A fussy eating stressed letter to T-Boy

I stole the idea from Oooh Baby and I'll be adding it into the Fussy Eaters Club for April.

Dear T-Boy,

Yes, I know that isn't your name, but it is on here.

It's about the eating thing.  You're nine now.  Ten in September.  You are a lovely child.  You make rubbish choices sometimes, but we all do that, and you are trying not to tantrum.  Sometimes I wish you would try harder.  But this letter isn't about that, it's about food.

I love your Daddy.  I love you.  But having you to stay for a week stresses me out like you wouldn't believe.

The list of food you think you will eat is so short.

Sausages (which is all you would eat, given half a chance)
Chicken nuggets
Roast chicken
plain pasta
raw carrots
white bread
chocolate cake
sweets

Yeah.

I think that's it.

It's only been in the last months of Daddy and I being together that you will have a sausage *in* the bread.  Until then, you wouldn't do that.  You are malnourished and clearly struggle in the bowel department.  You are either hyper or understimulated, depending on what you have eaten.  You refuse, cry, shout, stomp if I try and get you to eat something else, but the majority of times, if I really force the issue, you like it, and we have it again, and again, and then suddenly you don't like it any more.  You won't eat it.  You make yourself gag and then you get sent out and then another meal time is a war zone and not the pleasant family experience that it is when you aren't here.  That's not true.  Not the pleasant family experience it is when I give you exactly what you want.  Which is sausages, bread and butter, and raw carrots.

You're missing so much good stuff though.  And I know that it's a choice.  Do you know how I know?   Here's the thing.  If I offer you new food, you won't even try it.  You push it away, fold your arms, shut your mouth and refuse to even look at it.  If I offer you sweets you've never had before, they are straight in your mouth.  So I know it's not a fear of new stuff type thing.  It's a choice.

It goes along with the attention seeking thing you're doing at school.  The one where you cry for an hour straight, and bang your head on the tables, and then look to see if anyone saw.  That's what your teachers say you do, not me, although you do it here as well.  And then it'll stop if it looks like you might be getting your own way.  Stop like a tap being turned off.  But this letter isn't about that, it's about food.

Because I can't do this much longer.  Obviously, I will do it, because that's the way parenting is, even when it's step parenting, but I feel like I really, really can't do this much longer.  It's hard on Daddy, because he sees you ill and constipated because you won't eat enough fibre, and he sees me unhappy when you won't eat what is cooked, and I don't have the energy to cook two separate meals every day - I don't agree with it.  It's hard on the AC, because he eats everything, all the time, even new stuff, even tries it when he knows he doesn't like it, and never gets a well done from anyone except me, and yet you get a well done for clearing your plate like a normal child would, when it's something that you like.  Sausages.  It's hard on us as a family - we can't go out to eat because you'll tantrum if you can't get what you want.  When the AC got his blue belt, we couldn't celebrate in the way we usually would, because of your eating habits.

And you see T-boy, it's got to stop.  I don't know what to do about it, but I'll find a way.  I am more stubborn than your stomach, but I'm tired of the restrictions you and your stomach place on the rest of us.  The way your stomach controls the entire house somedays.  Not this week.  IT's not happening.

I've talked to you, we've looked at what different food groups do and how you need them, and we've allowed you to chose a menu that had different things on it, and you still wouldn't eat them.

So I don't know.

Just got to see how the week goes I think.

But I do love you.

Me.

p.s.  That was very cathartic.

So I've been up for an hour and......

.... I'm still not dressed.  Or showered.  Or any thing except here.

I can't find the list I saved of people in my blogher blog circle, although I know the fabulous Bod for Tea is on there, and no doubt she has a list somewhere.  She seems a very organised person.  Unlike moi.

The big computer is refusing to boot up.  This means I have lost access to all school stuff because I hadn't yet transferred it to the school laptop because I .........  haven't really.  No excuse.  More importantly, I have lost access to all my photographs.  Everything from since 2005.  I will get them back, I just can't get to them now.

I have to sort the AC's room today.  The experiment is over, he's not ready for complete control over his dominion, and so I will sort it today.  That and apparently T-Boy is coming on Monday.  I tried explaining to J how I feel about that, that I want him to come, that I love him being around, but that his temper tantrums and the fact he doesn't like me or respect me until a few days into the week makes me tired and apprehensive.  I think he's starting to get it.  The thing is, I can't hide anything on this face (and still the She-Ex claims we had an affair whilst she was still here lol!) and so he knows something is up.

HOwever.

And in other news.

Today is a year since J phoned me at 5ish to ask if he could come over.  He's never really gone back since.  And yes, a year ago tomorrow was 9 months since Rich died, and it was so significant because I lost our last baby just after his Celebrations, and I had a vague hope in the back of my mind - what if it was twins, and that was only one, and the other one is a hidden baby like my cousins, and what if.... well, you get the idea.
Anyway.  April 2010 is a remarkable month to read all in one go, because of the way that the desolation turns to hope.  Neither of us was expecting to ever feel this way, let alone be living together a year later.  There were times when we felt bad for our happiness - after all, without someone dying, and AC being left bereft, we wouldn't be this happy.  But then I remember that Rich always said he would be dead by 34, and he was.  Always.  From the day I met him.  Weird, but true.

SO anyway.  A year. *smiling*

Loving Rich's work with this one.  He always said he would never leave us alone.  We thought he'd be living here with us for a lifetime, but no.  But he and God, they kept their promises.  We are not alone, and the fatherless and the widow have been upheld.  Can't ask for more than that really.....

Today I must do college work, find the floor in the Adorable-but-messy Child's room, ice a cake with someone elses 6 year old, ice a cake for us, make tea, and generally be relaxed and chilled.  I have to!

With any luck, I'm also going to cut out some squares for a very simple quilt, in heavy material, for flying and going out and picnics and so on.  But if not, there's always next week!