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Food is mother's bane and root of imagination
By Debbie Farmer
Despite my efforts to serve nutritious meals, my children think the four food groups are: sugar, sodium, caffeine and cholesterol. When I serve anything with a shade of natural coloring, I spend hours preparing it and thirty minutes scraping the leftovers down the sink, while lamenting about the plight of starving children in Indonesia. If I had enough postage and TupperwareTM, my family could stop world hunger in a week. The eating phases my children have gone through would scare the tooth fairy into collecting dentures.
The first eating phase I experienced was "the transportation phase". Every night at dinnertime, our table became busier than a commuter route at rush hour. I recreated the sounds of planes, trains, cars or anything I could fly around the table on a spoon, and land in my son's mouth. The healthier food I served, the more details he wanted.
"Open the tunnel, here comes the train" worked for most pasta dishes. "Vroom! Vroom! The winning race car in the Indy 500 is arriving for a pit stop," worked for steamed vegetables. "Open the hanger for a DC10 jet airliner coming in from a nonstop trans-Atlantic flight with Mommy onboard, sitting alone in first class being served champagne," worked to get me through dinner. Throughout this phase more aircraft descended into my son's mouth than on the landing strip at La Guardia International Airport .
I attributed the first time my children ate a whole meal to my successful parenting skills, but it was really a transition to the "everything with ketchup" phase, when my children decided everything tasted better red. I allowed them to slather it all over their food because ketchup was made from a vegetable and it enticed them to eat. This stage was pleasant, except that the end of every meal looked like the crime scene in a midnight murder mystery.
We decided to stop dining in public when my daughter entered the "food as an accessory" phase during dinner at a Mexican canteen. She wore olives on her fingertips, sour cream lipstick and a tortilla hat. Her picture was taken by a group of tourists, who were sitting at the next table, and is probably displayed in a foreign consulate, as an example of American restaurant etiquette.
My daughter went from wearing her food to the "let's-make-a-deal" phase, where every meal was like eating with a five-year old used-car salesman.
"Eat four or five more bites," I said, pushing the plate towards her, "then you'll get ice cream."
She met my gaze and narrowed her eyes. "One or two," she said.
"Three or four," I countered, "and I'll throw in chocolate syrup."
"Two or three," she paused, "and whipped cream and a cherry."
"Deal." We shook hands over the salad.
This stage lasted through my son's "food-as-a-weapon" stage (when he tried to hit the cat by catapulting his corn off the table with a fork), and his "food-as-a-filler" stage (when he stuffed peas into every accessible body crevice).
My children entered the fast food stage at the same time. I had to stuff the main course into a StyrofoamTM container, and serve it in a paper bag with fries and a Disney toy. I traded my apron for a paper hat and dragged a plastic slide into the living room. This phase was especially difficult to explain to my in-law's, who came over for Thanksgiving dinner.
I was shocked the other night when my children set the table and waited patiently for their meal. I watched my son eat his carrots all by himself, while my daughter finished the main course. There were no train sounds, ketchup stains or bargaining. No one was wearing their food or finger painting with it. It was so quiet I could hear the sound of silverware on the plate. A knot formed in my stomach and I pushed back my chair.
"Where are you going, Mom?" my daughter asked. "Aren't you going to eat?"
I shook my head. "It's too quiet in here," I said, as I carried my plate to the sink. "I can't eat a single bite."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
