Feeding Ollie - INTRODUCTION

O.K., let me tell you what I don’t want to hear from any of you: “….my kids just eat whatever my husband & I are eating…and that’s that! No special meals for anyone!”

Fine. I am thrilled that this is working in some households but I can tell you that over the course of 20 years and 5 kids who are now between 10 and 20, I have walked a few miles in my own shoes from the kitchen to the dining room and I have no interest in sharing my husband’s or my food with those kids at this time, just to toss it into the garbage 30 minutes later.

When I had the luxury of time with my first child, I labored over a food mill, turning carrots and rutabagas into magic baby veggie-potions, I baked brown barley bread, I made organic Greek Yogurt…all for that perfect baby. He ate whatever I made, smiling sweetly at me. It spelled h-a-p-p-i-n-e-s-s. I was a GOOD MOTHER, accomplished, a woman with a purpose in the kitchen.

Then I had those other kids and Ollie is my fifth, the baby of the family. He is now 10. He pretty much only eats chocolate.

We need help…but not the scolding kind. We need a FOOD MIRACLE.

Ollie has food aversions. He is my worst eater right now. He is bone thin and pale, but enthusiastic about life in spite of the fact that he was diagnosed with Asperger’s, OCD and dyslexia when he turned 8. That’s when his food quirks started making sense to us and mostly because of our 2^nd child, now 17, our severely autistic son who completely greased the skids for us regarding food aversions as they relate to the autism spectrum by eating only a very few specific foods for years and who had never had a vegetable until he started liking tomoto soup at the age of 14 (he has tomato soup pretty much every night now). For the first 7 years of this life or so, he lived on starbursts and Pizza. Gluten free diet trends were just starting to pop up as a link to recovery for autism and although I believe that this certainly worked for some kids (and I happen to be gluten/wheat free myself) this would have been torture for my kids and way too expensive to pull off over the years…which is not to say that I don’t still flirt with the notion of turning it all around some day by slaying the wheat demons that lurk among us...although I also know that there are simply kids who are more severely autistic than others - this is obvious - and not all kids will respond in the same way to anything. I presented my autistic son, so long ago, with bricks of dry, tasteless bread and he simply did not get it; try to explain the advantages of a gluten free regimen to an easily agitated non-verbal child…not my idea of a party, especially when that brick costs $5.99 and it molds before anyone takes more than one bite. I know that gluten free products have evolved tremendously since those early rock hard imposter-loaves but at this point my kids have all tasted the very broad world of main-stream American treats and I might have to chain them down to completely change how we go about it now; it would have been almost do-able with one or two kids but 5 makes it more complex. Over the years, we got REALLY BUSY and had to PICK OUR BATTLES and those battles were not all going to be about the clean plate club or the food pyramid. Half the time we were simply trying to STABILIZE or SANITIZE those kids and that felt like GOOD-ENOUGH parenting. The irony though, and what keeps this at the top of my "CONFLICTS TO KEEP WORKING ON" list, is that I am one of the healthiest eaters on the planet; I am a strict vegetarian who eats abundant fresh veggies, berries, tofu...I brew my Kombucha...etc.

So there you have it and now for the purpose of the Ollie blog…I have invited Ollie to be a food critic…as long as he is living his life as the world’s pickiest eater, I have decided to embrace it and see where that takes us. My goal, ultimately: TRICK HIM INTO EATING HEALTHFULLY, but as a Mom who has disguised whole grain, Organic Toaster Pastries inside the “REAL” Pop-Tart boxes and been busted before he would even try one bite - even though it was frosted and "matched" his beloved Kellogs version - I am just a tad weary from my efforts.

Above is an image of many of the "staples" in Ollie’s diet. When the rest of the family has a Thanksgiving feast including vegetarian AND real-meat versions of the Turkey, Ollie looks forward to his own tradition of Chocolate Lucky Charms…for him it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it!

Stay tuned as Ollie taste-tests, compares and critiques what the planet has to offer and let’s see if we can get him to fall in love with (or just tolerate a nibble of) something that’s GOOD FOR HIM : ) 

Also see:http://topattytoruby.blogspot.com

Repurposed Nectarines

I kick myself in the butt, just a bit, for getting as excited as I do about the role fruit plays in the lives of my kids, especially for Ollie. He has had times when he has been particularly fond of one kind of fruit...but this is fleeting at best.

What happens, invariably, is that Ollie discovers the "BAD" parts of the fruit and this will trump anything that he ever liked about it previously...possibly forever.

