It's easy to say someone else is to blame for your extra weight - even a 2-year-old boy.
By JOHN C. COTEY, Times Staff Writer
Published August 30, 2005
FOLLOW THE PROGRESS
Weighing In, John C. Cotey's column about his effort to lose weight, appears Tuesdays in Floridian. His starting weight on July 1 was 250 pounds. To read previous columns and his Web log, The Skinny, please go to www.sptimes.com/skinny
WEIGHING IN: 230
Being overweight is a curse, but it gives one an innate ability to blame everyone and everything for one's man boobs and size 40 waist.
There's the wife, who cooks too well for my own good and whose own sweet tooth sometimes means a tres leches cake sits in our fridge for a few days, tempting me, toying with my emotions.
There's the mother-in-law and brother-in-law, she with her infernal supply of rich chocolates, he with his delicious pots of pho, Vietnamese beef noodle soup.
There's the daughters, who get such joy from a trip to Dairy Queen. When they're not baking fresh brownies, that is.
There's the mother, who drove me to fast food by forcing me to eat all my green beans, even though as a child I would stick them in my pocket at dinner when she wasn't looking, until the day she busted me, sending me running down the street, where she ran me down, dragged me back home, emptied my pockets and sat there while I finished each and every one of them.
Longest sentence ever, but a true story, and the last green beans I ever had.
Now excuse me while I compose myself and try to suppress that memory, again.
Now, where was I?
Ah yes, blame.
Now that I have blamed mom, wife and daughters, let me add 2-year-old Jonathon to the mix.
Precious boy, he is. And at one time, a wonderful eater. Cleaned that plate, licked that bowl, slurped up every last crumb off his highchair tray.
Lately, though, the kid is slipping.
Last week, I made him macaroni and cheese, but Jonathon barely touched it. One of my favorite foods, it sat there on the kitchen counter. A few bites later, I was pretty disappointed in myself.
But I wondered whether I would have been more disappointed throwing away a perfectly good bowl of food.
I wondered the same thing about his uneaten waffles the next morning, covered in delicious honey, so unworthy of the trash can.
Oh, and that bowl of cereal he insisted on having . . . and the cup of orange juice . . . and that yogurt . . . and that bagel, even though he had licked the cream cheese off . . . I wondered about those too.
When it comes to cleaning Jonathon's plate, my wife has been a great help. On many days, her breakfast and lunch is usually his breakfast (though where was she on macaroni-and-cheese day, I ask? Where?)
Secretly, maybe this is the way I like it.
Why else would I fall for his trickery every single time?
Just the other day, I was enjoying the slightest bit of natural peanut butter spread between two slices of low-cal, whole grain bread when I realized Jonathon hadn't eaten lunch. By the time he asked for a bite of mine, it was gone.
He didn't want his own sandwich, so I tricked him by making "me" another sandwich, on the good bread. He took a bite, and then another as I held the plate for him.
By the time I offered him a third bite, he was sleeping.
An hour later, I noticed his bread was getting stale. The top side had lost its softness. His sandwich was dying a slow death, and he was off dreaming about Dora the Explorer.
Do I even need to finish this story?
Soon, however, Jonathon will become a better eater. I won't have him to use as an excuse for that extra bite of mac and cheese, that last little bit of cereal.
Don't worry, I tell myself. Baby Khoi will be starting solids in a few weeks.
