Just Call Me Meany Head

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I think without planning to I took a little blogging vacation.  But now I am back to torment you with the trite and trivial. 

I am no longer Mommy, I am Meany Head.  It’s fine, I do not need the young son to be happy with me every minute.  If that was the goal I think we’d be raising Veruca Salt, Jr.  And really, he could be calling me worse things.  I think it’s a testament to our at home militant anti-media policy that he doesn’t come up with worse things to call me.  Heather is Meany Head also. It’s the only name in his arsenal.  Sometimes though, he will just say, “Whatever!”  And now and then he will add whatever it is we are doing to top off his whatever.  This is meant to be adversarial, but really it’s just funny.  Here’s an example:  We had to pull him out of Applebee’s and make him sit in the car because he refused to stop trying to climb on top of the booth wall and land in some senior citizen’s lap (I’ll tell you right now too, she wasn’t one of those old ladies who thinks little kids are precious, she was one of those old ladies who in her day wouldn’t have put up with this sort of thing and had no truck with being patient with our over-sugared and under-napped little dude). It was my turn to sit with him in the car while Heather ate her dinner (yay, it’s so fun eating by yourself!  Luckily Applebee’s puts a nutrition information pamphlet right there on the table, so we at least had something to read, depressing as it was.  Here’s a tip – don’t order sliders. ).  While I was in the car, I took the opportunity to explain the situation and have a lesson moment for the boy.  Ha, I’m so delusional.  It was something along the lines of “if you had chosen to sit in your seat instead of climbing and not listening to us and then kicking Mama on the way out of the restaurant, you’d still be there and not strapped into your car seat where you don’t want to be, blady, blady…”  Lesson ignored.  I was boring even myself with this discussion.  Then he looked at me and said.  “Whatever.” So I picked up the USA Today and started reading and he said, “Fine.  Whatever your newspaper.”  Funny.  I feel like he went from 4-year-old boy to 13-year-old girl overnight. 

So what is our meany-head crime?  We make him eat home-cooked food.  I know, right?  Terrible.  This stemmed in part from last week’s vacation, because the only drama of the trip was the fact that Tommy will only eat about 5 dinners:  quesadilla, chicken & fries, mac & cheese, taquitos, and pork chops.  So while we were on vacation, the boy did not eat much because at various times these foods were not available.  I should mention that the above-listed foods have rules; the number one rule is that they must be made by Heather.  I am trying not to be hurt by the fact that when I made homemade mac and cheese he told me he wanted “the good kind from the box.”  Whatever your mac and cheese. 

Up until now, we have been fighting the good fight and putting different food in front of him at dinner, but after he refuses to eat we offer him one of his five meals or a jelly sandwich.  But under the philosophy of “he won’t starve” and “he’ll eat if he is hungry enough” that has stopped.  We are upping our game.  Oh, it’s tragic in our house.  

A brief history of the week so far: 

Day 1: We explain the new rules.  I can see he doesn’t believe us.  But we have already vowed to BE STRONG!  We are tougher than a 4-year old.  Plus, it’s two against one.  The odds are with us.  He gets fresh bell peppers, sausage, and a whole wheat hot dog bun on his plate.  See, we’re being nice, we’re compromising, we’re not making him eat an actual sausage sandwich with sautéed bells and onions topped with mustard.  He refuses to eat, whines, begs for a quesadilla, gets up and kicks the wall, and then gets put in his room where he throws 45 -minute tantrum, comes out and eats bread and bell peppers.  All that screaming makes you hungry I guess.

Day 2:  We have a long-standing deal with the boy: if he gets all four stamps (good listening and rule-following) in gymnastics he gets a happy meal.  Yay, bribery!   So he earned his stamps.  He is probably hungry from last night.  And he is off the hook on the food plan. 

Day 3:  Worst night yet. I make a pasta dish with chicken, artichokes, sausage.  He starts a pre-emptive I’m not eating that coupled with frustrated screams.  I give him a side of pasta, side of chicken, side of sausage, an artichoke because I am delusional, and a little bit of bread and say something like, “that’s up to you but this is what we are having.”  More screaming.  Good thing we don’t live in an apartment.  He eats bread, but then gets mad again and starts with the Meany Head calling after we say no to the requested quesadilla.  Then he goes to his room and tears his Spongebob border right off the wall.  Ack, I don’t even know what to say after that.  I feel an exorcism might be in order.  I pull the “that hurts my feelings” on him and feel like a putz, as I really hated all the guilt I was raised with and vowed not to do it to my child.  Heather is more practical, she tells him there is no big water park in his future unless he shapes up.  We repeat the mid-tantrum mantras to each other:  “Isn’t it fun?” and “Why do people ever have more than one child?” 

Day 4:  Success!  Steak and mac and cheese, clean plate all the way.  Okay, so we cheated.  But after last night’s horribleness we felt we needed to fix something from his list of 5 edible meals.  You never heard more excitement and good jobs! over dinner in your life.

Day 5:  Tonight:  Chicken and rice. It’s gonna be ugly, I’ll tell you that.  This chicken won’t be breaded and the rice is, well it’s rice, it’s not on his list of acceptable foods.  Ah well, I don’t really want to do the water park anyway… 

My newest crazy food intolerance eating plan: no corn.  Sorry Iowa.  Of course I will report back, because that’s one thing this blog needs is more discussion on food.  Thus far my observation is that corn is in everything. I am surprised the grapes I am eating right now are not injected with corn syrup.

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