Tuesday, October 22, 2019

My Foodie

I think that if we could condense the term to only include certain choices, then we could label Bradley a foodie.  My kid is a fiend for pizza.  Saturday when the boys were having their dude weekend, Dad ordered pizza.  At one point, Bradley grabbed Dad’s hand, led him to the kitchen and pointed to the pizza.  He was ready to eat.  Tonight he was insistent that we go into the garage, we couldn’t figure what he wanted but when we handed him his Speech iPad, he found pizza.  Haha, that’s right, we usually keep the leftover pizza in the fridge in the garage.

He has a small list of other favorites: lemon pudding, diced peaches, and a Fiber One Chocolate Chip Cookie Bar.  The cookie bar might be on its way out though, turns out when they changed the box, they also took 20 calories from the previous 90 calorie bar and now they are a tiny bit more crumbly then he likes.  More than mom likes actually.  Crumbly food is harder for him to handle, just like he can’t really handle soup - he can’t separate the liquid from the solid in soup.  But if I dip bread in it, he’ll eat a whole bowl.

Recently, he has figured out that he loves mini vanilla wafers.  He also loves these chips called All-Dressed, they are vinegar and barbecue.  And sometimes when the strawberries are in season, he’ll eat them for days then ignore them for days and go back and forth wanting and not wanting them.  What is interesting about Bradley is the consistent love of his core food, the food we can always come back too.  He may choose to not eat his pudding for a couple days, maybe even his peaches, but always he returns to his core.  Strawberries aren’t really in that core group yet, but strawberry banana smoothies sure are.  

Eating out has a dual purpose in our house.  The distraction of being out and about is often just what Bradley needs in order to help him be willing to try new foods, or even favorites that he won’t eat anywhere else but away from home.  One restaurant we can go to and he’ll eat Mac n cheese.  At another, it’s spaghetti or fettuccine...and definitely the bread part. If I could figure out how to encourage him to eat as much at home as he does out, we would save money and I would feel really heroic.

We keep trying every night, I use an Instant Pot, for convenience and making life easier overall, but also because we eat a lot of chicken, so the chicken from the Instant Pot is so incredibly tender that when I do get Bradley to eat, I know it is soft enough that he can eat it safely.  Sometimes I make chicken and peppers over rice...I can’t always get him to eat the chicken, but I usually have success with the peppers.  He really likes the colors or the flavors; maybe both, so we eat it a lot.  The other day I tried barbecue chicken and was so surprised and thrilled that instead of his usual couple bites he was loving the chicken and ate quite a bit.  I tried left overs the next day, and he wasn’t interested in the slightest.

So he’s either a foodie or a snob, potentially a little of both.  His life controls him for the most part.  But in his control are his determination upon whether or not he will be potty trained today and whether or not he’s going to be eating the dinner that mom just made.  There is some power struggle that happens between Bradley and us for sure.  He will often choose to ask only for Popsicles, and for awhile we really had To fight over those dumb things.  But lately, he is less interested in Popsicles; in fact, he will take his Popsicle, suck all the juice out of it and the leave the ice-icicle sitting on the table while he walks away.

He’s a fickle kid when it comes to food.  What he likes today he may not like tomorrow.  And for every time he eats something when we are out and about we have a fifty/fifty chance he might eat it again.  Certainly makes life interesting, fascinating, and certainly frustrating all at once.  And such is life with Bradley, always.

Welcome to the daily puzzle of Bradley.  The 31 For 21 Blog Challenge - understanding the challenges of Bradley.

Have a great night all.  



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