pet goldfish as opportunities to learn and grow.

Ernie: Blames malevolent impulses on rubber ducky.

Elmo: Is patient and kind with the deranged lunatic (and, occasionally, the deranged lunatic’s brother) who loiters outside his window.

Ernie: Torments his long-suffering roommate, Bert, on a regular basis.

Elmo: Invites guests to “Elmo’s World” to talk about themselves. Then he sings a song about them.

Ernie: Takes big Muppet-dumps on everyone’s feelings. For instance: he repeatedly disrupts a “Birdketeer” meeting, finally taking over and declaring it a “Duckateer” meeting, thus emotionally devastating Big Bird. And: he ruins Baby Bear's porridge, for no reason. I know it's Baby Bear, but still!

It was his breakfast!

Elmo: Patiently works through conflicts with all of his friends, even Zoe, who’s clearly suffering from several personality disorders.

Ernie: Forces Big Bird to accompany him on mind-altering “journeys” to frightening, hallucinatory landscapes, where he hides, taunting him.

Elmo: is sweet.

Ernie: is a shithead.

Now do you see?