Sounds harsh? But it's true! It's also a way to remind myself that my imagined roadblocks are just that - between my ears. Of course I know that I'll never win the Boston Marathon (or any marathon, for that matter!), or the title of "Iron Chef"...but I can certainly train for and run 26.2 miles, or make a mean turkey chili and have my own kids compliment my culinary skills...what better accomplishment than that?
The reason for this post is to highlight our own, self-imposed limitations. As I mentioned before, having a food-allergic kid is a HUGE eye-opener in terms of re-learning food. It seemed as if I had to go into a long, drawn out explanation as to why my kid wasn't allowed to eat the treats brought in for the Halloween party. Or why she wasn't allowed to eat the pizza unless I scraped all the cheese off. I got plenty of weird stares and disgusted looks when I asked to see ingredient lists or brought in a home made cupcake to a classmate's birthday party. I'd explain that no dairy meant no milk, cheese, butter, goldfish crackers, cheese crackers, ice cream.....all those childhood right of passage foods were off limits to her. It didn't matter that we found some pretty darn good-tasting dairy-free "ice cream" treats, milk alternatives, margarine, crackers...etc. My mother-in-law even found chocolate bars that were really tasty! But....how can your kid not have any....*GASP!* milk?! Isn't it that very ingredient that makes it all matter?
Well, to look at her, you'd never know she's been so deprived her whole life. In fact, she's usually very good about it - we've only had a few incidents where she got truly upset over it, or the time she decided to test it and snuck a rather large piece of ice cream cake at a birthday party. She subsequently spent the better part of the evening curled up in the fetal position in pain....(and I'm pretty sure she won't try that again).
Milk is just the example here - and an extreme one, to be sure. I also gave it up (for quite a while as a matter of fact) and at first what I thought was going to be an absolutely miserable experience turned out to be pretty awesome. It was certainly scary, inconvenient and challenging. But it was my choice, and the rewards of learning how to eat healthier and a more open mind (just to name a few) made it worth every second.
My whole point is that so often the thought of "Oh, I just couldn't do that" pops into our minds that we miss out on what could be some truly wonderful experiences. "Well, WHY NOT?" is my new favorite answer.
Unless my kid asks me to borrow the car.
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