I DID IT. Based on your supportive comments and gentle nudges toward action, I talked to my neighbor about her lovely lunch invitation. First, I resolved to talk to her about it. Next, I cobbled together a script from several commenters’ suggestions, and I practiced it in the car and in the shower. Then, I waited for the Right Opportunity.
Carla provided me with a very nice segue – she was playing with the neighbor’s dog, and I needed her to come home to eat lunch. So I walked next door to fetch her. The neighbor came out and said hello, and I told her the reason for my appearance. Then I made my little speech: “Speaking of lunch, I was thinking about your kind invitation that we have lunch together, and I was so delighted by the offer that I said yes without thinking, but the truth is, Carla and I have so many silly food restrictions between us it’s not really worth getting into, and I was wondering if we could do something a little simpler, like afternoon tea or lemonade?” When I practiced it, I was Breezy and Casual and I had a little self-deprecating laugh in there, plus I also had a line about how of COURSE we wanted to spend time with her… and I also wanted to offer to bring homemade cookies or something… but it all came out in a rush and I forgot some of it. Oh well. At least I got out the important part which was LUNCH WILL NOT GO WELL.
Her immediate reaction was, “Oh no, sometimes I give Carla food when she comes over!” and so I had to reassure her that I didn’t mean allergies, but rather that Carla is the pickiest person on the planet. (Deftly trying to put the bulk of the blame on Carla’s food restrictions rather than my own.) Here is where Carla chimed in and informed our neighbor that I HATE tomatoes. So I am clearly not blameless.
Once I had assured her she wasn’t doing something egregious by feeding my child cherries and red peppers, she seemed to relax a bit. She asked if something like tea and biscuits would be fine and I said that would be lovely and we discussed possible dates (though didn’t settle on anything specific). I am… so relieved. THANK YOU for helping me figure out the right way to handle this sticky situation.
Now I can turn my Food Frets toward camp.
Carla is attending a new camp this summer, and they don’t offer meals. So we will be packing a lunch. This is fine.
Now that she is nearly NINE (which is nearly TEN, omg), I am looking forward to forcing encouraging Carla to make her own lunch (with supervision). We discussed some potential ideas for lunches, and her Ideal Lunch is a Lunchable. She only eats the ham Lunchable, and she only eats the ham, the cookies, and the crackers. She refuses to eat the cheese. If I pack her slices of other cheese – specifically cheddar that I have cut for her – she will eat that.
So I was banking on sending her with Lunchables each day, and that if Lunchables become unavailable (again), or if she gets sick of them, we can pack a bagel and cream cheese with some pepperoni.
To round out her lunch, I would add other things she eats, like pickles and grapes and berries and grape tomatoes and red peppers and sugar snap peas.
So I felt pretty good about our options.
Then we got a note from camp that said NO PORK PRODUCTS.
AHHHHHHHHH
What now???
I suppose what we have to do is revert to PBJ. The camp is not a nut-free campus, so peanut butter is an option. Carla also enjoys eats sun butter, so she (and I) can make sandwiches every day. Carla eats sun butter sandwiches at school all year long, so I know she WILL eat them. But the last time I tried to make her one, she complained because my sandwiches weren’t the SAME as the ones at school.
Weary sigh.
I suppose I can just send her with the equivalent of Snack Dinner, but for lunch. But I am just not sure what the protein situation will be in that case. Snack Dinner usually has pepperoni or a couple of chicken nuggets or two.
I wonder if she would eat cold chicken nuggets (hork)?
The reason that I am fretting about this is two-fold.
The first fold is that the camp really made a Big Deal about ensuring that we sent a LOT of food with our kids to camp. They emphasized that we should send MORE than we think – like, enough food for a week rather than a day. The kids work so hard and are so active, they are ravenous when they get to lunchtime. So I want to a) comply with the rules and b) make sure my particular kid is getting enough sustenance.
The second fold is that Carla already eats next to nothing for lunch. I assume she eats something at school each day, although her reports are sporadic and often sound like, “Oh yeah, I ate a hamburger bun and a slice of American cheese.” So I am already facing an uphill climb when it comes to getting her to eat. I want to stack all the odds in my favor by ensuring her lunches are full of things she LIKES, not just things she tolerates.
