We continue to love our Ethan, very much, but he tries out patience with his great fussiness. We believe that we have been trying to raise an unfussy child, yet the report from nursery comes back the same every day. Eats a lot of cereal in the morning, refuses all food from then on. Every two weeks, we'll hear, 'We've had a breakthrough today! He had his full meal!' Next day, he's pushed everything away faster than two weeds at a weed race where weeds are racing each other to be the fastest weed in terms of growing tall, like a weed would.
Ethan doesn't only do this at nursery. Ethan does this at home with us. I will present the food to Ethan like a fine maitre d would, explaining to missierueurure - is that how you spell that? - that today he is eating spaghetti with a fine tomato sauce, accompanied by garlic bread and a Deconstructed Salad consisting of one tomato, what colour is that tomato?, red!, and one carrot, what colour is that carrot?, orange! and one cucumber, what colour is that cucumber?, red! just kidding! green! Green cucumber, can you say green cucumber?, and here's a leaf like The Hungry Catepillar eats! Okay? Despite this excellent educational introduction, Ethan will most often intercept the food before it could even break his personal space. Ethan's Food Defense Strategy is a crafty three pronged approach: Hand Thrust, Face Whip, Raspberry Of Disapproving Dispersement. The Hand Thrust and Face Whip are often combined. In the Hand Thrust element, Ethan shoves his hands out wildly in a surprisingly strong straight arm, which bears a strikingly similarity to my fighting technique. For the Face Whip element, he whips his head around side to side faster than two weeds at a weed race where they are really competitive weeds like kudzu and the event is Smother 100 Meters Of That Field's Native Plants. And then, should we manage to get a spoonful of food past these defenses, the Raspberry Of Disapproval and Dispersement serves two purposes. One, the pftpftpftpftpft sound lets us know that Ethan finds the meal completely detestable so bring forth the yogurt and cake please. Second, were we foolish enough to try to make him taste just one little taste, the pftpftpftpftpft action ensures that the food is effectively shot back at us, but this time in tiny, hard-to-see, spit-saturated pieces that instantly meld with any surface.
When I pick him up from nursery after a long day of self-starvation, he is initially pleasant, for he is happy to see his Daddy, and this pleases me. On the way home in the car, I carry on a mostly one-sided conversation asking Ethan how his day was, expressing my fondest hope that he had a good time at nursery. As soon as we're in the house and I put him down, Ethan realises that he's at home, that in the past he has been given food in this home, and RIGHT NOW FOOD RIGHT NOW FOOD RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW! What follows is Ethan's most annoying cry, a squinty-eyed hyperventilating plea where he manages to whelp on exhalation AND inhalation. When this fails to instantly conjure up food, he resorts to standing directly in front of me, blubbering face in crotch, arms wrapped around me. I try to explain to Ethan that limiting my mobility will ensure the continuation of his self-enforced hunger strike. When I walk away to prepare some other aspect of the meal, Ethan will toddle after, increasing the volume of his cries, which increases the squintiness of his eyes, which often means I will hear a crash, a moment of silence, and then a cry of increased vigor since he is now minorly injured and hungry, a foul combination. (Or, if he was a chicken, a FOWL combination, GET IT?!)
And yet, ten minutes after I put him to bed last night, I was seized with an overwhelming desire to go into his room and look at him sleeping. He had shimmied to the top of the crib so that he can feel the wood against his head, his thumb was in his mouth, and he was breathing deeply. It brought me such joy and tenderness, faster than a weed in a...you get it by now.
When I pick him up from nursery after a long day of self-starvation, he is initially pleasant, for he is happy to see his Daddy, and this pleases me. On the way home in the car, I carry on a mostly one-sided conversation asking Ethan how his day was, expressing my fondest hope that he had a good time at nursery. As soon as we're in the house and I put him down, Ethan realises that he's at home, that in the past he has been given food in this home, and RIGHT NOW FOOD RIGHT NOW FOOD RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW! What follows is Ethan's most annoying cry, a squinty-eyed hyperventilating plea where he manages to whelp on exhalation AND inhalation. When this fails to instantly conjure up food, he resorts to standing directly in front of me, blubbering face in crotch, arms wrapped around me. I try to explain to Ethan that limiting my mobility will ensure the continuation of his self-enforced hunger strike. When I walk away to prepare some other aspect of the meal, Ethan will toddle after, increasing the volume of his cries, which increases the squintiness of his eyes, which often means I will hear a crash, a moment of silence, and then a cry of increased vigor since he is now minorly injured and hungry, a foul combination. (Or, if he was a chicken, a FOWL combination, GET IT?!)
And yet, ten minutes after I put him to bed last night, I was seized with an overwhelming desire to go into his room and look at him sleeping. He had shimmied to the top of the crib so that he can feel the wood against his head, his thumb was in his mouth, and he was breathing deeply. It brought me such joy and tenderness, faster than a weed in a...you get it by now.
