Picky Eating

I got an email from an online support group I belong to called Picky Eaters Association. They have a YouTube channel and an email message board and website (as you'll see below). I'm not too active on it but find comfort that I am not the only picky eater in the world and I'm not even the worst one out there.



There are other shows out there, but this one kind of sums it up. I completely feel for other people who have it a lot worse than me and I feel lucky that my choices for food have been greatly expanded over the past few years. This makes it easier to hide, and that's been the most difficult part about it. You can see in the video how you get questioned about your eating and people are judgmental about the whole thing. That's completely true. I love what the second person in the video says about how "isolating" it can be. You go to great lengths to eat alone, make excuses for how you eat, etc.



This is a video from Anderson Cooper. I don't like that he makes it seem like he's "one of us" then easily pops some Brussels sprouts into his mouth. However, the two guests sum it up really well. I was completely born this way and my mom had trouble feeding me. I do think that there is some "comfort" to what I eat, but I think it's a condition that I've always had.

Trying a new food is scary to me and only under very specific circumstances will that happen. There are also very specific reasons why I eat certain bites of some things and push away other pieces, but no one else sees what I see. It can be coloring, texture, having a bad experience with the previous bite, etc.

I'm comforted by the fact that I am eating somewhat more healthy than others I know from this board and have more options. However, if I had my choice I would eat pasta, cereal, bread, and other similar things everyday. Growing up I ate so many packets of Ramen noodles (plain without the packets of flavoring, then slowly with the flavoring but with the green herbs strained out, then all the flavoring) that you would think I would be completely sick of them. That's not true, I still feel so happy eating them and I would never get tired of them.


Anyway, I think it's important to get the word out about this. I also do it to show others that I'm not crazy and I'm not alone. I hope that this becomes something that is accepted more in the medical community. Do I worry about having a healthy pregnancy someday? Yes. Do I worry about how I will be as a mother? Yes. Do I worry my kids will be the same way? Yes. So we'll see where it goes.

Anyway... Thanks for listening!

Days 18, 19, 20

Day 18 - My wedding
Day 19 - A talent of mine
Day 20 - Something I am OCD about

Day 18 - My wedding

The Hansen Place in Sumner, WA

My dress, in the dressing room

Us..

Cake made by our friend, Katie. My dad had a work buddy laser cut out our initials for the cake "topper"!

The wedding party. And me being brought up with my mom and dad.

Look at how interested our Best Man and Maid of Honor are in this touching moment... There is a "water wall" in the background.

Our guestbook was a photo book of us.

Probably something very awkward someone said in a speech

Wake me up, before you go-go! That's right, we did a dance.

 
Day 19 - A talent of mine
This took me a while to think of something worth mentioning.  While not always fully used to it's capacity, I would say organization is a "talent" of mine. As a teacher I love having specific folders for things, specific areas for materials, and everything is labeled.

A very small glimpse of my classroom.

Eh, that's the best I can come up with for now... :)

Day 20 - Something I'm OCD about
The first thing that came to mind was how it would drive me crazy when John would not fully "seal" the shower curtain and water would come out the sides onto the floor. Luckily we have a closed in shower now and that isn't an issue.

The other thing I guess you could consider OCD  would be my eating habits. This could be a post in itself, but basically I don't do well with a really long list of foods. Condiments are my enemy - you could see me tearing up or obsessively washing whatever part of myself was touched by a condiment (salsa is one of the worst, and ketchup. I don't handle red-edibles well). Without getting too much in to my crazy, that's probably the worst I get. Least it gets me out of dishes sometimes!