Battle Zone

Our kitchen table has become a battle zone. I have a 4 year old that won’t eat…anything besides pizza. H can really put away the pizza, but everything else is a fight. I tell myself before every meal Mary, don’t make this a fight. But I do. He won’t eat, or he says, “I’m still chewing!” He puts food in his mouth chews twice then just holds it in his cheeks. I start trying to make it a game, then I count, and I threaten taking away his after dinner cookie, but nothing works. I am frustrated and to be honest…angry.


Sharing a meal, sharing a basic need should bring us closer. It is not supposed to be a battle. I want to sit down, and talk to my boys. How did I get so off-track?

Suppertime, when I was still living at home, was my favorite time of day. We would sit down, eat, and sometimes end up sitting there for hours, talking. We talked about everything. We told stories, we teased each other, we talked science, we talked history, we talked. Even now, when I go to my parents, I look forward to meal time, because everyone stops, sits and talks.

I have no delusions; I know that I created this battle. I have no one else to blame. Since they were babies, I have worried that they weren’t eating enough. Since the first time I held L to feed him I’ve been stressed.

When D went off to basic training, then to AIT (Advanced Individual Training) we knew that he would be gone for a while. L was 6 months old, and since I had no job holding me in the town where we lived, Baby L and I moved in with my parents. Everything went smoothly, for the most part, I missed D and even though I was grateful for the support of my parents, I didn’t want to be parented. I WAS a parent. Just a month after we moved in, I noticed that L looked pale. The doctor said he was fine, but even then I expressed my concern about not producing enough milk. He said not to worry. L didn’t get any better, so one day he and I drove 3 hours to go to our old pediatrician, who put him on a scale and he had lost 4 pounds. When you only weigh 17 to begin with, 4 is a lot. I was devastated, because I knew that it was my fault. The stress of moving in with my parents, and D being gone, had completely dried up my milk, and I didn’t notice. This was my fault. To make matters worse, he would not take a bottle or cup, he wouldn’t suck. I fed my baby boy for 3 months with a medicine dropper, before he finally mastered the sippy-cup.

I see that since that time, I’ve made this fight. Meal after meal, I created this dynamic that we are locked in now. One part of me says relax, he will eat when he is hungry. The other part of me says, Mary, you idiot, don’t you remember how you almost starved your baby. So I go to battle. I am still fighting for those 4 pounds.