Eat This

We can tell if we are a little late feeding my son's dog.  She begins to loudly wail, "Ooooooo". It sounds for all the world like she is saying fooooooood. Once he feeds her she is happy again.

My family has demonstrated some odd eating habits over the years.

My oldest son was two years old. I had made pot roast for supper. It was one of my husband's favorite meals.

We all sat at the table to eat. I served my son and put his plate in front of him. He was sitting in a high chair but without the tray on it so he was at the table with us. My husband had filled his plate with a nice healthy portion of everything and was preparing to dig in.

My son stood up suddenly and urinated directly into his father's plate!

Of course his father was furious. To this day I have no idea why my son did that. It was obvious that he was aiming successfully.

My mother had a birthday party for my oldest brother's first birthday. I was barely a year older than he was so I only know what my mother said about the day.

It had been a busy afternoon for a one year old. After playing and opening gifts he was getting so tired. Time for ice cream and cake.

My brother was in his high chair. He was so very tired. But he loved cake. Mom put his cake and ice cream on the tray of his high chair and he went at it. But he was so tired.

My brother needed to be cleaned up and put to bed but he wanted to finish his cake first. Mom looked up at him and he was sitting there trying to keep his eyes open. He was too tired to chew. So he just put the cake in his mouth and tried to poke it down his throat with his fingers.

My third son was a good eater. But he had a weird way of eating. I would put him in his high chair and give him his food.

My son would take a nice handful of food and run it through his hair. Apparently if his hair liked it he would eat it. His hair liked everything.

My youngest brother was an extremely fussy eater. There was not much that he would eat. He did not like hot dogs for instance. But he loved to wrap them tightly in aluminum foil whenever we barbecued. Then he would toss them onto the charcoal. As the hot dog heated and expanded it would cause the whole package to explode.

What my brother took to school for lunch (no school lunch for him) was a sandwich. The sandwich consisted of one leaf of lettuce and two slices of bread. Nothing else.

I was a good big sister. I had to be... there were six more after me. I always helped with my little brothers and sisters.

My oldest brother was a year younger than I was. One day my mother heard him crying and making choking noises. She ran into the kitchen to check on him.

Mom saw my brother in his chair with maggots running from his mouth. I was busy playing "Mommy" with a jar of baby food I had pulled from the trash. It was full of maggots and I was shoving it into his mouth. I was a good big sister.

I had my own idiosyncrasies. I loved tomato soup. It was a good lunch for me and Mom fed it to me often. But I would have nothing to do with ketchup.

Then I changed my mind. I would not eat tomato soup but I did like ketchup. But if Mom told me it was ketchup soup I ate it all.

My oldest son still does not like different foods touching each other on his plate. He wants his meat here, potatoes over here, and vegetable over there. He is close to 50 years old now. At least he can take care of the placement of his food all by himself.

When my youngest son was small he liked to have a slice of bread as a snack. Don't ask. I have no idea why.

The problem was that he would wad the bread slice into a ball and shove the whole thing into his mouth. Then he would sit there and gag on it.

I was playing cards with friends one day when my son wadded up his bread. One woman said, "Emma! He's choking!" I looked at him and said. "So he is." He spit the wadded bread out of his mouth and I picked it up and threw it away.

My second grandson is a funny eater. He has always followed a low carb diet. It was instinctive for him.

If we went out for breakfast he ordered pancakes. Not low carb you say? He did not want syrup, butter, or jam on them. He would take each pancake and peel it open. Then he would eat the doughy center and leave the rest.

He does the same with grilled cheese sandwiches. He peels the bread away from the cheese and eats only the the cheese. Weird kid.

My father liked what was strange food as far as we were concerned. He loved oyster soup. I thought it looked icky. He liked pickled pigs feet. They also looked icky. Children rely on the look of foods.

My father's favorite treat was pickled herring. Living in Nebraska it was not something he could get often and it was quite expensive. It came in round tins. It looked like one long flat icky thing to us. I remember him chasing us through the house one time trying to get us to try it. We were screaming. "Ew, ew". He was laughing with glee.

How do you treat your food?