My Fear of Food (story #19)

Food is where I become stubborn. From the time that I began eating, I was picky. I threw a fit about any food other than oatmeal, chicken nuggets, or apple sauce. My Mom and Dad, who were still new to the whole parenting thing had no idea what to do. My mom tried disciplining me, but my dad didn’t think it was good to force me to eat food I didn’t want. Like I said he was still a novice back then. Nowadays my dad tells my picky siblings, that they need to eat what is set before them, and that people are starving in Africa.

At the time my illogical mental block against food in general was so strong that I wouldn’t even eat chicken. You may be asking yourself, then how did you eat chicken nuggets? I honestly don’t know how, but it never dawned on me that chicken nuggets were made of chicken. I had no concept of where food came from. I would for that matter not eat almost anything other than chicken nuggets. My mom called the doctor and told him about my diet. He said it was unhealthy, but no matter what she tried, I would not budge. I vaguely remember my mom deciding one day that she was going to crack my resolve and make me eat something new. She made me scrambled eggs, which I turned down with a fit. She told me I couldn’t eat anything else until I ate the scrambled eggs. I refused for a long time. Because I was so little at the time, I do not now remember if I ever succumbed and ate the eggs. To this day scrambled eggs remain one of my worst fears and I am currently struggling to overcome this obstacle.

I was convinced that chicken was disgusting, until one night when we went to a friends house to eat dinner. I was in line holding my plate behind my friend, and watching her make her own. In front of her were a lot of drumsticks which at the time looked like filth to me. To my shock she put a drumstick on her plate. I wasn’t sure quite what was happening but I saw myself putting a drumstick on my own plate. I curiously took a nibble and was so surprised to find that the chicken was actually good. All night long I made little trips back to the food, to get more of that heavenly chicken. That was my first step to overcoming my fear of food.

Black Eye (story #18)

When my grandpa Wilson was a kid, the town had a hero. The hero’s name was James and he could beat anyone in a fight. James once got blocked in on both sides on a bridge by some guys from a rival school. They wanted to beat him up, but he had a baseball bat. James jumped out of his car with the bat and beat up 8 guys. He was tough and everyone knew it.

One day my Grandpa and James got into a fist fight. They were both swinging and my Grandpa somehow managed to black James’s eye. James won the fight but everyone at school thought my grandpa was a grand champion because he had given James that unbelievable black eye. For two whole weeks afterwards Grandpa was famous.

Our Game (story #17)

I have been homeschooled most of my schooling years. The last semester I have been at a Charlotte Mason style school, but will be going back to homeschool next school year. Almost all of my friends are homeschoolers I have known since I was 8 and we still get together sometimes. In fact last week a group of us went to Six Flags for “Homeschool Day”, a day when it is cheaper to get in, and the lines are only 10 minutes long. We have a book club, and play sports together, but regardless of the season we are in, or the activity we are doing, we often end up falling back on the classic childhood game: Infection. It started when we were only 10 or so. Someone introduced a game (Infection) that simply was tag but with a couple more rules.

Infection consists of one person who is trying to infect everyone. The tagger infects a person by tagging them. The infected person is now equipped to infect other people. The virus spreads until everyone is infected and the last person standing wins.

For a few years we had a house church and all of the kids played infection every single week. One kid was about 3 to 7 years older than everyone in our group and he always won. It was a challenge to tag him and doing so would bring the tagger much glory. We played infection all the way up until the house church broke up. From then on we continued to play in any time we met up. Occasionally we still play it even though several of our group are graduated. I finally realized why we always fall back on Infection. It is because it is so easy to explain, and a large group of any age can play. I also realized that every time I am with group of people who don’t know what to do, I always recommend infection, and the game is spreading like a virus.

What games did you play as a kid?

Magic Trick (story #16)

Little kids typically aren’t to smooth with magic tricks. Yesterday my youngest brother came up to me and said with a grin “I have a magic trick! Look in my pocket.”. I did and it was empty. He then said “Close your eyes.” I did and heard him fumbling with something. I peeped and he was putting a dollar bill in his pocket. He then turned and said still smiling “Look in my pocket!” In his pocket was a crumpled dollar bill.