Last week, after a conversation with a friend about HER amazing meatloaf, I decided I needed to make meatloaf for dinner. The last time I had made meatloaf, I remembered everyone had loved it. I only remembered that because I commented, “Wow! Finally a night when only ONE dinner was made!” It seemed like a long time coming for this crew.
So last week I made meatloaf. I didn’t tell anyone until dinner. Why give them any advance notice to protest?
As we sat down to dinner, my son Joe, who is nine years old, looked at my husband and I and said with all seriousness, “Why are you guys torturing us?!!!”
I sighed.
They refused to eat.
Actually Jessie, at six years old, did indeed eat. Three bites. With quite a bit of cajoling on her dad’s part.
Joe looked like he was facing the firing squad as he tried getting his three bites down.
I sighed again.
I have two children. They couldn’t be more different. One is male and one is female, and often times I feel like I’ve been thrown into two distinct different worlds. I realize that because they are two years and nine months apart, I was and am a very different parent to them. I also realize that my standards lagged somewhat with the second child. I didn’t have as much time, energy, or patience for the same things the second time around. I just needed the second child to go with it, to somehow be as flexible as I had heard second children could be.
In many instances, Jessie, my daughter, is incredibly flexible. For the most part, Jessie was and is able to go with the flow. She was and remains more accepting of changes in schedule and plans. Maybe I was as well. Yes, I still tried to respect her baby needs for napping and bedtime; however, in terms of food, my standards changed.
Horrible all-day morning sickness with both pregnancies for four months forced me to spend great amounts of time trying to stabilize my stomach in any way I could. With my first pregnancy, I craved grapefruit, salad, and frozen waffles. With my second pregnancy I craved spicy, ethnic food. I was continuously searching for Chinese, Indian, Greek; anything with spice calmed my stomach.
Joe was a carbohydrate king from the beginning. For a while, Joe knew every grilled cheese in the St. Louis vicinity. He could describe them to you in vivid detail. I used to joke that Joe went to a lecture and decided to be a vegetarian, because for a long time, no matter how I disguised it, Joe refused chicken and beef. Fish was out of the question. He still often refuses meat today.
I would like to think that all that spicy food prenatally helped Jessie acquire her taste for a variety of foods. Jessie ate Chinese and Greek food as soon as she went from liquids to solid food. She was and is much more adventurous, which delights us. IF nobody is around to sway her decisions (read: her brother can’t first say how gross something is or the cause is lost), she will try just about anything.
What confuses us even more is that in life Joe is an adventurous kid. He will try anything. Climb any rock, ride any trail, swim any ocean. He likes to be challenged. He thrives on it. But not with food.
Jessie is our reigning Cheeseburger Queen. She loves them and will order one at any restaurant. She doesn’t care if they look different or even taste different, she’s okay as long as it’s a cheeseburger. Scary, but she could survive on cheeseburgers if she had to. And in fact she has. Last spring while in California, she must have had a cheeseburger ten nights straight. I know, I know, real healthy!