Apples have to be peeled. Moms learn this quickly. Ollie has occasionally ASKED (???!!!?) for a GREEN apple to be peeled, sliced and spread with Peanut Butter. This is about as healthy as we get with this child although he only really wants this once in a blue moon.

Ollie was on earth for strawberries at one point...until he discovered that there is a white fleshy part where the leaves are pulled or cut off. This made him scrutinize this fruit and he was horrified to see that the entire inside of the strawberries look like this. He can no longer have strawberries.

Bananas are almost in the "safe zone" although the peel must be perfectly yellow with not one black-ish spot or mar of any sort. If we are lucky enough to happen upon a VIRGIN banana, Ollie needs to remove what he calls "the seed", which is the the slightly narrower, possibly dark nib at the very bottom tip of the banana flesh. If this "seed" is not visible, we still need to remove approximately 1/2 inch of the banana tip, just in case.

Ollie has an obsession with spots and will literally go into panic mode if he is within eyeshot of any lone item that may have "strayed" from the group of other "spots". The way this translates as one of the more DRAMATICALLY CHARGED food aversions in his repertoire is that he cannot SEE a single blueberry, small grape (although certain oversized grapes have been approved), or - worst-of all - a kernel of corn, let alone try to eat one. At this point, Ollie is actually allowed to eat alone in another room on the nights that we serve corn to the other children, in the event that one kernel become stray and accost his very spirit. Fine...more blueberries for me. More corn for the other kids.

I was extremely excited to see nectarines back in season and filled the fruit drawer with them a few weeks ago, remembering that these were Ollie's very favorite last year. I surprised him that night at dinner with a little dish of nectarines, cut up the way he likes them. And here is a picture of what they looked like, wrapped up and refrigerated a 1/2 hour later, after his complete rejection of them. With no explanation other than that he cannot eat them anymore, Ollie shook his head and pushed the dish away. Here is also a picture of those nectarines, repurposed as my delicious breakfast with yogurt and walnuts the next morning.

YUM! Thank you very much, Ollie!

Cheers, Ollie!!

I commiserate with Ollie when it comes to disliking water because I loathe it, myself. I can add things to it and tolerate it (lemon juice & sweetener, for example) but unless I've consumed an unusual amount of salt - which is rare, I have no interest in water. In fact I have to laugh just a bit when I see people hoisting a tank of water the size of a bus everywhere they go; seems like an unnecessary trend, a little over the top...which is NOT to say that I don't wish Ollie would LOVE water, crave it, beg for it, help himself to it. My 4 other kids drink plenty of water but if given a choice, they'd pick something else. Most nights at dinner, we put a tall pitcher of water on the table and refill everyone's glasses (5oz Dixie Cups - do these qualify?) as needed. Ollie gets a "Dipsie"cup - as he calls it - with Ocean Spray Light Cranberry Juice...which ends up being the drink I allow most consistently for him because it ends up being an O.K. deal, cost wise....and the other kids are not tempted by it which means there's actually some in the house for Ollie...

Another obvious plus of [tap]water is that it's affordable/free!!! I started, and then stopped, buying Tropicana Orange Juice a few years ago after my Mom turned my kids on to one of the super-pulp varieties during a visit and they started to BEG incessantly for it, thereafter. It was disproportionately costly, considering how FAST a ½ gallon would disappear (Trader Joe's Orange Juice tends to be a much better price...which means I'll spring for it more often). O.J., in general, never lasts more than just over an hour in our house because these kids are like gold-diggers, tipping each other off with real-time reporting of the refrigerator activity, and NEEDING to strike it RICH as often as possible. "There's Orange Juice!!!; "...there's Orange Juice?"; "...there's ORANGE JUICE!!!"...and then they do the flock-chug-empty routine that is their collective expertise. All in all, when I bring a much-coveted item into the house, it's as if I am declaring contraband to a throng of piranha customs officers in my front hall.

So the "approved" drinks in our house that are liked by all of the Piranhas are Chocolate Milk and Orange Juice. A few of them like Plain Milk and/or Cranberry Juice. With 5 kids refills should never be offered in one sitting if the supply is to last more than 10 minutes...but this isn't how it works...which is why water is still the smartest solution....oh, yeah...but then there's Ollie...

