It's Been At Least A Week Since I Bitched About This...

The Boy and his eating.

He kills me.

I could end the post right there but I won't. I need to vent. We went to his gastro doc on Friday for a weight check (we do that every three months). He had lost almost a pound from three months ago and didn't grow at all in height. He is still on the charts but literally by the skin of his teeth. He is below the 3rd percentile. His doc said if he didn't gain again in three more months he would definitely be off the chart again. Which I probably don't need to tell any of you is a bad thing.

So we discussed his pediasure intake (2 a day in the morning) and how he is still pretty much doesn't eat lunch at all at his new school and decided it was definitely time to put him back on the medicine. So I started him back this weekend with a half a dose and he was a mess. Tired and lethargic and weepy. It was pretty hard to watch. He doesn't understand why he feels fine one day and then like crap the next. I understand and I hate to have to see him suffering the side effects of his medication but at the same time...JUST EAT!! Is isn't that simple. I get it. But it is so frustrating I can't even put it into words. What I wouldn't give to have a child that just gets hungry and eats. Plus as he gets older it is becoming more and more apparent that he is about half the size of the other kids his age. People are going to start to make fun of him soon and I desperately don't want that to happen. Sigh...

Last night at dinner I almost lost it. I gave him his favorite: Kraft Mac and Cheese. Not a kid on the planet that doesn't like that, right? Well he ate about two bites (literally) and then started to sing and play and watch the fish tank and talk to his sister and basically do anything and everything BUT eat. So after his sister and I finished dinner I told him he was all done and he could get down. But here's the kicker. My grandmother had come over earlier and given him a large peppermint patty that he wanted for dessert. I never make him "finish his plate." Ever. I don't want to be that parent. But if he wants dessert he has to eat a certain amount. So he started crying and screaming that he wanted his dessert. I told him he had to finish his dinner if he wanted to eat that. So he cried that he wanted it back and I gave it back to him. He then told me "I am very angry with you Mommy." And in general just started being an ass. As if for some reason I am the evil food police who has forced him to do some horrible thing!!!

Just eat your damn food kid. Or don't. Frankly at this point I don't really give a crap. Either be done and get down or eat. It isn't rocket science. He bitched and moaned and cried but he ate every single bite of that mac and cheese simply because he wanted his peppermint. So the end result was fine. But he ruined my dinner time. Again. I don't like fighting with him. I don't like begging him to eat. I don't like having him treat me like I am such an asshole simply because I would like to sit down to the dinner table and enjoy dinner with my two children. I don't like spending the time disciplining him (not for not eating but for being rude and using "bad words" and saying things like he was going to go and get a "shooter gun and shoot Mommy" because I am giving him the option of eat or get down). It is exhausting.

I know there isn't much I can do about this. I am not necessarily looking for advice, I am just venting. I know there are people with kids that have problem MUCH worse than mine and I am grateful we have come this far with our health issues. But man...sometimes I wish I had a kid who would simply get hungry, sit down at the table and eat. But that probably isn't going to ever happen.