My Taste Buds

I've got two pretty amazing boys. My husband is alright, too. They're my buds and I love them dearly but feeding their unique tastes and needs is the biggest pain in the fucking ass I've ever experienced. Here's why:

HYPERCALCURIA

My oldest has to follow a strict low-sodium diet. Hypercalcuria. It's a fancy word for saying he has a predisposition for kidney stones. Since that's legitimately the most painful thing in the entire world and I kind of love him, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he doesn't ever have to experience that on my watch. This means a shit-ton of cooking. Like, from scratch cooking.

We found out when he was about 10 years old. Up until that time, he was my little foodie. This kid was all about spicy and salty. I never saw a kid eat and love so many varieties of food before in my life. Living in Louisiana, he had a bounty of the most delicious food in the world at his disposal at all times. His favorites were boiled crawfish, fried shrimp, jambalaya, raw oysters, and gumbo. Thanks to MawMaw (maternal grandmother), he also loves Italian meats like salami, sausage, and pepperoni. And thanks to Gee (paternal grandmother), he's a huge fan a Jamaican jerk and curry. Add jalapeños to any of those things and the kid was in heaven.

I'll never forget the day we found out. Poor kid. He had blood in his urine and some discomfort there as well, so we took him to his pediatrician who then sent us to a Pediatric Nephrologist (kid's kidney doctor). It was the specialist who told us he needed to maintain a low sodium diet, drink 2 liters of water per day, and would have to take a huge pill 3 times per day... for the rest of his life. My son looked at him, with tears in his eyes and said, "So, you're saying I can never have any of my favorite foods again?" The doctor said, "it's like any diet, you have a certain amount you can have, how you manage that is up to you."

Being only 10, he didn't really understand what that meant. And I, having never heard of this before (even though my dad was plagued with kidney stones), didn't really understand it either. The doctor said, "You shouldn't go over 2300 mg per day of sodium." Sounds like a lot until you realize that's only about 1 teaspoon.

We got in the car and my son managed to ask through his tears, "Mommy, can I curse?"

I said, "Hell yes, kiddo, but you have to let me video it."

What followed was the most awkward and innocent and hilarious display of cursing I've ever witnessed. This sweet little boy, with a slight speech impediment at the time, opened his mouth and just let it out. He didn't yell. He didn't whisper. He just said in his regular tone of voice every bad word he could think of... all 3 of them.

"Shit. Damn. Fucking damn. Shit. Shit. Damn. Fuck. Shit. Fucking shit."

"Feel better?"

"I guess. Yeah."

"Well, I fucking hope so because you're not doing that shit again until you learn how to do it right."


PICKY EATERS
My younger son is just a picky little kid. He only wants peanut butter and jelly for lunch and 9 times out of 10 will do anything he can to get out of eating dinner. God forbid he even thinks about eating something green. It's fun. But honestly, I think he's kind of just bullshitting me. We still somehow manage to eat a variety of foods for dinner and he has to eat anywhere from 2-4 bites of everything on his plate. He definitely bitches about it but he doesn't throw a fit like a kid who genuinely doesn't like the food he is being made to eat. I'm fairly positive he's just trying to assert his dominance over me by refusing to eat what I provide. And it's working.

What's more fun is my meat and potatoes rice loving husband. Seriously, if it isn't red meat and rice then he doesn't want it. Pasta is allowed but it's definitely a distant 2nd to rice. And chicken better not enter this house. That's what he says anyway, but he enjoys more than he lets on. The main problem is that my husband would survive on a salt lick if he could, so this low sodium diet is his personal Hell. He absolutely loathes anything with a sweet taste. And, to him, the absence of salt means sweet. He also refers to applesauce as a vegetable so I'm really behind the 8 ball here.

Every single night my younger son says, "I don't like this food," and my husband replies, "that's because there's no salt on it."