Don’t Play with Your Food

... ouch, braiding hurts ...

Don’t play with your food. That is what we always used to say. That is what I still say. Unless I am listening to the behavioral therapist who is trying to figure out a way to get children who have a limited number of foods they will eat, to experiment with trying other foods.

Essentially, she says, let your children play with their food: touch it, smell it, cut it in different shapes, put it only to their lips, or stir it.

Let them plate it up for others.

 Let them plate it up for themselves, eat of it what they want, eat none of it, some of it leaving the rest, or any variation of the above.

I can put an elastic on my toes while my mom braids my hair.

I am only leaving the braid in for one minute!

Rhiannon told me no for she is a no girl.

This time it was no, I won’t be having any new home-made bread with my melted cheese.

 So who is going to be saying no to home-made white bread? Or home-made anything. I told her I would show her how to break it up in sacrament size pieces, how to make cheese sandwiches, the cheese on the outside, the bread on the inside, how to do cheese baskets with bread inside, cheese fingers with bread inside, and soon two pieces of bread had been consumed.

 At every moment I was wanting to get a wet towel to keep her fingers cleaned – cheese oil everywhere. I gritted my teeth and went on with the project, thinking to myself, is it better to pay an occupational therapist $150 an hour to do this, or for me to do it for free.

... getting ready - cheese on one plate, bread on the other ...

.. so much grease on my hands ...

This is a strange house. Naomi likes the cinnamon buns, but not the bread. Xavier likes the bread, but doesn’t touch the cinnamon buns. Rhiannon doesn’t want either.

No wonder everyone in the family is thin.

There is nothing they like to eat. Looks like the love of food is not transmitted genetically.

Yes, a new adage.

Please touch this food and find something you would like to eat.