Frustrating Food Woes

Do you have a child that is a picky eater?  They don't eat their vegetables and only will eat mac and cheese or chicken nuggets?  I actually wish my child would eat that crap.  He won't.

Ezra is the pickiest eater on this planet.  He won't eat anything.  It's pretty crazy that he is as big as he is.  We honestly scratch our heads on how this kid is growing.  I have no idea because he literally hardly eats anything.

Part of it I definitely blame it on the Autism.  It's not a taste thing for Ezra, but a texture issue.  He won't eat anything that is slimy or mushy or too crunchy.  He will not eat raw vegetables, but he has no problem drinking one of my green smoothies that I make each morning (more on our green smoothie woes later).  He won't eat anything that is mushy.  Examples are pasta, potatoes, rice, mac and cheese, too ripe bananas, applesauce, runny yogurt, etc.  You get the idea.

As an infant Ezra gagged and threw up a lot.  I don't know what it was exactly- if foods just made him gag or if there was something going on inside of him that no doctor could ever figure out.  There was a time in our lives that I was changing his crib sheets almost everyday because I would find him every morning in vomit.  Most of the time it was just a little bit, but there were a few times where it was epic.  We lived in California at the time and I remember one incident where I picked up the most gorgeous berries ever from a local farm in Watsonville.  Ezra had a few.  The next morning there was a berry explosion in his room.  All over the walls and everywhere.  I threw away those crib sheets.

As a baby Ezra loved prunes!

He also would throw up when we were out in public.  For no reason at all and we could never figure out the reason.  A few incidents stick out in my mind.  One night we met up with friends from Berkeley that we hadn't seen in for forever.  We met at this pizza place.  We had ordered 3 pizzas or so and were sitting there serving up the pizza to our kids.  Ezra was in a high chair and I was trying to get him to eat some pizza.  I was embarrassed and wanted our friends not to wonder why our eighteen month old wasn't eating pizza.  Every kid loves pizza!  I wasn't forcing it, but we were strongly encouraging him to take a bite.  No less than five seconds later,  Ezra barfed everywhere.  All over the table where he sat and the floor.  I have never in my entire life been so mortally embarrassed.  We immediately stood up, Jason dropped some money on the table, and we headed home to clean up the mess all over our baby boy.

The sad thing was, this was normal for us.  We were totally used to it and it actually didn't surprise us in the least that it had happened.  I remember our friends later called us and they were so concerned that Ezra was sick.  He wasn't sick and we knew it.  The second we got in the car and drove away, he was fine.  He was laughing and as happy as a clam.

Another incident that comes to mind was the Christmas we were visiting our families in Utah.  We stayed at my older brother's house.  My brother had all of the family over at his house and we picked up Cafe Rio take out.  Cafe Rio is a Utah phenomenon that we really missed while we lived in California and we were so excited to partake of it while we were there (I also must say that DC has a gazillion Cafe Rio locations now, so we get to indulge without flying across the country).  We ordered a cheese quesadillas for all of the kids.  We all sat at my brother's dining table with kids in tow and began eating.  There were probably 12 of us.  Ezra started eating his quesadilla!  Jason and I were so excited that he was eating it!  On cue, Ezra threw up the piece of quesadilla that he had just eaten.  We ran Ezra to the bathroom and stuck him in the tub before he could barf more.  It was embarrassing and all of my family members were concerned that Ezra had some wildly contagious disease that their child would also get right before Christmas.  He wasn't sick.  We tried to explain it to my family and everyone just kind of looked at us like they didn't understand.  They truly didn't get it.

Ezra drank from a bottle longer than I am really comfortable admitting.

Ezra grew out of his 'barfing for no reason at all' phase when he turned two years old.  Thank goodness because I had just had another baby (Asher) and I didn't want to change more sheets than I had to.  At about this age Ezra started something new.  If he didn't like something he was eating he would store it inside his cheek and leave it there.  Most kids will spit it out, right?  Not Ezra.  He would store food in his cheek for hours!!

It would happen for a few reasons.  One reason would be that he was eating something that he really didn't like the texture.  I remember I cooked carrots for Sunday dinner.  The carrots were basically like candy with sugar all over them.  They weren't too mushy and they weren't too crunchy so I was sure Ezra would like them.  He took a bite and seemed to like them.  He took another bite and we noticed that he had stored both carrot bites in his right cheek.  We tried everything to help him either swallow it or spit it out.  Drinks, more food that he likes, candy, etc.  Nothing worked.  We thought he'd probably spit it out after awhile.  Well, six hours passed and he still had a chipmunk cheek.  So we layed him in the bathtub, Jason pinned him down, (because he wasn't letting us get close to his mouth or his stashed food) and I did a finger sweep in his mouth.  He immediately threw up.  This became a common routine for us.

