I Made Dinner Joyfully

What the heck am I talking about? I say often that I hate cooking, but it isn't true. I just have an unappreciative audience. At six my lovely child has decided she hates everything to eat. Not just somethings, but when I ask, "Do you want pancakes or french toast for breakfast?" She simply says, "No." "Do you want cereal then. or a banana?" "No," again. The list goes on and on and I am pretty sure this is her attempt to control the entire household since food/cooking is my Achilles heel.

Therefore, I have taken my life in my hands and begun cooking things I like. I plop it right in front of her ungrateful six year-old person and watch her eyes role into the back of her head. She grunts and sags her shoulders, even if the main course is Mac & Cheese. I go back int he kitchen to fix my plate and as I turn on my heel I say, "eat one bite of everything on the plate." She moans, she gripes and even slides out of her chair with tears in her eyes on to the flow. "I've tried it before and I'm allergic!" she claims.

"Oh! Well, This is what you are having." I know most grown ups have done this for years, you know, call the shots, but ever since Ruby was diagnosed with diabetes at age three (almost four) I have placated, catered and bent over backwards around food.

I remember sitting with the dietitian in the hospital talking about her diet feeling SO guilty for giving her so many Cheese Puffs--the natural, organic kind, but nonetheless, Cheese Puffs. In her third year of life, she potentially consumed 1/3 of the national average worth of cheese related products. I'm not sure she ate anything without cheese: Cottage, string, cream, mac &, cheddar cubes, grilled, puffs. But I pined over the frequency of Amy's Organic Mac & Cheese she ate.

The dietitian looked at us funny and said, do you have any idea what most Americans feed their kids?

We never let her have candy, only maybe at Halloween and at birthday parties, but after DX I didn't want her to be different from the rest of the kids, so candy and cake were now OK, after all I knew the carbs.

Anyway, parenting is a funny thing and you have to catch yourself accommodating.