The Most Surprising Moments From Last Week

Fact: my daughter is a picky eater. This is not news to me, nor should it be to you, if you've been following along. Former speculation that has now become a proven fact: she is also a wild card.

Last week, Dawson and I packed a picnic dinner to take to the park. We were cutting up green peppers for a snack for ourselves, not expecting Thumper to give them even one glance. But then my wild card just flat-out asked for a slice. Say what now? Dawson eagerly handed her a piece while I stared wide-eyed, with my jaw on the floor. She only ate three bites before deciding that was enough, but still. My heart soared knowing that she was even willing to try. It gave me hope.

A few days later, I felt energized enough to give this vegetable thing another go. Beside the three bites of green pepper, Thumper hadn’t eaten much anything in the way of veggies for at least a couple months. So I plunked some cooked zucchini in front of her (she used to love this stuff) and hoped for the best. I was met with Thumper’s best screams for the following fifteen minutes. After begging and threatening like the Supernanny nightmare I had become in those heated moments, I finally asked Thumper if she would prefer to eat with a spoon or fork. Mid-wail, she stopped, thought about it and then asked for a fork. I gave her one, and she ate the whole bowl of zucchini, then a second and a third. WHAT THE EFF? Was it really that easy? Was that the one step I’d been missing this whole damn time? Whatever. I don’t care because it’s what’s working now and I feel like a good enough chunk of my sanity has been returned.

For most of Thumper’s life, I’ve severely tried to restrict junk food (for her, not me, of course.) It’s not that I really care if she has some cookies or ice cream here and there, but considering her meal choices are limited and not always the healthiest and even those are usually touch-and-go, why bother giving her sweets to fill up on? It’s hard enough on days when she isn’t stuffing her face with cookies and such. But lately, I've started to ease up. For one, because my mom and mother-in-law each get a full day to spoil her every week and I have pretty much no control over what she eats. And two, to be honest, the kid wore me down and I needed to start caring less in order to survive. I was so invested and so worried that it was starting to kill me. So now treats have become sort of regular in our house, and of course, just as I was coming to terms with that fact, the guilties kicked in and I started to fret that I was ruining a perfectly good child with horrible food. Then a wonderful thing happened. One day, Thumper was halfway done a cookie when she handed it back to me and said ‘I all done.’ I thought maybe it was a test because what kid isn’t going to finish a friggin’ cookie and tried to give it back but she looked at me like I was crazy and said ‘I not want it. You eat it.’ So I stuck it in my mouth and waited for her to cry and ask for it back, but she just smiled and asked if it was good. So I chewed. And it was good.

So what did I learn from all this? Well, for one thing, giving my child junk food will not automatically kill her. And neither will letting her go two months without any real vegetables. For another, she is capable of deciding when she’s had enough food, whether its sweets or veggies. But more importantly, putting so much pressure on what she would and wouldn’t eat only made her more determined to do the exact opposite of what I wanted. It’s a lesson I hear other moms talk about all the time. Hell, I even learned about that when I was eight watching that episode of Step by Step where Carol forbids Dana to marry that surfer she meets while they’re on vacation in Hawaii and Frank has to remind Carol that the more she tells Dana not to do something, the more she will want to do it. So yeah, I always knew that if I acted nonchalant about food, then there was a better chance that she’d choose to eat some on her own. But it’s so much easier said than done. I was totally incapable of detaching myself enough from her eating habits to be nonchalant until the situation wore me down so much that I just gave up for awhile altogether, resolving to try again when I had the heart to do it. And that’s when the green pepper thing happened. Of course it did. It’s just like when you lose your passport, or your favourite necklace. The minute you give up and stop looking, that’s when you come across what you were searching for. It’s like this odd reward for quitting. It’s another one of those ass-backwards law of the universe. I get it, universe. I get it. You win. YOU ALWAYS WIN, YOU GREEDY BITCH.

But Thumper is eating vegetables again, so maybe we’ll call it a tie.

-Alice

Things I'd Tell My Former Self

My friend Leslee* has this blog where she writes letters to her future self about her current life. It’s a blog full of hilarity, zombie references and general awesomeness. It’s also one of my weekly sources of inspiration, which this week manifested itself into today’s post where I decided to write a letter to my ten year old former self.

Dear Former Alice,

There are many things I have to say to you. Such as, HI! And, who told you blue eye shadow worked on you? And more importantly, no matter what anyone tells you, side ponytails are your friend. Wear it, work it, and be proud. Now that that’s out of the way, we can move on to the more serious topics...