What they REALLY want, however, is SODA (aka "POP"); my kids foam at the mouth for it and probably more severely because of my refusal to buy it for home. Historically, they are allowed to order soda in restaurants and if they go with me to get groceries, they'll scrounge some change for the highpoint of all shopping excusions - the 25cent Soda machine at Copp's. You'd think they were at an Amusement Park...racing for that machine like they're getting in line for the BEST ride of their lives!! As fun as this is for them, I generally recoil from the idea of soda...see it as the epitome of empty calories and wasted money.

Enter ORANGINA...Orange Juice meets Soda...kind of...

This is not Juice as we know it, although it does boast a bit of pulp and zest, along with orange, lemon, grapefruit and mandarin juices...and while it is also not soda, it has a little FIZZ, a little FUN and the glass bottles have a whimsical shape and texture...lolli-pop-ish, bubbly... as well as no artificial colors of flavors; the whole thing adds up to DESIRABLE. Ollie LOVES it...wants it almost as much as Soda but I don't buy it as often as he wants me to. It's a special treat.

The question is, is it any better for him? I decided to check out the nutritional information to see if anything sticks out as a clear winner. I focused on the things that I typically scan the label for in a product - Protein, Sugars, Calories and the presence of High Fructose Corn Syrup between the following offerings (and I personalized the names):

8oz Drink  / Calories / Protein /  Sugars / High Fructose Corn Syrup

Chocollie     170         8             26          2^nd ingredient

Milk

(1% White    110        8              12          n/a

Milk)

Olliegina      100         0             26          2^nd ingredient

Ollie Juice    110         2             24          n/a

Cranollie      40           0             10          n/a

Juice

H2Ollie         0            0              0            n/a

My conclusion is this - because I am HFCS averse/paranoid, I'd pick Orange Juice (Trader Joes brand) and the Light Cranberry Juice over Chocolate Milk or Orangina; I was disappointed to see that Orangina has this as the second ingredient but I won't reject it completely. As I might have asserted prior to reading the labels, 1% Milk comes out better than any of them with the same Protein as the Chocolate variety and less sugar...except that Ollie goes hot and cold on White Milk...

Oh well.

Cheers, Ollie - here's to you, with the hopes that your DIPSIE-CUP runneth over!!

Half in the Bag

I’ll tell you why I REALLY look forward to summer; it’s not because I like the heat, and anyone who knows me knows that I’d rather do a Wisconsin winter over July anywhere, HOWEVER, I do my own subtle rejoicing as the end of May approaches simply because of the break I get from having to make school lunches.

It was much harder when the kids were even younger because we were making 4-5 different lunches a night, preparing ahead so that the mornings could be seamless and, above all, speedy. Historically, my kids didn’t like the public school’s hot lunches although they each had specific ones they would tolerate – never the same as anyone else on the same day though, and I remember pleading my way through an occasional night off from lunch-making, whining to a fourth grader “…but you used to LOVE that mac ‘n cheese lunch…..”

“Well I hate it now”.

Me, whining: “…but it comes with chocolate cake….” (this is SICK…I take full responsibility)

“Oh, alright….fine…if I have to…”

(I recall my friend Maggie telling me that her method for getting out of making lunches was that she and her husband would let her kids know that whoever would [be KIND ENOUGH to] choose HOT LUNCH would be the MOST LOVED KID…as in FAVORITE CHILD).

As soon as kids go to Middle School, their choices are much less like Hospital food and much closer to FAST FOOD – the ultimate kid-pleaser…this gives your average 11 year old a sense of gratification that can only come with “getting away with murder” on the nutritional front. I remember how I felt when I finally discovered that – yep – my kids who are currently in Middle School and High School have French fries every day. It’s a let down. I wish for more. I blame the schools. I blame my kids. I blame myself. I blame the French fries for being so DAMN GOOD. I blame everything and anything that could COMPETE with the French Fries and WIN but hasn’t figured out how to pull it off, yet. And, as other parents have discovered over time, we cannot BE THERE, WATCHING THOSE KIDS, MAKING THEM CHEW AND SWALLOW those fantasy lunches that we dream up in our “I-could-be-a-GREAT-MOM-if-they-would-just-listen-to-what-I-know-is-good-for-them” heads. And we all want them to eat “something”, right? How else would they have the energy to chew gum all day and come home famished? So French Fries it is.

