Chasing Autism Part 2 : Please Eat

To be fair, I know what he is going through. I also have food aversions. It makes me gag to think about potato salad. And hence, I have never ever tasted potato salad. The smell of it, the look of it…Oh God… Back to the subject at hand. I have to consider how I feel about some foods as we attempt to tackle the smallest bowl of rice, carrots, and broccoli youhave ever seen. Yes I have tried serving everything separately. It makes no difference. He stalls. Suddenly he has to use the bathroom or he wants to engage in ‘conversation’ which consists of him copying my earlier pleas to get him to eat. For example, he’ll say, “Stop looking at it, like it is something new. Put it in your mouth and chew it. Look at me! Look at me! When you eat potato chips, you don’t eat like that. Put in in your mouth and chew it up.”    

 Right now he is on the toilet singing ‘A Taste of Honey’ by Liz Wright.

…about a half our later El ate three spoons of rice and carrots, ignoring the broccoli.  When I insisted he eat a bit of the green stuff, he put it in his mouth, played with it around his front teeth and gagged. I talked it down, told him to think of trains and trolleys and just get it down. He did it! 

   Now the challenge is mine. The ball is in my court to continue insisting he eat what is healthy, which means I need to prepare healthy food at regular intervals. Ugh, consistency and follow through. I confess we’ve been to this milestone before, but I fall off. So here we go again.