Saturday 16 June 2012

Tears and Tantrums

I'm wondering what happened to my sweet and well behaved little boy. Someone seems to have spirited him away overnight and replaced him with a rather grumpy little chap. He's only eighteen months old so how can he be in the terrible twos already?
Now, if Joseph's been good at anything, it's been eating. Sometimes you have to chop it up a bit and sometimes you don't, but you can be almost guaranteed that he will eat what's put in front of him. Now, this has all changed. I give you case study - minced beef and onions. Oh how he's loved eating that, the piquancy of the fried onion, the depths of flavour in the mince. He'll even eat mushroom cooked in with it, he seems to enjoy the change in texture.
Not this week, oh boy, oh no.
It was freshly made and I made sure I checked the temperature before serving. Alas it did not meet with his approval and less than one bite was swallowed, the rest being either spat out or knocked from the spoon before it could reach his mouth. Annoyingly, he did eat the left-over roast potatoes I served with it. Perhaps in his small boy mind they were just really really big chips.
Would you know, but the following day was his day with Granny and I sent him with a pot of the same mince, now resigned as leftovers and a smidgeon of mashed potato left from our dinner of sausages, mash and beans. He ate it! He ate it all! Perhaps his Granny has something I don't, some extra level of persuasiveness. Or, what is more likely, he was just being contrary.
He's also decided that whilst he understands the word "no" he doesn't have to obey it if he doesn't really feel like it. He respects what it means, but does not feel that it need apply to him on every occasion. I now have the new terror of him climbing up on one of the smart black storage cubes so placed to keep him away from our gas fire, so he can reach the ornamental glassware on the shelf above - or the tissues. You can shout NO till you're hoarse, you can jump up and down waving your arms and scream till you're purple, it will do no good. All that is left is to go and bodily pick him up before he destroys the tall decorated glass I was given for being a friends bridesmaid. Then he screams and makes me feel like the bad guy.
We went out yesterday. I had to buy my lovely husband a birthday present and I wanted to buy Joseph a mack as the British summer is living up to its usual bracing reputation. He was pretty good in the shops but the restaurant was a different matter. So many places don't leave quite enough room for wheeled contrivances, be they buggy or some form of invalid vehicle. It was a right royal faff to get to the table and even more of a faff to get seated. Finally when this monster manoeuvre was complete and not before, I was told the fryer was broken so no chips.
No chips?
I have a small boy in tow! I am a tired shopper! Do I look like someone who will not mind "no chips"?
I was too tired to mind. It had taken me more than ten minutes to get settled and I could not be bothered to do it all again somewhere else. I had a chicken burger and (grrrr) a salad and Joseph had loaded nachos, which he liked as long as he wasn't throwing them on the floor. There were a few comments from the next door table. They were either a bit thick or didn't care that I could hear but I gathered that their opinion was that Joseph was cute but annoyingly noisy and it was my fault and should I really be feeding a small child on junk?
He was annoyed because the service was slow and he was sat in his high chair for a long time waiting for his pudding to come with nothing to do but try and dip crayons into the leftover soured cream that came with the Nachos. As for junk, the kids menu was all chips chips chips with one salad which I know he wouldn't eat. That left Nachos and he did eat one of the carrot dippers that came with them.
He did eat all of the pudding, by the way, it was chocolate brownies with ice cream. What young lad, even in the midst of a naughty patch would reject that?
I spent the whole meal wishing I'd gone with my first instinct of going to Nandos - but I did not as I'd be totally unable to order any food without leaving my small child totally unattended for a significant period of time. Nandos, you discriminate against anyone who happens to be out on their own with a small child. Mind you, when he cries he ends up covered in snot and I doubt anyone would want to kidnap that.

1 comment:

  1. I would have held a conversation with Joseph on the subject of complete strangers who butt in where they shouldn't, and what should happen to them. But I'm naughty like that!

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