Bird Poop Camp

I have always been a picky eater.  Picky Vickie…If I don’t want to eat something, I’m not going to eat it. When I was young, I could sit at my chair for hours to no avail. I’m not stubborn.  I just don’t want people to tell me what I should eat. Everyone has different taste buds.    Our dinner conversation usually centered around my not eating: (My mom’s dialog only)

Don’t eat it, kid!

“Eat your carrots,  Vickie…  They are good for you…Vickie…Are you listening?…..Eat your carrots, Vickie. Don’t wrinkle your nose up like that to me…. It will freeze and you will have wrinkles on your nose like that forever…..Vickie…Why are you smelling the carrots? ….No, they don’t smell funny…..They are cooked carrots…They are  from a can….No, they are not old…..Because there is a date on the can….Vickie…..Eat your carrots…How do you know you don’t like cooked carrots. You’ve never tasted cooked carrots before…..What?…..Bugs Bunny is not real, Vickie….No, I have never seen rabbits eat cooked carrots…You are not a rabbit, Vickie….People eat cooked carrots….Yes, Vickie….kids are people…What?  No, Vickie, you can not  have a rabbit… Ok, you know what?  I’ve had enough…Go to your room…….No, you can not have a twinkie.”

I don’t think parents should make children eat what’s on their plate. There were many times when I wasn’t allowed to go to Camp Fire Girls meeting until my dinner was finished. They tried to hang that over my head because I just loved to go to Camp Fire Girls. But, while they weren’t looking, I would either hide the food on ledges underneath the antique table, or I would feed it quietly to the dog.  “MOM, CAN I HAVE A DRINK OF WATER, PLEASE?’  My mom looked at me weird? “Why are you talking so loud?”  I had to talk loudly to cover the noise the dog was making while she was eating my mandatory dinner. After Camp Fire Girls, I would get the food off of the ledges and throw it away. Gross, I know, but I was not eating peas. Peas were and still are nasty. The dog didn’t like peas, so I usually put peas in my glass of milk and some on the ledges.

When I was in 6th grade, my teacher, Mrs. Tucci, called my mom to tell her about my lunch. “Mrs. Mendenhall, I was in the cafeteria and couldn’t help but notice that all Vickie had in her lunch pail today was bread and water.”  My mom, answered, “Well, it was homemade bread and that’s all she wanted.”  It’s true. I LOVED homemade bread.  It pained me to wait until the bread cooled enough to cut. I got in trouble one time for cutting both of the heels off  of a new loaf. I never put butter or jelly on the bread. Thank God my mom didn’t put sliced cook carrots on the bread. Mrs. Tucci needed to tend to her own plate.

When I was dating my future husband, he knew that my least favorite food in the world was green beans. I just hate green beans. So, when we were at a family party,  he took me aside when no one was around and gave me a nice kiss. We were in love, afterall.  The jerk weird-O passed me a green bean he had in his mouth. I mean, what the hell??   Hahahaha, wow, yeah, that was just so funny.   I haven’t had a green bean in 30 years. Never going to have one again.

Christmas dinner, Italian style, was very interesting. I promised my fiancee (Yeah, I know, the green bean incident should have been a clue) that I would try everything that they brought out. I knew I was going to get homemade bread and spaghetti, but I when they brought out chopped up snake on a plate and tried to make it sound better by saying it was eel. Yeah, that will make me want to eat it now. Have you seen what an eel looks like?  I was afraid I would get shocked or something if I tasted it. And then they put tuna fish in the spaghetti sauce.  And stuffed squid held together by toothpicks.  Dear God, this is going to be a long night. I felt like I was 7, and I wasn’t going to be allowed to get excused from the table until everything was gone. I was a real trooper and tried a little bit of everything, and didn’t even hide anything under the table.

I know you are wondering if I let my kids eat what they wanted at any time, and the answer is no. Alex was in fifth grade and Adam in sixth before I let them drink pop. (And no, we don’t say soda here in West Virginia, so get over it.)  My husband tried to get them to eat everything on their plate. One evening he made Alex eat her fish and she threw up all over the table.  “Yeah, that worked.”  I refused to force my kids to eat what I was having for dinner. I tried to be more creative than that. We had Santa Claus soup, and I even tried to introduce yucky cooked carrrots by giving each of the carrots a name and told Adam that this particular carrot slice, Bob, wanted to go to a party in Adam’s stomach. I gave each one of those slices a B-name and darn if he didn’t eat all of them.  Alex, however, was  little bit more of a challenge.

She didn’t eat much and was a tiny little girl. I once told her that if she didn’t start eating that I was going to have to  send her to bird poop camp, where all you eat all week is bird poop, so that when you come back home, all food will taste good. Well, she looked at me  like  “Where in the HELL  did you get bird poop camp from, Mother?” I think that we were outside and a bird happened to fly by at that very moment.   Maybe it pooped. I don’t know. Let’s just say I am very imaginative and creative and leave it at that..

This past year, she sent me a facebook message  soon after she arrived in Japan:

“Mom, Just got home from the grocery store. After walking down the aisles and spending some time here, I realized that, shit!  I am at bird poop camp.”

I never mentioned bird poop camp after that one time. Fastforward 18 + years, and my little one reminded me of  it in that message from halfway across the world.  How funny.