the food thing

I figure it's time for me to post about some of the skeletons in our closet, lest anyone thinks our life is a walk in the park at this point in our Autism Remediation program. The two biggies for us are food, and potty training. I'll tackle the food thing tonight, and if I manage to survive talking about that, maybe I'll post about potty training at some point too. Though I may need a few weeks (or months) to recover from the trauma of talking about food....

The food thing. This has been one of our predominant nightmares throughout the past 3 years of our lives. Just the mention of dinner invitations, the words "snack provided" on program descriptions, or an offer to get together for lunch, causes me to have a moderate anxiety attack. I specifically arranged for our little homeschooling co-op to meet between mealtimes. I've avoided lunch dates for years.

The problem is that Jacob only eats a small handful of things. It has nothing to do with being "picky", or "spoiled", or any number of other suggestions (mostly implying poor mothering on my part) that people freely offer if the topic comes up (and trust me, I try to avoid the topic coming up at all costs!). It has to do with Sensory issues. And Autism. Though at this point it's more a Sensory thing and less an Autism thing, even though it's much easier to blame it on the Autism. I've found in general saying "he has Autism" gets us out of a lot of uncomfortable situations. Or rather, it did, back when he obviously had Autism. Now that it's more subtle to see, most folks just think I'm crazy. Maybe I am. I'm definitely food-phobic! I just wish that translated into ME avoiding eating so much, instead of the opposite (stress-eating, one of my personal demons).

So, anyway, here goes, I'm rolling up my sleeves and laying it all out on the table for anyone who cares to read this. Here's what Jacob currently will eat (and note, it has to be EXACTLY as described, down to brand and variety name, otherwise forget it):

Orange Juice (Tropicana pulp-free with calcium)
Bananas (though only if they are VERY ripe)
Apples (on occassion)
Froot Loops (dry, no milk)
Cheese and Crackers (Wispride Spreadable Cheddar and Red Oval Mini Stoned Wheat Thins)
Oatmeal Cookies (Archway, NO RAISINS)
Graham Crackers (Honey Maid regular variety)
Yellow Cake with Vanilla frosting (we can get away with a bit of variety with this one!)
McDonald's Double Cheeseburger, plain
McDonald's French Fries
McDonald's Vanilla Shake
McDonald's Vanilla Ice Cream (frozen yogurt)
Dunkin Donuts Old-Fashioned Donut
Rold Gold thin pretzels
Hershey's milk chocolate
M&Ms plain
Marshmallow Peeps (you know, the disgusting Easter candy)

He'll also nibble other kinds of chocolate, and some other kinds of cookies, and will claim to "like" them, but will refuse to actually eat them.

So, reading through the above list, you will see that there are only 3 things that we can possibly make a meal out of. So we serve those three things every day, and here they are:

Breakfast: Banana, Froot Loops, Orange juice

Lunch: McDonald's Double Cheeseburger, Fries and Shake

Dinner: Cheese and Crackers, Orange Juice

Now, we DO mix in a really good liquid vitamin and mineral supplement (Brainchild Nutritonal's Spectrum Support II) with his Orange Juice twice a day (it's supposed to be given 3 times a day, but we do the best we can, and we figure twice is better than not at all!). And we mix rice protein powder in his spreadable cheese. The lunch doesn't thrill me, but since the cheeseburger is the only animal protein the kid'll eat, I go with it anyway. If only they'd drop the trans fats at McDonald's I'd be a much happier mommy.

(Incidentally, on a side note, I was the sort of pre-mommy who swore I'd only ever feed my kids organic foods, and that McDonalds' food would never pass their lips. I've lived to eat those words -- pretty much literally. Honestly, I feel like McDonald's has kept my child alive, and I am eternally grateful for their existance. So don't judge me for feeding it on a regular basis to my kids....until you walk in my shoes....)

For desert after dinner, we have cake that we make from a Duncan Hines (or whatever) yellow cake mix, but we add 2 TBSP rice protein powder and 2 TBSP ground flax seed. So it has slightly more nutritional value than "just" cake. We tried mixing cod liver oil in the frosting, but we just couldn't get that to fly.

The other items on his "will eat" list we try to rotate as snacks depending on the day, with the exception of the McDonald's icecream, which we have pretty much every day after lunch (given that there's actually calcium in there and the boy won't drink milk).

As you've probably guessed, eating over someone else's house is pretty stressful for us. Well, for me. I don't think Jacob's really notices too much (unless he's teased about it -- someone commenting on his food is enough to make him refuse to eat anything, and has happened to him more than once), so long as I bring along enough food that he will eat. But it's meant that he's had pretzels or graham crackers for dinner if we've stayed on the spur of the moment, which opens up my parenting skills to all sorts of criticisms. It's a constant sore topic with me, and one of the few things that I'm quite sensitive to. And it continously amazes me that people don't seem to think I see them rolling their eyes, or hear the comments they whisper to each other in the kitchen while getting dessert or coffee.

At this point, I'd like to bring attention to something. One of the most touted myths that gets thrown at me on a fairly regular basis is "no kid will starve themselves to death". This is always said by some mother who "knows better" than I do, and thinks I can "fix" Jacob's food selectiveness by just not offering him anything but what *I* want him to eat. Well, I have a newsflash for people that hold to this theory. There are a small number of kids who WILL starve to death rather than try something new. I suspect most of them have ASD. My kid is one of them. I have proof.

So anyway, to wrap up this long-winded, defensive rant about my child's eating habits, I just want to say that I am trying VERY hard not to worry about the food thing. He's getting all the vitamins and minerals and protein he needs. He eats enough of a variety of food to not need tube-feeding (and oh boy, do I EVER feel for the folks who have had to go that route!). There is a sensory eating protocol that I do plan on trying with him next year, but right now my plate (HA! Bad pun!) is too full and I've got all I can handle, the thought of starting yet something else is too overwhelming at this point. So I'll continue to muddle along the way I am, fending off criticisms and dirty looks from people who don't understand and possibly don't want to.

But now you all understand. So thanks for reading this. And if anyone wants to get together for lunch at McDonald's, we're available!