Boy did Mari think her food was yummy.

I swear I think we asked ourselves one too many times if Mari wore her food more than she ate it. It would be all over her face, in her hair, all over her clothes, and below her highchair all over the floor. You might be thinking, “Highchair?” Yes, Mari still sat in her highchair and actually preferred sitting there. When it was time to eat she would actually climb herself in, but that’s a different story.

Back to Mari’s food. Mari thought something was yummy as long as it fit into what she knew she loved. Her staples included pancakes (or should I say preacakes), oatmeal, french toast, waffles, PB&J, grilled cheese, spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, and that’s about it for actual meal type foods.

She of course inherited her sweet tooth from me. She loved all candy, fruit shacks, fruit roll-ups, cookies, cinnamon rolls, ice cream and just about anything else that was sweet.

A funny story about ice cream. Ever hear about the ice cream store called The Cold Stone Creamery? Well, if you haven’t you’re missing one yummy ice cream. The basic gist is they take a flavored ice cream and add the ingredients you would normally find in the prepacked ice cream in the frozen section of a grocery store only they do it in the cold stone right in front of you.

When we first moved to Burbank, Illinois, we decided to go check it out. We waited in a very long line that took at least a half hour to forty-five minutes to get to the counter to place our order. I don’t remember what either Keith or I had. However, I remember picking out Mari’s. She loves peanut putter so we decided on a peanut butter cup one. It was made in chocolate ice cream. Here’s the kicker. Remember Mari had autism and she’d only had ice creams with vanilla as its base. So can you picture the scene getting ready to play out. If she would have just tried it she would have found out she loved it. However, a meltdown of sorts ensued. I had to quickly go back up to the counter and get a cup of plain vanilla. She ate that right down

So while Mari thought her food was yummy, you just had to remember what she liked or you were headed on a trip to meltdown city.