Great. So, I have one kid who has NOT yet entered this 6^th. grade intro to food/french fry-orgy-at-school, and that’s OLLIE, my Food Critic (Criticizer) who, interestingly enough, has a slim list of foods he likes (kind of) that are also at least somewhat healthy, BUT, for reasons that I am unable to crack the code on, are REJECTED IMMEDIATELY, by default, if sent to school: strawberries (taste different at school), LIFE cereal, Cheerios, green apples with peanut butter (apples get brown, PB too messy), Morningstar Farms Vegetarian Sausage Links (wouldn’t work cold, anyway), bagels (have to be right out of the toaster, hot-steamy-hot), eggs (I could consider sending these hard boiled except that …I can’t…) plums (taste different at school), grilled cheese sandwiches, PB&J sandwiches (get too mushy and prefer them microwaved for 12 seconds and eaten outside). Hmmm.

Every other day or so, I ask my husband to make Ollie’s school lunch these days– not because it is so completely taxing for me to DO this on my own, but because it is truly depressing and baffling to pull off. It’s a head-scratcher. We send him with “Gushers” or “Fruit-by-the-Foot” for a snack and a couple oversized Pretzels for his lunch (or 2 Chocolate Rice Cakes – nutritionally close to styro-foam, although better than candy…). I try again and again - hoping that my FOOD MIRACLE has happened while he slept, asking "...would you eat one of [THESE] if I put it in your lunch bag?"

"Nope".

Anyway, Ollie’s lunch bags – (which are your classic paper bags, usually brown, although they have them in red, white, or blue also, these days) – are packed with as much love and devotion as we have the energy for, after doing this for what seems like a lifetime with 4 other kids, and typically I personalize the whole dang thing and draw a cartoon of Ollie on his bag OUT OF LOVE & GOOD MOTHERING : ) and yet…really these lunches are pathetic, a classic example of aiming-to-please-but-feeling-like-shit parenting – perfectly satisfying as far as Ollie is concerned, but lame…an exercise in minimalism…an attempt at NOT WASTING efforts and resources, as much as anything. In the past, we have thrown out ENTIRE lunches, not acknowledged, not opened, obviously and certainly not eaten…and this never fares well. So he has trained us, like good puppies, to do this his way…to make a lunch that is no more than what he can handle with his ga-zillion food aversions…to make what we believe he WILL eat, to supply SOME calories and a moment of engagement in the course of his school day…the lowest of all expectations on our part and yet…as always, with LOVE…

According to Ollie: Maple Syrup

The other day Ollie started BEGGING, again, for a specific food item. Remember, he eats almost nothing so I am always hopeful and immediately put my thinking cap on.

“AUNT JEMIMA MAPLE SYRUP!!!!! I just LOVE that…I gotta’ HAVE it, Mommy!” he pleaded.

But being the refrigerator inventory shark, I argued that we already have (among other glass bottles of PURE maple Syrup) an almost full bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s Maple Syrup that Ollie had begged for at another time in his consumer lifetime. Nope, that wasn’t going to cut it. “It has to be Aunt Jemima”.

I bought him a bottle. Maybe he’d try a whole grain waffle if he had the right syrup.

So I asked him to explain the difference between the 2 brands of syrup and our lil’ “food critic”: divulged the following:

·      I would have Aunt Jemima in the room with me…

·      …besides, she’s REAL! She really is…

·      …but I liked her better when she was fat (a sad face)

So, I asked why…and he compared the “cartoony” face, as he described her now, to the fatter face that she wore so many years ago, which “made her more REAL, like someone who would make pancakes for you”.

Good enough insight for me. Then he took me through the history of Aunt Jemima, as she was depicted throughout the span of her life as a branding icon – he had memorized the years as they correlated to her changing face (remember, he has Aspergers and this ends up being one of THE favorite activities – memorizing hoards of data).

Then he looked at the bottle of Mrs. Butterworth, almost like he felt sorry for her. “Mommy, she would FREAK me out if she was in the room with me…”

Really? Why?

“Look at her Mommy….she just would”.

Good point. I gazed at that bottle, sculpted into the surreal figure of the well known Butterworth (friend or foe? Not a relative…why is she even IN OUR KITCHEN???!!); as the syrup is used, her head and shoulders become clear, empty, lifeless…only a shell of the person she starts out to be…decidedly unappealing, certainly lacking the charm of the Honey-Bear bottle.

He convinced himself that Aunt Jemima tasted better but he couldn’t tell me why. And we did not do whole grain waffles. He ate Kellog’s Eggo Mini waffles separated into their little circles and placed on a plate like a flower, one circle in the center and the others surrounding it, smothered in Aunt Jemima syrup.

Bon appetit, Ollie!