Certain holidays get really difficult with a child on the Spectrum.
The Monster’s eating, as I’ve referred to at various times, has gotten much better than it was. Where he used to eat about 10 things, he’s now eating nearly anything that comes in front of him…
And then, out of the blue, we hit Passover.
As a child, my mother fully koshered our home for the holiday. (Our house was kosher, but this was the usual complete-change-over-and-hide-the-Hametz that you expect as an observant Jew.) While we don’t keep a 100% kosher home ourselves – my wife didn’t grow up with it – we’d always made an effort to stick to Passover. And then the Monster’s eating habits became an issue.
Because, seriously, life’s hard enough when your child only eats pizza for dinner, and turns his nose up at anything that doesn’t look like Papa Johns or Little Caesers.
But now, he eats everything, so I broached the idea last night of going back to the customary thing, and actually keeping Passover fully. It’d really only change a few things – namely, his snacks and the sandwich in his lunch – since we’d be in the habit of giving him what we’re having for dinner, and since I pack his lunch anyway…
Granted, she’s bringing up rightfully that it’s a question of how his lunch’ll hold up with matzah in it, and if he’d even eat it. I’m willing to give it a good college try for a day and see (or even try it on Saturday, when we’re home, to figure out if he’ll play ball), but I have a feeling that, barring his lunch getting smashed to crumbs for a few days, this should work out alright. It’ll be a big step towards being more ‘normal’ as a family…