Entries Tagged 'creative cuisine' ↓

I’ve been around a few kids in the past couple of years who could be considered problem kids.

I know, technically it’s wrong and unjust to call a three-year old a problem child, but for the love of all that is holy like Justin Timberlake shirtless with five o’clock shadow, when one kid goes after another child who they know is apprehensive about them (aka scared as shit) repeatedly for an entire summer? That kid’s got problems. That kid’s a bully.

So, I’ve sat there and heard and doled out my own judgements about why such bad seeds exist and those comments usually end up being about the kid wanting attention from a lack-lustre parent. Good/bad attention doesn’t matter, when you’re getting none, right?

This judgeyness that I’m so developed at, I turned it inward.

Isobel…people think she’s a really good kid. She’s smart, social, takes care of babies who cry, damn cute, a little pixie of a ball-buster. Win, right?

Seems I’m the only person she trusts enough to show her bad-ass wench moments to. Lucky me, being the special one to take the punches, hear the shrieks and still have to say “goodnight, I love you.” It’s fucking hard and it might be my fault.

I thought, maybe, just maybe, it was because I wasn’t paying enough attention to her. So today, we embarked on quality time that didn’t make me want to hang myself in a closet with a belt. Don’t worry – I’d totally blog my suicide note, if quality time ever pushes me to the edge.

We got a little culinary – and inventive.

She helped me make some honey flax bread. Then we made some chocolate fruit loaf. Then, we made dinner together – spicy chicken dahl stew.

You’d think, with all of this quality time and helping I let her do (Because me and letting people help, especially when they’ll probably do it wrong, is like pickles and peanut butter. Just isn’t happening.), she’d be thankful and gracious and welcoming.

Not my kid. She threw a fucking fit about eating her dinner. Only wanted the flax bread.

She hissied herself into tremors over having to pee before bedtime.

She freaked the fuck out about not swallowing the toothpaste when we brushed her teeth.

What the hell is up with that shit?

Then, she passed the fuck out. Thankfully.

What do I have to show for all of this quality time? A lot of dishes, left overs and an eye twitch.

It’s official. I give up.

Once upon a time, I knew this little girl who was so enamoured with everything new, tastes, textures, colours, that she often had to be told to slow down for fear of choking on that which made her so very happy. She shovelled each chubby handful in, one after the other, double fisting lasagna, alfredo’d pasta, rice, avocado and yam. This little girl used to eat butter chicken, vegetarian thin-crust pizza, and jambalaya, FFS.

This little girl is no longer.

It started off so innocently. First, she tired of bread (and it’s rougher counterpart, toast), but since crackers, bagels and moist loaves of banana-y goodness were still devoured, it was okay. Then went out most other forms of bread products, so that only crackers and banana loaf remained favoured, with bagels and tortillas being a seldom accepted possibility.

Then went the cheese. And the potatoes. And the anything that is touching something else. And then the (for the most part) anything mixed together. And finally, the one that really hurts, the anything piled on top of something else.

Now, dinner is the only meal I really enforce – everything else is grazing. This one little meal a day? Has become me bashing my head against a wall while she refuses to try nearly anything – even foods she’s loved for nearly two years. So, since I am not that mom who will make two different (or more) meals for my testy toddler, I resign my duties.

Let her graze. Let her subsist on the protein sources she’s willing to take in. Let her eat avocado and meatballs for dinner everynight, as long as they’re served on a plate, split extremely apart. I quit.

I quit trying to make meals that I know she’d love if she’d only try one damn bite. Or meals that are ultra healthy just like she ate three months ago. Or hell, even easy ones, based on time saving, the ratio of clean to dirty dishes and the exact necessity of a bath for her before bedtime.

I am spent. And you know what really sucks about this?

I totally jinxed myself – by talking about having the kid who would eat anything, whether spicy or bland, hot or cold, healthy or not-so-much. And I took pleasure in having that kid – knowing that a lot of my peers did not. I did this to myself, really.

I guess now I will pay for it in constant snack retrieval.