Your parents are the greatest people on earth

Your parents love you very much, despite the fact that you turned them into sleepless zombies and watched Olsen Twin movies non-stop for at least four years. They work hard to give you basically everything you ask for and they rarely call you on the fact that you are always the instigator in the fights with your siblings. They also let you watch Beverly Hills 90210 with them. Stop being whiny and angsty and tell them you love them every day. And start eating your peas at dinnertime, dammit. I know they don’t teach you about karma in Catholic school, but just because you don’t know about it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t know about you. And trust me, karma is coming for you in the form of a blue-eyed, pint sized monster-princess named Thumper.

Those boys aren’t worth it

There will be boys in your life that will break your heart and whose hearts you will break. That’s okay because it’s a part of life and it’s going to help shape you into the person you are meant to become. But there will be other boys in your life that will come and go, boys who don’t really matter at all. So don’t let them make you think you aren’t worthy of happiness and greatness, and don’t ignore your friends to impress them or spend time with them. And don’t believe them when they tell you that fairy tales aren’t real because one day a very special boy will come into your life and turn your world upside down. It will be the best thing that ever happens to you and it will prove that you don’t ever have to settle for less than you deserve.

Write a movie called Mean Girls

In about ten years, the smartest and most hilarious woman in the history of life is going to write a movie called Mean Girls. She will say it’s based on a book called Queen Bees and Wannabes, but in reality it will be based off of your life right now. You need to stop being such a bitch. You might think what you’re doing is protecting yourself from the same type of scrutiny, but you are just being mean. So stop it. And then write about it, but make sure to change all the names. Feel free to use “Regina George,” “Cady Heron,” and “Aaron Samuels” instead. And use actors from Saturday Night Live to round out the cast. Oh, and most importantly, make sure by the end of filming you have become best friends with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. DO NOT FORGET THIS STEP!

Choose hairdressers wisely

You know that haircut that some kids have where it looks like someone placed a bowl over their head and cut around it? Yeah. Don’t let that happen to you again. That was bad. Very, very bad. Also, don’t wear belly shirts because no matter how good Jennifer Aniston and Britney Spears will make them look in a couple of years, they will only make you look like a stupid, baby slut. And when those conductor style overalls show up in your closet, leave them there. Maybe bury them under something. Or better yet, burn them. Nothing good can come from striped overalls. And nothing good did come of them, believe me.

Now, in the spirit of positive reinforcement, and because Ellen DeGeneres tells us at the end of every show to be kind to one another, I’ll tell you about some of the things you will get right:

• You will decide to grow out your bangs in the sixth grade. Finally. 
• There’s a dress you’ll buy during the break between grade 10 and 11. It will be the reason why your friends will refer to that summer as the “summer you got hot.” Thank you, Bootlegger, for your dark denim, halter-style, life-changing dress.
•  Similarly, you’ll buy a purple bubble dress in college. Great choice. That is a hot dress and it will serve you well. Oh, but when your friend (who will later become the Social Caterpillar) borrows it, tell her not to let Mr. Caterpillar put it in the dryer and shrink it. Because that was a sad day. 
• You will be part of the 2005-06 Cheer Sport Sharks open level team that wins first place at PCA Nationals. You will reference this win for the rest of your life to remind your friends and family that you were, at one point, a mother effing NATIONAL CHAMPION! (You will also rub it in your future blog partner’s face because you will compete against her to take the title, even though you won’t figure this out until you meet her six years after the fact.)
• You will be a fan of the TV show LOST. This show will pretty much be the greatest thing that has ever existed. It won’t just be the best thing since sliced bread. It will be better than sliced bread.
•  You will wait until LOST comes out on DVD to watch the series in its entirety and this will help stave off the curiosity-induced mental breakdown you would’ve experienced if you had to watch it over six years like everyone else, waiting months at a time to find out what the hell was in that hatch and to see if Kate would finally choose between Jack and Sawyer. Watching seven one-hour episodes in a single night is more your style.  

And the number one thing you will ever do right is this:

• You will call the number left on a napkin by a boy who looks eerily similar to James Van Der Beek and has an affinity for helicopters.

All my love and side ponytails,

Future Alice

P.S. Also, don’t get too attached to Lance Bass from N*SYNC. Turns out he is gay. Who knew?

*What I mean when I say “friend” is that she was a year behind me in college and dated a friend of mine (the super awesome party time Maxx Nitro of The Melting Sky fame) for awhile. Over the course of our college experience we spoke maybe five words to each other. Then a few years later she started a blog and I was like, I need to be this girl’s best friend. I settled for groupie status. What? It works for us.