Penny Pinching Mom

Setting Limits

I’ve been facing a bit of a dilemma with Pumpkin. It’s a situation that I find extremely difficult to handle, so if anyone has any constructive suggestions I’m all ears.

This girl has always had a very healthy appetite. Sometimes I think if I let her, she would eat 24 hours a day. I’ve been trying to present healthy portions and not encourage snacking, and that has been enough to prevent excessive weight gain. But unfortunately that’s not the only problem.

Pumpkin had stomach problems when she was born. She had a lot of gas on her stomach, and she couldn’t keep anything down for the first few days of her life. The doctor who delivered her sent her to a university hospital, where they kept her for several days, only to say that nothing was wrong with her besides gas. I was relieved but perturbed about the whole situation.

After that she had colic, but other than that her stomach was fine until last year. She started complaining with pain, and I took her to the doctor several times over it. She couldn’t find anything wrong either, and suggested adding more fiber to her diet to keep her regular. That has helped quite a bit, but she still has stomach problems when she eats too much fat or grease.

So I try to keep things like that to a minimum. But seeing how she’s such a picky eater, it’s hard. She was begging for that fried chicken that you buy frozen for a couple of weeks, and I finally gave in. If she just eats a couple of pieces she’s fine, and that’s all I gave her.

But after she ate, she and Hubby went to his parents’ house. They had eaten the same kind of chicken for dinner there, and she asked for a piece. Hubby said he tried to tell her not to eat it, but she did anyway. And she ended up with an awful stomachache.

I know we should put our foot down on things like this, and I try hard. But I worry about making her self-conscious by putting strict limits on her diet. I don’t want her growing up the way I did. Oftentimes I felt like I was just a walking blob of fat and acne, because that’s what certain members of my family always focused on. I know they were trying to help, but it just made me feel like crap about myself.

Setting these limits is for her own good, but it requires walking a fine line. All I know to do is present healthy choices as much as possible, and to just say no to the greasy stuff. She might get mad, but I’d rather see her angry with me than in pain. I just hope she doesn’t take it upon herself to interpret it the wrong way.