Try It. You Might Like It.

For months now, my husband has been trying to convince me to go with him and the boys to the local Indian buffet after church.  I'm not a huge fan of Indian food from restaurants.  I've had several homemade Indian meals, and they were delicious.  I just have difficulty finding meals from restaurants that I like.  Today, though, I let him choose.  I explained to the boys, over the sounds of whining, that we should take turns choosing where to eat.

The boys were far from thrilled.  Now I know that most kids have picky phases.  Kids with ADHD don't have a corner on that market.  There are a couple of aspects of ADHD that make the situation pretty rotten, though.

First of all, G has no filter.  This is true of a lot of kids with ADHD.  It doesn't matter that the proprietor of the restaurant is by our table filling our glasses with water.  G will state his disgust at what we have tried to serve him.  I was quite thankful that he chose to simply say he didn't like the food.  He didn't use too many horrible adjectives to describe the various dishes we presented in small piles on the plate.

Secondly, G views situations like this as fairly traumatic.  The fussing and whining as we asked him to take a little bite, was about the intensity as his reaction to shots, early bedtimes, and losing his screen time for three days.  I think the booth behind us was imagining me pinching him under the table to elicit the crying.  G views all sorts of situations as traumatic.  Even the Indian buffet.

To G's credit, his plate was filled by his father, who really doesn't have a good judgement of "spicy" for our children.  The only things that weren't spicy were the naan and the rice.  Poor kid- the fried ball of dough and the chicken dishes that Daddy swore were fine were actually quite painful, even for me.

So the lesson we learned today?  Take the little brother to the Indian buffet.  Leave G and Mommy at home.  Everyone wins.