Izzy: "I don't want that. It comes from something that was alive and I'm not eating that."
Daddy:"Most food we eat comes from something alive. It would be pretty hard to not eat something that didn't come from something that was alive."
The Boy: "Yeah Izzy, if you didn't eat food that came from something alive you wouldn't eat any food period."
Izzy: "What's a food period?"
Every household has a kid that won't eat. There is not a threat of beating nor the guilt of starving African children that has ever or will ever make a lick of difference, the kid will not eat. I was that kid...mind you so was my sister but I digress...Not one single frozen, Exorcist vomit coloured, atrocious round, wrinkled nubbin of a pod dweller ever passed these lips willingly. My mother lived under the illusion that the way to ensure kids get proper nutrition is to force them to sit at a kitchen table until they ate the undesirable food. In my case it was frozen peas. Times being what they were, my mother bought bags of frozen peas by the gross and pulled them out at every meal. Hell or high water, her kids would be healthy or they would be sorry. That was the logic. Eat these peas and be healthy or it's a cuff up the back of the head and off to bed you go. If eating dried out, stone cold peas will make you healthy, our dog should have been Charles Atlas...I can't even look at a bag of frozen peas without getting a headache.
It stands to reason then that my predilection toward general pain in the assery (which is really what "fussy eaters" are anyway) should pass directly to my child. And it has, in spades. It started off as Mrs. Narrator and I allowing her to eat snacks before supper to the point of her getting to full. I think this a learning curve that every parent goes through with their child. 'how much can I let my kid eat before supper and still have them eat?' We found out quickly that she can't really snack before supper and still eat anything we've prepared. it just doesn't work out. And I am entirely too willful to say she can have anything but supper food for supper...but like so many other odd and old fashioned notions, my stubbornness is fading like a sunset.
Once the snacking after school was taken away, the resistance to supper time went up exponentially. "I'm hungry, I want a snack," she would say.
"You can't have a snack, you won't eat supper." I would reply.
"Please Daddy, I promise I will eat every bite of my supper." And more often than not, I would fall for it and more often than not, she would be too full for supper. next came the meal logistics and stomach chambers. "but the candy is going to fit on this side of my stomach and supper will go on this side of my stomach. See plenty of room for supper and snack." But this is all bush league stuff. The student has truly surpassed the master and taken fussy eating and turned it into an art form.
She often falls asleep when she gets home from school and trying to get her to eat (if you can wake her up) is almost impossible. But who can eat right after they wake up anyhow? She did however wake up once and proclaim that her belly was hurting because she needed to put food in it. Victory! After the meal was made and we all sat down to eat it, Izzy took one look and announced she didn't like it.
"How can you say you don't like it, you haven't even tried it?" I actually expected her to say that she didn't like it because she had seen it in a dream. The truth was far better. She said that she couldn't eat it because it was disgusting and the smell was giving her a headache.
"Nonsense," I said. "It is not disgusting. Eat your supper or go to your room" At which point she started full on weeping. Massive fake tears were rolling down her cheeks.
"Yes?" I asked "There is some sort of problem?"
"Sitting at the table and smelling supper is giving me a headache and my leg is hurting from it now!" And with that she walked off toward the living room and flopped on the
couch like a tuna on the deck of a boat. (We were having left over pizza)The coup de gras of all of this came about not that long ago. Mrs. Narrator had an appointment and supper was left to me. We were to have smoked sausage and noodles. We have had it dozens of times, made by both Mrs. Narrator and me, all of us enjoy it and we have it regularly. I told Izzy that's what we were having and she was very excited at the prospect of it. She went on and on about how starving she was. "Oh boy Daddy, I am so hungry I'm going to eat two sausages!"
The kids sat down and I brought it to the table and Izzy exclaimed
"This doesn't look anything like it smelled and I am NOT eating this. Should I just go to my room now?"
There is a disturbing trend I have been noticing around our house lately. Both the Boy and Izzy (particularly Izzy) suddenly lose the ability to see or hear me when their mother walks in the room...I'm told that thins is a normal thing and all children go through the Mom is God thing but there was a time when Izzy was about nobody but dear old Dad...oh the times they are a changin'
For example the other day Isobel had a bug up her butt and I seemed to be the constant target. Lots of eye rolling and tongue sticking out and the sheer attitude...the kind of attitude that makes you just want to wallop a child. What a great word that is...because if you do it right, that is the sound made by the ears as they continue to reverberate after the hand has left the back of the head...wait where was I...sorry. Of course we don't hit the children but there are times when a cuff up the ass doesn't sound like a bad idea...I'm meandering. At bedtime, the attitude had not abated and my strain was beginning to show.
"Bedtime," I said curtly.
"I am sitting here because I don't listen. " Isobel said matter of factly. She finally relented, I grumbled and she grumbled and she went to bed.
Now here is the fundamental difference between children and most adults. By the next day her attitude hadn't changed much but I knew it couldn't last all day and then she would get her comeuppance
"Daddy, can I use your Ipod?" she asked sheepishly.
"No." I said.
"Why not?" she asked.
"I am sitting here because I don't listen." I said.
"What are you talking about Daddy? Mummy, Daddy won't let me use his Ipod"...and another ten cent scheme gets shot all to hell by a five year old in a pink AC-DC shirt...
No comments:
Post a Comment