I have come to the something of a dawning realization that Grandpa is a picky eater. I guess some part of my mind always associated picky-eating with those naughty little boys and girls, in spite of the fact that we all know picky-eaters come in all sizes. But in case one might forget that, Grandpa is here to remind me.
Grandpa is a picky eater, but his problem is exacerbated by the fact that he has false teeth which really should have been replaced years ago. This makes a good number of foods unpalatable for Grandpa simply because they are difficult or impossible to chew. So Grandpa doesn’t like anything difficult to chew, and he doesn’t really care for Italian food, and he doesn’t really care for stir-fry or any ethnic food really of any type. When it comes down to it, there are few things Grandpa really likes for a main course. Mashed potatoes, meatloaf, roast turkey, stuffing . . . that just about summarizes his scope of “good meals.”
Of course we can’t have the two or three meals Grandpa likes in continuous succession so that means Grandpa must suffer with many meals he’s not really happy with. Compounding the problem of Grandpa’s eating habits is his difficulty keeping a respectable weight on his old bones. He hovers around 125 lbs and pretty nearly is a bag of shriveled bones. We have standing orders from the doctor to feed him whatever he will eat, no matter how unhealthy it will be, just to keep some weight on him and I wouldn’t be surprised if when Grandpa finally croaks (in the end) it will be from failure to eat enough.
I am constantly trying to get Grandpa to eat. Every time he has a cup of coffee I offer him something to eat. “Would you like a muffin with that? A cookie? A donut?” Often enough he isn’t hungry and doesn’t want anything, but I can usually get him to eat at least something in between meals. Still, even with his sweets he is picky. He gets tired of donuts, cookies, muffins, and chips. He gets tired of them, and yet at the same times it seems like he can eat such an amount that another person would get fat and still he gains not a pound. Everything he eats seems to vanish away inside him.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if his every eating whim was catered too. Would he gain some weight? Grandpa’s two most favorite foods are chocolate cake and pie, but he will happily eat any baked chocolate dessert, any for him we never have enough of any of these treasured foods. Today I took the time to whip him up a brownie mix and that turned into an example of how much better he eats when he is served the foods that are truly near and dear to his heart.
The brownie’s were done before supper, so since it was an hour until supper I asked him if he would like a piece of dessert with his cup of coffee. Since it was brownie’s (which was a freshly baked chocolate dessert and so constituted one of his favored things to eat) he readily agreed and I cut him a nice sized piece to eat. After eating a decent supper I offered him more dessert which he eagerly accepted, along with a comfortable serving of ice cream. Then, after he finished all that he asked for more more dessert. So I gave him another smaller piece of brownie along with more ice cream. That is Grandpa eating hearty. That is not how Grandpa normally eats.
Since he has such few pleasures in life I don’t begrudge him his favored foods, however unhealthy. By the time you’re nearly eighty who cares how many donuts, cakes, and pies you eat? For the sake of everyone else in the house I can’t pander to his preference in meals because the rest of his would probably go out of our minds. But I wish I could give him his desserts more often because his face positively lights up when he learns that there is cake or pie on the menu. That is something to look forward too. However, it is a hard fact of life that with everything else calling at my limited time I can only occasionally squeeze in even a measly store bought pie or cake mix.
Grandpa savors every one.
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