Healing On a Plate

As told to Shoshana Gross

Esty was my kvetchy kid. I took it as truth that every mother had one of those children. I brushed off her lethargy and her tendency to follow me around whining, “Mooommy!” as yet another phase in the “terrible twos.” When I sat, Esty’s head instantly nestled in my lap. When I walked, Esty clung to my skirt like a limpet. When she came home from playgroup, she would already be sprawled on the floor, asleep, before I could put together an after-school snack.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked my friends and sister and mother and mother-in-law.

“She’s two,” I answered, unconcerned.

And then her morah asked me.

“Esty’s probably tired from running around!” I said with a laugh.

“She doesn’t play at school. She sits all day. Why is she always so tired?”