Dealing with a picky eater

My husband and I are involved in the care of an 80something near and dear to us. One of our jobs is to get her to eat. You'd think this would be easy. Imagine if you had someone offering to cook you anything you'd like to eat. You'd eat, wouldn't you? You'd pretend you were the queen living at Buckingham Palace and eat, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong.

Now I have some experience with picky eaters. My husband is a picky eater. Before we married, my husband took me to meet his parents. My future mother-in-law immediately got down to business and told me about the food issues. Apparently, for the first - oh, I don't know - 10 to 40 years of his life, my husband ate fast food restaurant hamburgers and nothing else. My father-in-law would go to the restaurant and buy the frozen patties. They cooked them at home, making a separate meal just for him while the rest of the kids ate the regular meal. I was horrified by this story, and then I remembered that my husband is the youngest child.

Growing up, my mother's rule was that we had to eat what was in front of us. For the most part. We got to pick one thing that we didn't have to eat. I chose pork chops. I hate pork chops. Otherwise, we were expected to at least try everything else. This held for me, my sister and two of stepbrothers. Then there's my baby stepbrother. He was impossibly cute as a young child. One Thanksgiving, we were seated at the table with our plates of turkey and the side dishes, and I looked over at his plate. He had a celery boat filled with peanut butter and a minuscule piece of turkey. I looked at my mother, who immediately changed the subject. I'm still bitter. That woman made me eat liver and onions as a child. A celery boat of peanut butter certainly never came sailing my way.

Getting back to our charge, I went over the other day with a plate of food. She refused it, saying she wasn't hungry. I looked down at the counter. A dripping ice cream scoop was sitting in a pool of melted ice cream on the granite. Two empty bowls containing streaks of ice cream were on the coffee table. So I knew what the score was. Now, my initial thinking was if you get to your 80s, eat all the ice cream you want. Add some nuts and some hot fudge. I'll get the whipped cream for you.

Then our charge went to the doctor the other day. Her doctor is little more strict than I am. He decreed that she has to eat regular meals. Candy and ice cream aren't going to cut it. We relayed this information to her care giver, who takes her to the grocery store. A few days later, they went to the grocery store and the care giver watched in horror as ice cream, candy, cookies and crackers went into the cart. Finally, she had to say something: "Glenn doesn't want you eating all that junk." Our charge looked at her, flipped her hair and said, "Glenn's not here."

A day later, I went over to the house and started slyly looking for the candy under the guise of cleaning. I thought I could sneak at least some of it out of the house. Would you believe that I couldn't find it? Any of it? She apparently has a hiding spot.

Tonight, we offered to do dinner. I made stuffed shells. Have you made stuffed shells? This is not an easy recipe. It took me several hours. I roasted some broccoli, added bread and sent Glenn over with a plate. She refused it, saying she wasn't hungry. When Glenn came home, I told him we may have to take drastic measures. No Internet for a week. Wait, she doesn't have the Internet. How do you ground someone in their 80s?