Us Against Them

Why does pareting have to be so hard sometimes? There's definitely a battle of wills going on at our house with Johnny refusing to eat anything other than junkfood and Grace refusing to swallow her medication in some form or fashion. We were told by Grace's doctor that if she couldn't swallow the capsules, then we could empty the contents and mix with a bite of applesauce or two at breakfast. Well that didn't go down well (pun) with Grace because she doesn't ever eat applesauce at breakfast. She gagged and coughed and fought and buttoned her lips and wiggled so much the first day, that we moved to plan B the second. David actually got her to swallow the pills with a few sips of water and we were all, like, way to go, Grace, good job. And for several days she did fine swallowing her pills until one day she didn't. She started gagging and coughing and kicking and spitting til we were like is it even worth all this? She won't eat it in applesauce or yogurt so David had the bright idea of getting the jumbo marshmallows that our kids love so well, thumbing a little well into the middle, pouring the capsule powder in the middle of the well, sealing the top and letting her eat the marshmallow for breakfast in one happy gulp. Didn't work. This morning she knew the first marshmallow was the one with the medicine in it and instead of just eating it already she nibbled a bit here and there waiting, just waiting for the taste of yuk. She did taste the bitter taste of yuk, b/c she took too long. And the gagging and coughing and dry heaving started all over and I'm not sure what we're going to do tomorrow.

In the meantime, Johnny has gotten to where he just doesn't eat supper. It's ok with me if he refuses to eat, because I know he'll eat when he's hungry, but he doesn't eat supper and demands he gets dessert, like a marshmallow. No way, we told him. No supper, no marshmallow. Last night this went on for a l-o-n-g time. It reminded me of the book that David and I read for our two-person bookclub, The Corrections where this father tells his son he can't leave the table until he eats all of his greenbeans. The little boy eventually falls face first into the cold, rubbery green beans, after having sat there for five hours.

We didn't do that to Johnny but we did say, no supper, no marshmallow. We heard all the excuses and still didn't budge. Supper last night was pork barbeque on rolls with baby carrots and grapes. I mean, how hard was that? He ate a few grapes and asked if he could then have a marshmallow. I told him, no, that a growing boy like him needed some protein and he needed to eat some meat. He said he hated protein. Oh really? I reminded him that he liked cheese sticks and that they have lots of protein in them and that if he ate the cheese stick (which he eats like two of every day), he could have a marshmallow. Talk about stubborn. He would not eat the cheese stick. It sat, he whined, it sat, we didn't waver. After over an hour of seeing if we would crack, he told me the cheese stick was just "too long." Ok, I told him, and cut it up and only put one bite and a handful of grapes on his plate in order to get the marshmallow. He. would. not. eat. the. $%&*ng. bite. of. cheese. stick. I then gave him another choice, I said, that if he didn't want the cheese as his protein tonight, he could have a few pecans...and the grapes. He finally agreed to that, ate his stupid protein and got his stupid marshmallow. Later in bed I heard him whispering "sorry" to Santa. I told him that Santa wasn't the only one he should be saying sorry to.