Kids & Parenting

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©Lisa Barker

My oldest son is a large boy and will definitely be tall when he’s older. For now he’s an eleven-year old garbage disposal with legs.

I don’t know why I’m talking. I’m a two hundred pound woman that eats like a garbage disposal. I’m not fat yet, but I am fluffy.

Still, I can’t keep up with the boy. When he comes home from school he hoovers down a snack tray that would make a full-grown man proud due to the quantity: one bagel, an apple, some pistachios, some cheese, a soup cup, celery with peanut butter and a Popsicle.

“You know a snack is supposed to just get you from lunch to dinner. It’s something to tide you over,” I told him.

“Oh,” he laughs mildly as if I’ve told a real bad joke and he’s humoring me. “Can I have another piece of celery with peanut butter?”

Well at least it’s not McDonald’s.

I’m glad he’s eleven-years old. I don’t have to nurse him. I don’t think they make a bra that large for the milk I’d have to produce. I’d be known as the three-headed woman.

I almost earned that title when he was but a wee nursling. I had to give him a relief bottle just so I could be unattached for an hour a day. He thought it was dessert.

He’s never been a picky eater. He just never wanted baby food. It didn’t matter if it was homemade. He wanted what was on my plate. So I had to mash that right in front of him and give it to him. And how dare I eat anything from my own plate. If looks could kill....

That is probably when I developed the habit of eating in the shadows of the kitchen at night with the lights turned low, ducking behind the counter. I had to make up for all of my meals given to him. No doubt he smelled my indulgence on my breath when I kissed him good night. Maybe that’s why he refused to speak until he was two years old. He was giving me the silent treatment.

So now he’s in a growth spurt that will last him, oh, thirteen years or so. Yikes. I already spend more time at Super Max than I do in my own kitchen. Thank God for rotisserie chicken. When I shop I’m the mad woman buying up things that can be eaten right from the grocery sack.

“How was your dinner, son?”

“Great! But the outside was a little dry.”

“That’s called paper.”

He gives me that mild laugh again.

“No, really,” I say, following him to the freezer for dessert, “You just ate the grocery sack....”

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Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of "Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane...Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!" and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!


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