The more you eat healthy, the less you like mainstream food

An interesting thing happened today.  Kaio has been mostly wheat and dairy free since April this year.  We went this way after months of very strange poop.  I have noticed a direct correlation in his bowel health and his dairy consumption.  Still we have not been able to keep him 100% off the products (mostly due to my mom giving him that stuff all the time).  Actually this morning she gave him a bran muffin, and yesterday she gave him slices of cheese.  At least they were from Trader Joe's.  I am slowly bringing her on board and teaching her quality over quantity.  It has been a long process to get her out of the habit of mindlessly buying cases of whatever from Costco just because, "I had to, they were so cheap!"

So I gave her some credit for giving him the hormone free cheese this time.

So anyway.  We've been doing this diet as best we can while living with grandma.  But Mari and I agreed back in April that we would not prevent Kaio from having cake and pizza at birthday parties.  We would not bring cake for him or anything like that.  I believe that food is one of the most important aspects of a culture, and parties are for sharing you home and your food with friends.  I think that it is rude to not participate in these rituals.  You have to at least try the food.   Unless you are really allergic to it.  But Kaio is not allergic, it just doesn't digest well.

So we went to a birthday party today and he had a little slice of Papa John's pizza.  Then something strange happened.  He left the eating area to go sit by himself on a bench.  I went over to him and he was almost crying,  "No.  I don't want to eat the pizza.  I don't want the pizza, it's yucky."
I said, "Kaio, you don't have to eat it it's ok.  You can just play with your friends."

He cheered up after our little talk and went off to run around with his good friends.

So Mari and I think that the pizza made him feel kind of sick.  I'm going to make sure to give him some probiotics tomorrow morning.

The other thing that took me was how he isolated himself and I had to talk him through what was going on and say the right thing to help him feel comfortable again.  I have had to do this with Nala a couple times too.  She get scared of things and hides by herself.  Moving from provider to therapist is a new role in my mothering journey.  It felt reminiscent of an afternoon family sitcom, like Family Ties or Full House.