When
I was in college, an older couple invited me and a classmate to dinner
for a project we were working on. I don't remember the details of the
project, but I remember the dinner:
Grilled
steak kabobs with onions, peppers, and mushrooms. I choked the meal
down and politely nodded in agreement as my classmate raved over how
wonderful it tasted. When I got back to my dorm, my roommate was
bewildered that I would feel ill after a meal that sounded so amazing. I
was trying hard to get over the texture of grilled onions, peppers, and
mushrooms in my mouth. I felt silly trying to explain it.
Before
we left Illinois, I went to a dinner for my MOPS group. Someone brought
a pan of pasta from a local restaurant because it was the "BEST stuff
ever." I tried it, but I could barely swallow the combination of
chicken, garlic, and onion. It was awful.
I
remember gagging on spaghetti and other Italian dishes regularly as a
child. I have had nightmares about onions. I wish I was making that up,
because seriously. Who has onion nightmares? I vividly remember the time
I (around 7 years old) took a big bite of mashed potatoes, only to gag so hard I threw up. I
wasn't expecting them to be full of potato peels and taste strongly of
garlic.
When
Andrew started to refuse food a couple years ago, I was ok with it.
We'd made a big move, his world had changed, and I completely understood
food texture issues. When he gagged to the point of throwing up, I got
it. Except that he kept regressing, eating less and less, refusing foods
that had once been acceptable, stressing me the heck out. And I was
already stressed at the time. I hated moving. I know my child picked up
on it. Did my stress cause his eating to worsen?
I
don't know. He was a better eater once, but never a great one. He was
occasionally gagging on food before he started refusing so much of it.
And the fact that his peers seem to go for treats so easily (ice cream,
donuts, popcorn, chips, etc) and he has never done that...I don't know.
Then there's family history. Me. My father-in-law is very picky. I'm
told my maternal grandfather was very picky. Maybe it all condensed into
my child.
We've
been in feeding therapy for nearly a year. It is, by nature, a slow
therapy. We're exploring sensory processing disorder and hoping for
answers on that soon. It would help explain his problems sleeping and a
few other issues (and maybe help with food!). In the meantime, I am a mom who never in a million
years imagined that extreme picky eating would be our biggest struggle
yet in raising a child. Here's to figuring it all out and praying for
improvements.
