Picky Eater

I would say that I’m a very picky eater. I like eating peaches, but I can’t stand peach juice. Apple slices are fine, but I’ll pass on a whole apple. Cheesecake is good, and cheesecake with chocolate drizzled is even better. But I’ll skip on chocolate cheesecake and chocolate chip cheesecake. “What is your favourite food?” was one of my least favorite questions as a kid. I know enough to know that neither you nor I actually want to spend half an hour talking about what I want in my lunch box.

When I was in elementary school, my mom would sometimes pack a whole, raw tomato in my lunchbox. I hated getting teased by my classmates for it, and I wondered why my mom didn’t just pack me a Lunchables like everyone else.

With hindsight, I now know that – like many parents of kids with Asperger’s – my mom would stress over what to feed me, to make sure I ate enough. I know now that she packed those tomatoes because she knew I would eat them. And that’s one of the many ways she showed me that she loved me – by remembering what I would and wouldn’t eat, and planning my school lunches around that.

Thanks, Mom.