Last week I served meatloaf for dinner. A friend had given it to us a month or so ago but I had forgotten about it until my freezer started looking bare. And I admit…I am not a major fan of meatloaf. My husband likes it, but I’m not sure I’ve ever made one. Maybe once, way back in the early days of our marriage but not since. But I made it last week and everyone liked it, including my super picky 6 year old with sensory issues relating to food. (And to be honest, I did too!) Since he ate it and liked it, I decided I needed to add this to the dinner rotation and started searching for a good recipe. I found one at allrecipes.com and tried it tonight.
I thought it was good. A little *too* moist, though. I think the soup was plenty of tomato and the added ketchup made it runnier than I would have liked. But the taste was fairly good, so I thought it was worth saving the recipe.
Until I noticed my 6 year old hadn’t touched his. When I asked him why, he gave me a lot of attitude and told me it looked gross. I told him I made it especially for him and added that if he chose not to at least try it, then he was choosing to lose his privileges until Monday. (Which is not as big a deal as it seems…he rarely has time to watch TV/play Wii/use computer on weekends anyway.) So he tried it. And gagged.
So now I’m feeling way more hurt than I should be. I try really hard to make things he’ll eat, but it’s a challenge when there is so little he can tolerate. I tried so hard to please him and it upset me a lot that he hated it so much. So a 6 year old made me cry tonight. Over a meal that I took a lot of effort to make especially for him. Maybe I set my expectations too high…or maybe I finally understand just how hurtful a child can be to a parent. I am not sure I “got it” until I was sitting at that kitchen table tonight. I really wanted to call my mom and tell her how sorry I am for the mean stuff I said to her as a kid.
Needless to say, his daddy had a talk with him about being sensitive to other people’s feelings and he understands that he treated me unfairly. And to be fair to him, he does have a LOT of problems with food textures and the texture of this meatloaf wasn’t great. I guess we both have a few things we need to work on!
