Picky Eating
It was the dead of night, the hour when the rest of the house had begun to sink into sleep.
Noona and I had set canned beer, fruit, and snacks out on the table and were taking it easy with a little alcohol. We'd already weaned So-eun off breast milk, so there was no reason left to keep holding ourselves back.
"Suhwan. I think beer tastes more bitter than it used to."
"Does it? I can't tell. Maybe it's just because you went so long without any after having So-eun."
"You think so?"
Noona tilted her head and took a sip. Even that small mouthful must have struck her as fiercely bitter, because she blew out a sharp breath and immediately grabbed for a snack. I snorted a laugh, gulped my own beer down, and followed her lead, popping one of the round, peanut-filled crackers into my mouth.
"Oh, right. Noona, So-eun was coveting these."
"The octopus peanuts?"
"Yeah. You know they're my favorite. She takes after me completely, doesn't she? Heh heh. She stared absolute holes through them while I was eating."
"Which is why I'm already annoyed. So-eun takes after you, all right. She's picky already."
"Annoyed? How picky am I, exactly?"
"Mushrooms. Sea cucumbers, sea squirts. You never liked oysters or clams, either."
"You've got to give me the squishy ones. I hate those."
I shook my head. Call it what you like—I still didn't want to eat anything squishy.
"Then why don't you like carrots? So-eun won't eat them."
"Those are bitter."
"...You like perilla leaves, though."
"How do I put it. It's a different kind of bitter from carrots?"
Noona burst out laughing at that, as if she couldn't believe her ears.
"The truth is, you just don't like them because they don't taste good."
"Well. You could put it that way, too."
I said it with my shoulders back, perfectly unashamed, and Noona shook her head. So what? It wasn't as if anyone died from skipping carrots.
"Let's clean up and get to bed."
"Yeah, let's. I'm getting sleepy myself."
The talk of picky eating had started over a single snack, and we decided to turn in before the night grew any later. Only after we'd cleared away the beer cans—empty enough to show their bottoms—put the snack bags and fruit aside, and swept up every last crumb could we finally lie down.
"Good night."
"You too, Noona."
A good-night and a light kiss, and sleep took us almost at once.
Our family's morning routine was fixed down to the last detail.
I couldn't cook to save my life, so Noona got breakfast ready while I looked after So-eun and the animals.
I watched her drift toward the kitchen, face still caught between sleep and waking, then turned an equally groggy gaze on So-eun. There she was, fast asleep just the way I slept—one arm thrown up, the sole of one foot stuck against the calf of the other leg.
I'll let So-eun sleep a little longer....
Rather than wake her, I decided to see to the animals first and stepped out into the living room. They were sprawled every which way. They understood speech, and we'd lived together long enough that our rhythm had slowly rubbed off on them. Put simply, they slept when we slept and woke when we woke.
I set out their food and water. The bowls that had started running dry overnight I filled to the brim, and into the food dishes—licked so clean they didn't hold a single crumb—I portioned each animal's feed. I didn't forget the special meals for Yubu, Hanmu, and Pe-eng, either, who preferred their own food to ordinary feed.
Only once the animals had feed and water did I head back up to the second floor for So-eun.
"Dada..."
"Aigoo, our So-eun's awake?"
She was still half-asleep, limbs flopping loose, and when I gathered her up she melted into my arms with a soft whump. At that rate she'd slide right back under, so I gave her a gentle bounce until she woke. Her eyes flew open, bright and round. I chuckled and made straight for the bathroom.
"So-eun, shall we wash your face?"
"Splish-splash!"
"All right. Want to try it yourself?"
I set her up at the sink. She reached for the water and softly rubbed at her face—or rather, wiped her wet hands across it. I let out a quiet laugh at the sight of her washing up on her own, then wiped her face again myself. Once I'd picked the sleep from her eyes and cleaned away the trail of drool, the usual adorable So-eun was back.
"All done!"
"Aw done!"
I took my little echo out to the living room and found that Noona had already laid the breakfast table.
"Fried rice?"
"Mm. So-eun likes fried rice, so while I was at it I made ours too. That's all right, isn't it?"
"Fine by me."
