Picking off the Vegetables

So I recently realized that what I mistook for piety in my two-year-old was really a combination of common sense and the desire not to burn her tongue. (I should have guessed as much: this is the child who piped up "I don't like church.  Mama, I don't LIKE CHURCH"--during the Cherubic Hymn, no less.) Naomi has for the longest time been my little prayer conscience: "Time to pray, Mama! Time to pray!" she would exclaim as I set the food on the table. Only now do I realize that she only says this when I tell them "Careful: it's hot!" "Time to pray," for Naomi, may amount to nothing more than a way to delay the beginning of the meal, a distraction to keep her from diving in too soon so that her food might cool down to a reasonable temperature in the meantime.


Another recent mealtime trend in our household is the picking off of the vegetables. I used to have children who would eat anything, anything I put in front of them: broccoli, kale, squash, sweet potato, tomatoes, carrots, corn, cauliflower, peas, etc. You grew it, they ate it! Do 3-year-olds come with a manual for driving their mothers crazy??? Katie has recently declared war on several (fortunately not all!) vegetables, and Naomi is quickly following suit, thanks to the example of her cool older sister. This is a problem in our household. A serious problem. Take tonight's meal:

 That's mushrooms, red pepper, green zebra tomatoes, onion and Swiss chard. The crust and cheese are really just a delivery system in my books; pizza's not pizza without the veggies! Katie sat in front of her pizza for nearly twenty minutes, diligently denuding the piece of my masterpiece that I had placed before her until it was deemed vegetable-free and passed inspection.


Now I realize this is small potatoes. In some ways I know that I've already lost the food battle, because when our kids are teenagers, you bet I'll be stocking the pantry with junkfood to ensure that our place becomes the hangout spot of choice! And by that time, I'll have a thirteen-year-old Naomi who can not only tell me "I don't LIKE church," but who can also refuse to get out of bed on Sunday morning, refuse to put on clothing, and refuse to get in the car (or on her bike, or whatever.) This thought terrifies me.


It's not that I want little carbon copies of myself, or that my children have to absorb each and every one of my values. It's just that some of what we do as a family--pray together, worship together--is so very important to me that I would be heartbroken if their came a time when we no longer shared that. As I see it, the Eucharistic Liturgy is the very foundation of spiritual health. And I realize that, just as we do for vegetables, we can lose our taste for church (though perhaps on a slightly different timeline.) Perhaps our spiritual senses become duller as we encounter the world in all of its flashiness. Perhaps we lose our way through woundedness. Whatever the cause, once off the road it can be immensely difficult to find one's way back.


Today, I am humbled by the immense privilege and responsibility that is child-rearing. I am so very thankful for the children that have been given me, and it is with fear and trembling that I anticipate holding and releasing their hands as they meet the challenges of daily living.