I’m not the expert on gaining weight. I’ve been lean and lithe all of my life. But, I assure you that it’s not from lack of nutrition. I can eat enough food to support a small neighborhood. My body happens to be a pretty efficient machine. When I eat a small amount in a day, my activity levels drop to conserve energy. When I eat a lot, my activity levels go into overdrive. And vice versa (or visa versa as they say in the South). My activity levels will also direct my food portion size. A big mountain bike ride will require the minimum equivalent of a carne asada burrito, a chicken taco, and an order of chips and salsa.
I think the Worm has taken his inherited energy efficiency to another level. His body has evolved to run on air, juice, and a couple of gummy snacks (no, not a couple of packages…a couple of pieces). He’s done an inordinate amount of jumping, playing, and exploring on barely a whiff of French toast and syrup in the morning.
It’s no secret that we’ve our doctors been having problems with Worm’s weight. So much so, that the pediatrician is holding the phone and ready to dial child services. (This is our last-ditch effort to keep the government from crying child neglect and placing Worm in a foster home to be ‘better’ cared for.) Desperate times call for desperate measures and health gets thrown out the window as we must get Worm into the ‘normal’ weight range for his age. Or else.
The other reason to fatten up the little guy is that at some point, survival mode will take over and Worm will start eating everything. Not wanting to wake up one day to find Worm feasting on a handful of dirt and leaves from the yard, I thought it best to open every door of opportunity to get calories into his body the normal way. (Pica is a pretty cool physiological mechanism until the doctor has to pull rocks out of your kid’s belly and you get slapped with a fat bill.) If it was up to me, I’d keep with the car analogy, drop a funnel into Worm’s mouth and just pour a bunch of peanut butter and molasses down his gullet. But, the boss doesn’t agree with me treating Worm like a transportation vehicle. So I have to improvise.
It’s common knowledge that the best way to put on weight is to eat low-fat/non-fat foods and anything with artificial sweeteners krapfens, Berliners, ponchiks, oliebollens, beignets, or as we Americans call them, doughnuts. We thought to visit the local Krispy Kreme to show our son that empty calories can be deliciously filled with custard and garnished with rainbow sprinkles.
On the way to the doughnut shop, I was explaining to the Worm that doughnuts are in the same family as almonds, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, and peanuts. They grow on trees like other nuts, but not here on Earth. There are farms in heaven that are owned by Monsanto, where angels pick the different varietals (eclairs, glazed, jelly-filled, etc.) during the summer season. Most are brought down here for human consumption and delivered to places like Krispy Kreme, Dunkin’ Doughnuts, and supermarkets. The rest of the doughnuts are eaten by _____ (insert your God here) and that’s what makes him/her larger than life itself.
I finished my story just as we pulled up to the KK and Worm nodded as if he understood. But, it wasn’t until we walked inside and he bit into his first ever doughnut, that it sunk in. We were standing inside an extension of heaven eating fruit of the deities.
I think we may have found the answer to our weight gaining prayers…
A Place with Free Doughnuts? It’s Out of This World!
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