I nodded and settled So-eun into the chair that occupied one corner of the table, the one that was hers alone. The moment I closed a spoon in her hand, she swung it wildly, as if demanding her rice that very instant.
"We don't do that."
"Mm!"
Even so, So-eun was a good girl who listened, and she waited politely to be served.
"Here we go—So-eun's favorite fried rice!"
"Rice!"
I spooned it into a bowl with tiny animals drawn around the rim, and a look of pure bliss crossed her face as she stabbed the spoon in. She spilled a fair amount, but she brought it to her own mouth all the same.
"Isn't the way she chews too cute?" said Noona. "Her cheeks are already puffed up, and with food in them they look even rounder."
"Seriously. Now I get why Mom kept trying to feed me."
"Right? I keep wanting to feed So-eun something, too."
Our own meals grew colder and colder while we watched her eat. Hunger won out eventually, and we started in ourselves—but that meal didn't last long either.
"Blehh."
"...What did I just see?"
"Noona. So-eun's superpower isn't getting animals to like her. It's picking the ingredients out of fried rice."
"I've never seen this before either. Why did she suddenly pick up a skill like that?"
What had happened was simple, and impossible. So-eun worked her mouth a few times, then spat out orange pieces of carrot.
Not a single grain of rice came with them. What left her mouth was one hundred percent carrot. Of the meat, chopped just as small, there wasn't so much as a speck.
How had she sorted it out inside her mouth? Noona, fretting lately over So-eun's picky eating, had minced those carrots until they were practically dust. Struck dumb, the two of us couldn't manage a word. We froze exactly as we were, spoons still raised.
So-eun, however, was not finished. She neatly gathered up the carrots she'd spat out and scattered them across the floor in a swift little shower.
"Oh, this is tasty-sha!"
"Save the talk and eat-geosha."
"Move-sha! I want some too-sha!"
The instant the carrots hit the floor, voices rose from under the table. The Tokkiz. I stole a glance beneath it and found them devouring what So-eun had tossed down with enormous relish.
"...Let's just eat."
"...Yeah."
We looked at the scene and gave up on understanding it. Fine. So she skipped a few carrots. What of it? And once we gave up, things were remarkably easier—because So-eun's little performance did not stop at a single encore.
"This is yummy-jjeo!"
The pieces of abalone in the nutrient-packed porridge were picked out one by one and slipped straight into Pe-eng's beak.
"Any more in there? Just a teeny bit more."
The bits of mushroom mixed in with the beef went into the raccoons' snouts.
"Maybe 'cause the baby gave it to us? Tastes even better."
The broccoli in the soup was inhaled with great satisfaction by the geese.
Nor did it end there. So-eun plucked out whatever she didn't want to eat with ridiculous ease, and in the end there was no stopping her picky eating. How could we, when she filtered every last bit inside her mouth even after we'd chopped it fine? Short of grinding it all to a pulp and stirring it in, it was impossible.
"Force-feeding her doesn't sit right either, so let's just look for substitutes.... If we really have to, we can give her vitamins."
The more I thought about it, the clearer it became. Exhausting ourselves to correct the picky eating of a child with a gift like hers would do our sanity far less good than finding something that could stand in for the foods she refused. Forcing them on a picky child wasn't healthy for their growth, either. Nutritionally, you could argue it was the right call—but if you looked at growing up itself, it wasn't much of a kindness.
Even so, nutrients could leach out into the broth and the like, so we kept those ingredients in the meals. Thanks to that, we were treated to an astonishing little show at every sitting.
"Well, I'll be! This is exactly my taste, I tell ya!"
As a bonus, the animals got to eat delicious food.
It was fair to call it a relief that none of what So-eun refused would do them any harm. That was the only reason it worked. Seasoning—salt and the like—might have been a problem, but the food she ate was barely seasoned to begin with.
More than that, if we told her ahead of time that something must never be given to the animals, she would quietly spit it out beside the bowl, so there was even less to worry about. Truly dangerous things—anything steeped in onion, which could go so far as to kill a dog—never reached them at all, so long as we warned her first.
Noona, though, looked as if she'd rather So-eun just eat the things she wasn't allowed to hand out, instead of picking them apart.
I had to put real effort into soothing her grumbling: that in the time So-eun spent sorting her food, she ought to just chew and swallow.