Medicine that won’t go down
It’s a common phenomenon for many of us with children on the spectrum – those pesky fine and gross motor skills, with a dash of scattered sequencing and a dollop of mis-matched motivation – a recipe for disaster if ever I heard one.
They come to the fore every mealtime to taunt and tangle with us. Although we persevere with cutlery my children insist that everything is finger food. Let’s be honest here, how many other parents, cooks and nutritionists also have to factor in ‘splash, spill and ping,’ distance into their calculations? But they keep getting bigger, so something must be reaching their intestines, one way or another. Just lately, it’s ‘another,’ because although they don’t conform to the conventional, they’re nothing if not inventive.
So if you find your dry Cheerios just refuse to co-operate with a fiddly spoon – this might prove to be a good alternative.
Sorry it’s been so quite around here lately but it’s a bit fraught with “Nonna.”
March 1st, 2010 at 3:19 am
This kinda flicks me on a raw place. My landlord came around a couple of days ago and did un-necessary yard work and weed chopping. I think he also stole my funnel, which I had parked in a Spanish Needle weed by the side of the house.
I have had to buy a funnel, so as to be able to put oil into the engine of my truck. Ah, at least my new funnel is made in the USA!
Oh, some funnel advice: If you are running dry things through a funnel, you need to get you a powder funnel. A powder funnel has its upper part conical, like all funnels, but the small part of it, the tubular part, is not tapered, but cylindrical, so that the dry things won’t pack up in there and jam it. My Mom used to keep a couple of these around the kitchen.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:36 am
I wonder if any of my children will ever use cutlery! Then again, it can be considered a weapon sometimes so I am not in any rush
Jen.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:08 am
I know the finger food scenario. Cutlery is hardly ever used. Unless it’s beans.
CJ xx
March 1st, 2010 at 6:42 am
oooh, never thought of threatening a food funnel, good one!
March 1st, 2010 at 6:55 am
I so relate to this! I feel like every other sentence out of my mouth at dinner time is, “Use your fork, please.”
March 1st, 2010 at 7:04 am
Everyone here can use a spoon without too many problems. (That took some doing for one of them.) Forks and knives are not used by everyone. And one has decided that a paring knife would be sooooo much better for cutting up his banana than the regular one, so we have to keep an eye on him and the knife drawer.
Oh, and the splash factor means everyone is a minimum distance from a wall.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:47 am
love it, and my kids would too. They prefer dry cereal in a baggie so it CAN be fingerfoods without hassle from mom.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:39 am
Chug! Chug! Chug! LOL @ your cheerio funnelling. Well, he’ll be over it by college, at least.
I like your artwork. Have you considered writing a short book with some pics?
March 1st, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Oh, yes, lol, pinkies creep towards plates in this house at meal times, too lol.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Are all you other commenters wimminz, or what? The kid’s solution of the problem seems perfectly reasonable to this borderline-autistic grumpy old solitary bachelor. I actually do have table manners, and employ them when eating in company, but as some famous person once said, “Fingers were invented before forks.”
P.s. It is impossible to eat fried chicken and enjoy doing so without using your fingers. And licking them.
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:02 am
my son could eat spaghetti, twirling it like a proper italian, when he was 3, but then lost the knack. i think the all time low point in the ‘everything is finger food’ era, was when he ate a runny fried egg with his fingers in a supermarket cafe. all eyes were on us! and spaghetti is not in my view the ideal finger food…
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Hey there! I happened upon your blog and have a big favor to ask and I hope you don’t mind. Please disregard if you do:
My husband is working on a marketing plan for a firm that specializes in autism for his final UW MBA project.
http://washington.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_38L76DgnCym3ttO&SVID=Prod
Can you take the survey if you have a family member affected by autism or pass it on to someone who is? Many thanks.
~Scout
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:04 am
Well golly gee and Ph.d – no offense taken. I’m sure all my readers will be only too delighted to help out your pard’ner with his marketing plan – exploitation is what we’re all about – and if you ever need a course in social skills 101 I’d be happy to point you out in the right direction.
Cheers
March 5th, 2010 at 4:24 am
I love your conversations with your children. I love hearing how they put it, so creatively. I love your drawings: in so much a writer “has a voice”, you “have a style”. And a voice!
Would you please write a book about the uniqueness of how kids with autism can see the world and illustrate it??
Thank you…Rose
March 8th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
I’ve never considered a funnel…seems like a great way to encourage the eating of English peas!