So, of course I posted all about Owen’s issues and our new decision on a forum with some friends. I love the input I get—often things I’d never have thought of. They gave lots of advice—some things we’ve already tried and some things we just don’t want to do (mainly, let him make a bowl of cereal or a sandwich—himself—if he doesn’t like dinner). We don’t want to let him do that because then he’d just eat cereal or a PB&J every night. And we’re trying to get him to EXPAND his food choices.
The mom guilt part of me agrees that if he wants to make a sandwich he should be able to do that because it’s just food…and if HE makes it, at least I’m not…but the other part of me wants to be a hardass because I’m just SOOOOOO sick of it and dammit, he can eat what’s on the table or go hungry. Yes, I’ve literally reached that point. (All the years of the same issues over and over and over have hardened me a bit, I admit.) I mean, he managed to survive pre-k lunches not liking anything but obviously eating enough to not be hungry so why can’t he do that at home? Also, he’s not always going to be able to make a PB&J or grab cereal—if we’re out or at someone’s house, he needs to eat what’s given (not that it’s a terribly common event).
I just don’t know. Just when I think we’ve come up with our solution, someone else makes a point that changes our minds.
Oh, and to make matters more complicated, it’s also a possibility he could have some sensory processing issues. Sigh. His autism diagnosis has long been retracted, but the doc never did any type of food/texture testing, and I’m struggling to remember if we even answered any questions about it. At the time, we may have just thought he was still just young and being normal-kid-type picky and we were concentrating more on the other areas.
So of course if I pick the hardass route, we’ll likely find out he does have a sensory issue and then I’ll be wracked with mom guilt. But if we go the non-hardass route, we might never even know.
So in the next week I’ll be calling his pediatrician to see what we can get figured out. And in the meantime we’ll see how it goes.
Blurg.