We are coping with this new challenge for my daughter’s health and I feel as though I am personally responsible for regulating her ins and outs. Has she had a enough to drink? Is she eating enough protein and fiber? Is she getting fruit at breakfast and lunch and a veggie at dinner?
It feels as though it all falls on me. But the truth is, it isn’t mine to control. Yes, I have responsibilities, she is still my child. But ultimately it is her body. It is my job to teach her how to take care of it but it is still hers.
I look with relative disgust at the cabinet filled with packaged foods, something we previously bought very little of. For years I was the make-it-from-scratch mom. We didn’t buy box cereal, and if we did it was for a weekend treat. I bought a select number of nut free granola bars to take with my kids to their homeschool co-op that has a nut-free protocol.
But now I’m buying gluten free box mac & cheese, gluten free pretzels, gluten free granola/snack bars (really just a glorified candy bar, regardless of what the advertising says), and more recently high protein, high fiber cookies targeted to body builders. At least those have some actual nutrients.
I wonder how this can be healthier. I’ve accepted that her body works differently from mine and anything without gluten is still healthier than something with it, even if that leads to so many packaged foods, many of which feel like they barely qualify as food. Of course my other non-Celiac children cry foul that their sister gets to have all these fun, brightly packaged snacks and so I’m buying more of those kind of things for them as well.
In an effort to regain some autonomy she has now decided that she is vegetarian as well, which only adds to the fun. Basically it’s Honey Nut Cheerios (yes, it must be the name brand), gluten free bread with peanut butter, vanilla yogurt (oh, so much yogurt, quarts a week), and so many “body builder cookies.”
I’ve tried homemade versions with various levels of success. My grocery bill and ultimately my bank account feel the strain. There are days when I’m so tired of making meals she won’t eat and she simply resorts to yogurt each night.
I’m exhausted, and I genuinely question how this is sustainable. Can she really live on yogurt and hard boiled eggs with rarely a fruit or vegetable to be seen? Will this affect how she eats all of her life?
We are working with a nutritionist and doing feeding therapy, but so far with limited results. (She liked sunflower seeds as a snack for a few days and is currently contemplating whether she will try a veggie burger, but that’s all the progress we’ve seen).
Last year a fellow blogger friend posted an article about trusting food choices over trusting Jesus. Those words ring in my head often.
Jesus is bigger than gluten free food. He is not limited by the will of a child who calls herself a vegetarian but won’t eat vegetables. Click To TweetI realized that in my haste and frustration with trying to find the proper dietary solutions for my daughter, I’d stopping praying for God’s intervention. So now when I whisper prayers in the morning as I rise or mumble them before I fall asleep, I ask God to change my daughter’s taste buds.
He made her. He knew even as she was formed in my womb that this time would come. That her favorite food would be avocado until age 2 when she would refuse to eat it ever again. That she would begin limiting more foods from her diet year after year. That her physical body would be so altered and behavior so changed, that I would be desperate enough to start a battery of medical and psychological tests. I believe it was the Holy Spirit, perhaps disguised as gut instinct, that told our doctor to screen for Celiac Disease on the off chance, even though he didn’t think that’s what we were dealing with.
None of this is a surprise to him, which means that even now he has a plan for my daughter’s health. I may have to handle the logistics here on earth, but the weight of responsibility does not ultimately rest on my shoulders. If only I could learn to remember that.
These things are so hard. Though not celiac, I did have a daughter with a very extreme attachment disorder. We learned, as time progressed after she was placed in our home, that literally EVERY THING which worked for kids, all parenting advice, pretty much everything would have polar opposite results. My trust wavered more often than not, for a very long time. But God is bigger… And I am glad that I would continue to come back to that place. Prayers for you, for your daughter, and that six months from now you’ll look back and read this and feel overwhelmed with gratitude for the different place you’re at…
My son is a soldier and when he deploys he lives on MRE’s. I have always been a scratch/whole foods kinda mom. That reality crushed me… Truly. I call so many things “science project” food, because it is more engineered than cooked/prepared. (food should not be engineered) My son, when he needs real nutrition the most, would get MREs. let me say it again- “food” wasn’t meant to be engineered… as much as that makes sense, we live lives made easier and better due to ingenuity. washing machines, dryers, showers, running water, water filtration… I have no problem believe God was the inspiration giver for those things, maybe we have to trust, in our own journey’s, that God’s hand is in the provisions for our kids too… Even when we don’t understand it, and it isn’t what our hearts want.
I hear your about food that is engineered vs. made or grown. I have to remind myself that fed is still better than starving. She may not be eating much of what feels like real food, but she already looks healthier than she did three months ago. She is a happier kid who is sleeping better and I feel like we are finally connecting again. So if that means she lives on cookies designed for body builders, I can live with that.