I wrote an essay for Romper about my son’s picky eating that came out last week. (Read it here, fwd to a friend to save a life!) For so long, I didn’t use the p-word for fear that speaking it aloud would make it so. Pickiness was beyond venial to me. Might my son become an addict? Sure, maybe! Can’t outfox the genes! Might he vote GOP? Why not. Alex P. Keaton effect. But he was not going to be picky just as he was not going to be the kind of person who leaves a Starbucks empty on the towel shelf at Target.
Ha ha ha.
I am no longer embarrassed that one of my children is picky. I am embarrassed that it took me thirtysome years to have empathy for picky eaters of all ages. I don’t mention it much because I don’t want to give more oxygen to any of these attitudes than is already out there but I used to be a real dick about parenting! Back when I was a perfect parent, which is to say, before I had any children!! I remember when I was 18 working at a full-service car wash, vacuuming crushed Teddy Grahams out people’s disaster breeder minivans and wondering where it all went wrong for them.
I now own a disaster breeder minivan and it is a point of great pride for me. The seats fold all the way down flat! I am Alexander. No worlds left to conquer.
Anyway, I was nervous to put the piece out there because as much as I don’t hesitate to put my kids’ business out there on THIS HERE newsletter platform and on Twitter, which in my sweet simple mind is my personal property, haha, unleashing it into indelible internet memory felt more complicated! In winter 2020, I wrote about my experience hiring a sleep consultant for the same spirited child. I felt weird about that too but we were broke and needed a dishwasher and I was paid nearly the exact amount at which our Bosch compact dishwasher retails, the only dishwasher that would fit within our narrow midcentury kitchen cabinetry. We love her. I hope Desi understands someday!
My other hesitation is that I know there is a prevailing cultural belief that it is on parents as individuals (let’s be real, moms) to take on labor to optimize our children (read Edan Lepucki on this plz). I can’t express to you the tremendous high I felt when I finally unfollowed the extremely benign “kidseatincolor” account last year. I guess I assumed that people who are still following a bunch of kid nutrition accounts trying to Charlie-Day-red-string-meme together a better eating life for their kid would be mad. How dare I opt out???
The person that I am imagining here, the hater, is clearly just a mirage of my former self. The feedback I got was just lovely and I appreciate it so much. Thank you for reading and sharing.
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Five summers ago, I was watching the Rio games from a hotel room. Just absolutely zooted on the freedom and glamour of being in….Toronto, Ontario. Lol ok probably it was the bitter room coffee I was downing and that I had recently weaned my baby, and that baby was a whole international border away from me and I had slept that morning until I naturally opened my eyes.
The first six months of Desi’s life were easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done and on the other side of that experience, I was cranked on my own power. I would think things like, “I have a baby and a Master’s degree and you can’t tell me what to do” in work meetings where people were very much in a position to tell me what to do. Then I would go home early for no reason. You couldn’t tell me shit. It was weird! I still don’t care about work (oops) but I very much feel my limitations all the time. For a few months in 2016, everything felt possible and nothing at all mattered.
Anyway, I was in this head space when I was watching the Rio games in a robe and decided it was not impossible for me, then 30, to become an Olympian. If I picked a sport that was new or unpopular among my countrypersons maybe, I could commit to intensive training and qualify for the 2020 USA Women’s….I don’t know, Archery Team. Shooting of some type? I wouldn’t medal, please be serious. But I would be there! I can’t overstate how serious I was about this for about 90 minutes.
I will not be representing Team USA in Tokyo this year, which you might have seen coming! I remembered my brief but intense Olympic dream this morning as I was driving home from the gym, feeling more strong and athletic than I have in years despite being all veiny and pregnant. “Making it to the gym frequently and getting enough sleep is my Olympics” is a thought I had earnestly from my disaster breeder minivan.
I have recently come under the delusion that I am going to “get something done” before I 3D print this next baby and then surrender the following year to survival. Josie Duffy Rice introduced me to the Most Dangerous Writing App on Twitter, an app that deletes your progress if you do not make a keystroke for 5 seconds. Maybe a draft of something will have to come from these short bursts of adrenaline and terror if it is to ever happen. You know, like an Olympian.
yr mate,
Evie
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