Holding my nerve...

Rather a tetchy family meal this evening. This has more than a little to do with the fact that in their own two very different ways, my sons run guerrilla warfare against my confidence as a ‘kitchen princess’. (Not my term; it belongs to my charming Husband. Mostly when he wants something…). I am faced daily with the following MO’s;

Boy #1: favours Food Avoidance Tactics. His first line of defence is always disappointment at what we are eating (It’s too green / dry / wet / healthy / hasn’t enough ketchup / hasn’t any ketchup). This is followed by outright moaning, complaining, and occasionally tears at the thought I could even consider forcing him to eat this rubbish. However, as long as I hold my nerve – and his spoon – I am usually rewarded about half-way through with the exclamation ‘But I DO like it!’ and we are friends again. This way I normally manage to get enough food into him to convince myself that he won’t die of malnutrition (and that I am a good mother).

Boy #2: made a good start in the eating everything stakes, but recently has gone on a Lump Avoidance Campaign. He will eat anything as long as it is suitably sloppy – or if it’s fruit. If it’s fruit, then it could be the crunchiest apple you ever encountered, he will still eat it. If it’s not fruit – and he remembers about the campaign (he is only 21 months old, after all) - then he will chew the food a few times and then push any lumps attractively out of his mouth so they dribble down his bib.

Needless to say, both of these things drive me CRAZY. But obviously I hold my nerve and smile through it, because if there’s one thing all the experts say, it’s not to turn meal-times into a battle-field. Husband says not to let it get to me. He’s right of course, but usual response to that helpful comment is to retort ‘try cooking it yourself, sit through a meal like this, and then tell me that’…


Of course I might also have been a little more sensitive than normal as I am suffering the side-effects of no chocolate. Yes, today, healthy eating starts here. No more Green & Blacks milk chocolate, no more Starbucks chocolate brownie, no more Paul’s chocolate macaroons… can you see a pattern emerging? Am determined that this month I am finally going to shift those lost few kilos (well, 2 if you want to know) that will take me back to my pre-child weight. It would have been more but my recent crash diet (courtesy of a pesky appendix – which paid the ultimate price for it’s audacity) has already shifted 3. Now, the target I’m aiming for still won’t be perfect, but it’s as close as I can contemplate without looking at the back pages of Marie Claire for plastic surgeons.

This is mainly because I would quite like to reclaim my wardrobe, but must admit that it’s partly because we are off on holiday for a week in November and can’t bear the thought of being the frump in the cover-up on the beach whilst I’m surrounded by younger women, all no doubt slim, toned, groomed and plucked practically to extinction. Which reminds me – must find somewhere to get my bikini line dealt with…