Well. I am not really asking for ideas, because I feel like it will be an exercise in frustration. (You, reasonably: “Send her with some chickpeas! Or beans! Or hummus! Or tuna salad! Or turkey! Or a protein drink!” and I will cringe at you while shaking my head because she will not touch ANY of that, and the list is endless.) (I am going to buy some turkey pepperoni and see if Carla will deign to try it.) I am just whining. New camp, new frets.
Snack dinner as a lunch sounds like a good plan! If they ask for lots of food, I would send a lot of snacks to supplement that she likes.
I’m so glad the lunch-with-neighbour issue worked out so well!
Aw! Picky eaters (I had one a long time ago) are tough! The speech therapist who was working with our food issues suggested that he make the choices and the food as a way of ensuring that he would get enough to eat. So your instincts about involving C seem to have been on the right track!
And speaking of ensuring nutrition, my kid was on Ensure (a supplement shake that smells disgusting) as well.
Getting her involved with lunch planning and prep is probably a good idea. North used to make their own lunch on and off through much of elementary school, as they got interested and lost interest, and then once they were in middle school we told them it was their responsibility for good.
Don’t worry, I won’t chime in with ideas, I’m just here to commiserate. You had a plan…and the camp threw a wrench into your plan by adding yet another food restriction on top of all of the other food restrictions. Because life isn’t hard enough as it is.
No pork products? That is such a weird restriction, especially when they allow nuts! Because an edict like that would make me feisty, I would be tempted to send ham anyway and see what they do. (But also, I would fret that this rule was because of some allergy, so maybe not.)
Anyway! In light of the hoops they’re making you jump through, getting Carla involved is probably the best option. As far as quantity, you can adjust as the days go by. If she comes back saying she ate everything and was still hungry, she can add more things for the next day. But gosh, this is an added stress you do not need!
It’s a Jewish day camp, so it’s definitely not an allergy at least 😊
Well gosh, that makes so much more sense then!
There is such a thing as turkey pepperoni, if that helps. Maybe contact somebody at your school and ask what bread, jelly, etc. they use on their sandwiches so you can make them the same? I have a kid who once only ate orange foods (and still prefers orange foods), but has gotten SO much better. Like, he used to hate the idea of fried rice, which is delicious, but would cry if I didn’t make plain buttered rice as well. Now he actually helps make fried rice and talks about how he seasoned it just right and isn’t it delicious?
Just to let you know it can and does get better. I honestly thought he’d grow up only eating hot dogs and boxed mac and cheese (never leftover boxed mac and cheese, only fresh, thankyouverymuch), but he has expanded his palate quite a bit. He still will not eat things like sloppy joes, or lentil soup, but it has gotten better.
Oh gosh. No suggestions from me, just commiseration because our older child is a younger version of Carla. He is so picky and we are told that he barely eats at school. I mentioned it to our doctor at the toddler’s dr appt last week and she didn’t seem overly concerned and said to just get him to eat as much as we can when he’s home and to go for full fat options. But it’s stressful and kind of embarrassing that he is so particular. Like I feel like I failed somewhere along the way, although he has been exposed to so many great foods at daycare so I don’t know that I could have done anything differently! I hope you come up with some options that she will eat!
I just wanted to let you know that you definitely did not fail– my mom exposed both my sister and me to a wide variety of foods. I was a great eater and my sister only ate bacon, chicken soup, very specifically prepared grilled cheese, and mac and cheese for the first maybe 5 or so years of her life- so it’s definitely nothing you did or didn’t do! Also if it’s any consolation she is now a vegetarian so I guess she is still slightly picky- but she eats all of the things she refused to touch as a kid, so there is still hope!
Congratulations on the success of the talk with your neighbor! Phew! Good job!
And I totally commisserate — because I had (and still do) have a picky eater! I was a very picky eater myself so I totally understood his nature and didn’t force (or even require he taste the food) because I would’ve hated that myself. I’m sure Carla will let you know if she ate all her food and was still hungry and you can adjust the quantity.
