The Pica* Factor

Justin and I realized pretty early on that we had some sort of prodigy eater on our hands. While others were struggling with the strained carrots, Jaxon was blazing through the mashed varieties of goodness that baby food had to offer him. He would scarf down jars and jars of processed meats and vegetables without even a turn of the head. I really thought he was normal in his eating behaviors, it being my first parenting experience and all. The bizarre consumption capabilities of my child became apparent to me when I kept telling all my friends with children about the miracle of tofu. "Yeah, guys, its great. You just buy the soft tofu, cut it into cubes, and feed it to them whenever. Jaxon loves it. Its cheap, Its good. You should definitely try it." My friends would look at me like I was crazy and reluctantly buy their poor unknowing children the colorless, tasteless, glob of tofu because "its amazing stuff, kids love it!". Every single person came back with a " Jaxon is a freak! My kid wouldn't even let that shit hit their lips"

So it started to become apparent that MY child was the weird one. He ate EVERYTHING. We would take him to Uchi and he would fight us for the food. He always got his own little sliced fruit and tofu dish, but apparently it wasn't good enough. He wanted the scallops, the mackerel, the maplewood-smoked baby yellowtail with yucca chips and asian pears and marcona almonds and garlic brittle, the yellowtail sashimi with ponzu,
and orange slices, the roasted porkbelly with granny smith apples. We quickly learned how to guard or food...
He eats salsa, tacos, fish, chorizo, sausage, duck, brussel sprouts, beats, carrots, celery, literally ANYTHING we give him.

Bodhi, on the other hand, will only eat Fruit Leather.

So today I went to HEB, again, I know! It was HOT, freaking 190 degree's hot! The last thing I wanted to do was cook dinner after spending nearly 2 hours pushing a cart with one bum wheel around and around and around the store. I really wanted some sushi. I don't do HEB sushi. Call me snob, call me spoiled, call me what you will, I don't care. I hate HEB sushi. Every time I've been so inclined to buy some I'm always disappointed. ALWAYS! So why, when I passed by the HEB sushi cart thing, did I decide it was a good idea to buy some Sushi? Because the heat had melted all my rational thought and it had seeped out through the sweat between my cleavage, that's why. So I go with a Philadelphia roll and a Veggie roll. I figured it was the last scary of what they had to offer? Right? WRONG!

So Jaxon and Bodhi had PB&J for dinner while I unloaded the groceries. Jaxon ate his PB&J, Bodhi's PB&J, a handful of tomatoes, cantaloupe, a peach, 5 carrots, some leftover pita chips, and the butt of the bread loaf because *gasp* how dare I throw away the bag of bread with the nasty 1 piece of squished butt bread left in it. He made sure to pull it out of the trash and save it from a near death garbage experience by shoving it down his already full mouth of South Beach Diet Peanut Butter Protein Bar.

Typically if I decide to eat something after I've fed Jaxon dinner but before bedtime, I have to hide in the laundry room, feverishly shoveling whatever goodness I've decided to scarf down in the 4 seconds that I have until Jaxon realizes that I have left the room and busts me. Its fun.

Today, I'm feeling brave. I bust out my HEB sushi like its something amazing and gently place it on the island in the kitchen. Jaxon and Bodhi are playing some kind of, shove the baby under the blanket on the couch until Mom gets mad and yells, game. I figure I'm safe to get a bite in. I start to pull off the "best before" sticker (isn't that joke). Jaxon hears the almost silent rip of the paper and comes running into the kitchen "What are you eating?" I tear open my soy sauce packet, poor it into my plastic lid. "Why you got Chinese food?" I bust open my chopsticks and go in. I take my first bite, it awful. The quality of the "tuna" perhaps it was even "Salmon", I don't know, is somewhere between Luby's fried fish and Long John Silvers fish platter...yet it's raw. So I use my chopsticks to poke out the "fish". I then ate the Philadelphia roll sans tuna/salmon slathered in wasabi to hide all flavors of "fish" it once had, and bathed it in the saltiness of soy sauce. (I'm thinking I might forward this blog to the HEB marketing rep, they may want to hire me. I think I could be good for buisness.)

So I finished it all. Every single piece. I felt so ashamed afterward. I wanted to go hide in my bedroom and cry until tomorrow. It was that bad.

So all I had left were the tiny pieces of tuna/salmon, a mound of wasabi, and a mound of ginger. Jaxon is now pulling at my shirt, asking for "a piece of my suchhhiiii, Puuuuullllleeeeeaaaaassseeeee"

In an attempt to protect our food from being eaten by Jaxon, Justin and I have developed defense mechanisms. One of these I like to refer to as, The "Pica"* Factor. In order to protect our plates we began telling Jaxon that whatever we had was spicy, "pica" if you will. It could be a peach freaking cobbler, but it's a spicy peach cobbler dammit! However, it didn't take long for him to catch on. He now makes it known to Justin and I that he has absolutely NO PROBLEM with spicy food. I can see in his eyes that he isn't the biggest fan of spicy foods, yet he will suck it up and pretend like its the best thing in the world. He will go as far as pretend that something is not spicy in order to get more. So tonight, I told him that the mound of wasabi was spicy. And Sho 'enuff, he went right for it. The second time, I had to get the camera. And this people is what I have to deal with....

Oh and notice how he yells at Bodhi "BoBo" for drinking his water. He knows its going to be bad. He knows he's going to need a chaser. He even made sure to fill his water glass up before taking his second bite. Yet he STILL eats the glob of wasabi sitting on top of the nasty tuna/salmon.

Its all an intervention in the making.

*Pica- Not to be confused with the Medical disorder in which mostly children consume non-nutritive foods such as clay, chalk, soap, etc. "Pica" is a Mcallen term meaning hot or down right spicy. Usually used in reference to items such as jalapeno's, chorizo, or diet rite.