Of course we were just careful to not feed him things that we knew he wouldn't like and he would store in his cheek.  But sometimes things would happen, or a babysitter or a family member would give him something and then they would call us and wonder what to do.

When we moved here to DC Ezra was about two and a half years old.  I remember I went to a playgroup with some other moms in the area.  One mom offered Ezra some trail mix.  I immediately knew that this was a very bad idea and told her to please not feed him any.  She's one of those moms that thinks she knows everything about everything.  I even shortly explained to her why I didn't want Ezra to have any.  Well, I was new and wanted to be nice, so I let her feed Ezra the trail mix.  He began stuffing it in his face and his cheek got bigger and bigger and bigger.  The mom said to me: "See he loves it!  I knew he would!  You gotta trust me more."

The kids played on the playground for a good 45 more minutes and Ezra ran around with a huge chipmunk cheek.  Hello choking hazard, right??  I took Ezra home, bribed him with everything we had, and nothing worked to get him to spit it out.  I stripped him, put him in the bathtub, and for the next 2 hours he laid in the bathtub puking his brains out after every finger sweep I did to make sure all of the trail mix was gone.  Suffice it to say, I still really dislike that woman, and I will never eat trail mix ever ever ever again.  You cannot pay me enough money to eat trail mix in any form.

Then I started doing more green smoothies for Ezra.  Ezra will eat or drink ANYTHING if he can suck it out of a straw.  Weird, right?  I have made some pretty nasty wheat grass juice in the past that he just slurped right up with a straw.  I won't go into all of the details and years and years I've been taking him to doctors for this particular issue- but the green smoothies didn't work.  He would get terrible diarrhea, even from the smallest amount.  Which would turn into gross sores on his bum, etc. etc.  We can't do green smoothies, blueberries, or strawberries.  He gets terrible terrible runs.

I have talked to doctor after doctor after doctor about all of Ezra's food issues.  Everyone tells me the exact same thing: 'He is a big boy, very big for his age, he is growing great and I see no need to be alarmed about what he is eating.  Whatever you are doing, keep doing it because he is tall and strong!'

Part of me also blames his picky-ness on his dad, Jason.  Thirty years ago or so, Jason's mom took him to a doctor because he wouldn't eat anything.  He wouldn't eat hamburgers or meat or anything that even resembled a vegetable.  As a child Jason survived on cereal, bananas, and grilled cheese sandwiches.  That's all he would eat.  When Jason's mom was alive she would always share with us the funny story of how they went to dinner as a family in a very nice restaurant in Sundance.  Jason ordered a grilled cheese sandwich.  The waiter brought out all of the food and his sandwich had a few alfalfa sprouts on it.  Jason immediately began to cry and he wouldn't touch his sandwich even after they removed all of the sprouts.  That's my Ezra to a T!  If you contaminate something then you're basically screwed!  Jason said all of his brothers, mom, and doctor all told him if he didn't eat something else that he wouldn't grow tall and strong.  Well, Jason is now 6 feet 4 inches and he is the tallest person in his family.  Go figure.

So all of this babbling on and on about Ezra's food issues was supposed to just give you a glimpse of his history and bring you up to speed for the present day.  We still struggle with things to feed Ezra.  He is still very picky.  He doesn't throw up anymore, and he also doesn't store food in his cheek, he's just plain picky and won't eat.  So can you imagine how wonderful it is to find a food that Ezra likes!!??  It's heaven on earth to find something that Ezra will eat.

Now let's talk yogurt.  This yogurt from Trader Joe's is the first yogurt I've been able to find for Ezra that he will eat.  He loves it.  It's not too runny or slimy.  It's very creamy and thick and it stays on the spoon perfectly.  Ezra loves it and has been eating at least 1 container a day for the past 2 years.

This is what the yogurt looks like.  It comes in a round container with a tear off foil lid and a pack of 6 yogurts are held together by a cardboard piece on top. 

About a month ago, Trader Joe's decided to change their packaging on this yogurt.  It is the EXACT SAME YOGURT it just comes in a slightly different looking package.  The container is now square-ish and the containers are connected together just by their own tops.  This is what it looks like now.  Really, there isn't much difference.


Clearly Trader Joe's decided to help out the environment with less packaging for the same delicious product.  I don't fault them for that at all.  But now Ezra won't touch it.  He won't eat yogurt anymore!  I've been patient with him this last month, I have thought that he just needs a little time to figure out that it is the same yogurt just in a slightly different package.  Well, it's been a month and he won't eat it at home and his yogurt comes home everyday from summer school with a note that reads: 'Ezra didn't want his yogurt today!'

So here I am frustrated and venting and wondering what the heck am I to do now?  I guess no more yogurt?  Or should I be persistent and keep buying yogurt to have it come home everyday and I have to throw it away?  Oh the joys of parenting this boy with Autism!!!  Does anyone have any advice??