I honestly don't know, I stopped counting after 35. Hoarding food, mainly snacks, has been an issue with my adopted stepson for just about as long as I have known him. In all honesty, it has most likely gone on for the entire time that I have known him, it just took me a little while to catch on to how quickly certain items from the pantry were disappearing.

My adopted stepson's early childhood was not an easy one. Being raised by his paternal grandmother while his father was overseas in the military, and his mother was off doing her own thing, was a large enough hurdle for him to have to get over, but add to that, the fact that he was also growing up in extreme poverty and you are adding an entirely new set of issues to deal with and for him to overcome.

He can remember riding in the family car, which had a large rusted out hole in the floor, that he and a cousin would have fun dropping McDonald's straw wrappers into, and watching them get sucked down the road and out of sight. That is of course, when they had enough money to go to McDonalds. My husband can remember plenty of times in his own childhood when there really was nothing to eat. Sure, they did always end up eating something, but not what most people would classify as a meal, when the only things you have to eat are rice and ketchup, you eat rice with ketchup...and now if you happen to mention those two food items to my husband in the same sentence you can watch his face twist up as he tries not to gag. It was by no means an easy childhood for either one of them.

My adopted stepson has a huge affection for lima beans, and this stems from growing up and not having anything to put on a sandwich besides mayo and well, lima beans. He is no longer a fan of mayonnaise, but boy can he eat some lima beans! As he got older he became more and more fearful that there would never be enough food, at least not enough for him. This fear was amplified during the short amount of time that he lived with his mother, who would not allow him to eat the same snacks that his step-siblings and the rest of the family did, for whatever reason. He was constantly in trouble for sneaking food, even going so far as to hide soda and snacks underneath his bike helmet so that he could ride around the corner and gorge himself on whatever he had taken out of the house.

Even when there is enough food in the house, he will sneak food, honestly afraid that everyone else will eat it all, before he has a chance to savor some in his own mouth before everything is gone. It truly doesn't matter, how much you yell, punish, take away, reward good behavior...he still takes food and hides it in his bed. The only time that you really aren't going to find wrappers and empty containers in his bed, would be when you are simply smart enough not to look there, because you already know quite well what you are going to find, and where that road leads to.

At first this annoyed me greatly, well no that isn't true. At first it royally pissed me off. I did not see it as something he was fearful of, I saw it as a child trying to be sneaky and thought okay we are going to nip this in the butt right now...my how that thought was so vivid in my head here, six and a half years later as I count wrapper number 35 in his bed before just hanging my head, laughing, and putting the wrappers back in the bed and leaving the room. Yeah Julie, you sure did a bang up job of nipping it, I thought to myself as I closed the door to his room. At least he hasn't enticed any bugs to wander into his room in search for food, well not this year.

When the hoarding begins to escalate we cut down on prepackaged snacks, and bulk up on items that we don't really mind him sneaking. I mean if he wants to eat grapes late into the night, he can be my guest, or apples, or some dried pineapple, raisins in bed anyone? It's when he eats eleven out of a box of twelve fruit roll-ups in one night because he is stressed over something that I tend to have a tad bit more of an issue, and the only way to really solve that, is to just not buy the fruit roll-ups. At least he is usually kind enough to leave one of whatever he had cleaned out, lying lonely in the bottom of the box, for about a day then he must figure we didn't want it, and that too disappears.

So once again, our house is going to become the dreaded junk free zone that children hate. When snacks are gorged on I do not run out and replace them, never have. If you can't make it last then you will have to go without that particular snack until the next time we go food shopping. Only this next time I venture out in search of food, it will be for the foods that I like, the healthy stuff and we are going to stick to that, plain and simple. I am also going to buy my adopted stepson his own box of granola bars and let him keep them in his room, as long as he throws the empty wrappers in the trash.

I figure I can't really stop him from taking snacks, aside from locking the pantry, so instead of stopping him I will in turn, humor him. He can have a snack all to himself, he can keep it in his room, but he is going to have to make it last, because I will buy enough for a month and that's it. You eat it in one night, or one week you are S-O-L until next month. We had tried this approach when he was younger, but he just wasn't ready for it then. Now that he is older and more responsible we will see if he has the ability yet to ration himself and keep a good thing going, or if I will again find myself counting empty wrappers.


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