I have similar issues with packing a lunch for my daughter who is also attending a Jewish day camp this summer. We pack a homemade lunchable with the following – cubed cheese, nut thin crackers, sliced red peppers, sliced cucumbers, fruit of the day (strawberries or watermelon or peaches), one of those dannon yogurt smoothies that taste like birthday cake or strawberry shortcake or some such thing and a small treat. We got the same instruction about packing for a week, but I reminded myself that I know my kid (like you know yours) so I will send perhaps an extra box of yogurt raisins and a pack of pirate’s booty and see how that goes, but I’m not going nuts.
I find this particular set of edicts from the camp very frustrating. My selective eater sounds a lot like yours (and I am also very selective) and we have so many of the same issues. Mine likes the pizza lunchables but doesn’t eat cheese so I guess it’s like a gross cracker with tomato sauce? I dunno. Anyway, he also goes to a very active day camp and I just send a normal amount of food for him and anticipate feeding him a small meal when he gets home at 4:30. In my experience the increase in hunger shows up more at breakfast and dinner time anyway. Congrats on dealing with the lunch situation!
It seems odd to restrict pork but not peanut butter. The whole camp thing would stress me out so you’re handling it way better than I would. Neither one of my daughters were picky eaters, but they were picky about other things like being away from home. I would probably have ended up coming to get them in the middle of the night.
First, gold star for talking to your neighbour.
Second, what about just sending a lot of one thing for Carla to eat (if for no reason than appeasing the camp folks). As in – if she likes grapes and PB sandwiches, send 3 sandwiches and a huge container of grapes. It’s all stuff she WILL eat if she’s hungry and the amount should satisfy the camp staff?
Sorry – that’s a suggestion, but it doesn’t not involve chickpeas, so I hope it is forgiven.
Food is just such a fraught topic and I don’t think you’re whining at all – this is a big challenge to navigate and, for the record, you sound like you’re doing a great job of it.
We had friends over for dinner on Friday and I was worried. What if they didn’t like what I served? I think of how people go to restaurants and choose what they want, which seems to be the best model for sharing a meal. I was sort of crippled by the thought of me cooking for them. It all worked out, but I don’t think you are alone in food issues. We do not all like the same things. I’m happy to hear that you spoke to the neighbor and all is on the path to a pleasant time together.
I do like the idea of snack dinner for lunch. Or, as Elisabeth said, send her with multiple sandwiches that she does like. Camp sounds super fun, since it promises to wear her out so much.
This sounds like my newly-9 year old. I don’t know what I’d do if it was no port products, as pepperoni “sandwhiches” (pepperoni on bread) is about all he eats at camp. I’d just send her with a couple sandwiches and some type of produce.
I haaaated packing lunches and started my kids doing it as early as they could. Usually we say something like, pick a fruit, a vegetable and a protein for your lunch. That covers the basics and if they don’t eat a great lunch one day… no big deal. They’ll eat more when they’re hungry.
Yay for dealing with the lunch with the neighbor issue! I’m sure it was Breezy and Casual and you handled it perfectly. I did have to laugh when Carla ratted you out on your hatred of tomatoes though! Nevertheless, I am sure you will all have a lovely time when you do settle on a date/time/plan.
I was puzzled over the no pork products for camp; until you mentioned it is a Jewish camp. I will offer no suggestions except maybe send a lot of extra food early on and you should be able to judge what the right amount is after seeing what is left over after the first couple of days.
I always found that when introducing turkey….anything to say it looks a bit like and feels a bit like it’s typical food. It tastes good, but not necessarily like whatever it was in place of. Turkey bacon and sausage are good, but they don’t generally taste like bacon or sausage. So if you go in, not expecting it to, it helps.
Why NO PORK PRODUCTS? Is that a thing now? Maybe you could vary the PB [&J] with Almond Butter or Cashew Butter? Or how about something involving cream cheese or pimento cheese spread? Not exactly what I’d like to eat, but I’m no longer a kid!
So proud of you for how you handled the lunch situation with your neighbor. .. wasn’t half as bad as you imagined, was it? 😉 Hope you’re having a lovely get together.
Also, I don’t envy you about the lunch situation at camp. I know (through second-hand knowledge) how difficult some kids are with eating and they’re not making it easier if they tell you about ALL THE RESTRICTIONS and foods you cannot pack them. Hmpf. Hope you find something that will work.