05.04.06
Okay, my kid doesn’t eat. Seriously. If she eats two spaghetti-o’s and a lifesaver between waking up in the morning and going to bed at night it’s been a good day. So I can guess why she’s a crabby little snot, but I can’t figure out how she keeps growing.
I swear every week her pants get a little shorter and she manages to reach things I could have sworn were safe from her curious little fingers (okay, it doesn’t help that she’s observed her mom pulling kitchen chairs across the room in order to reach items in the cupboards … but still).
Here’s a typical food day at our house:
Morning: Mom has forty ounces of coffee. Little Miss has a cup of watered down juice and asks for toast. She takes one mouse nibble and says, “I’m full, mom.” Five minutes later she says, “My tummy hurts. I need some ice cream.” She settles for yogurt. Three bites, tops. More juice. On a really healthy day she’ll drink milk. Mom eats the toast, but yogurt … just … ew. Can’t do it.
Midday: Mom has twenty ounces of coffee. Little Miss asks for noodles or macaroni and cheese. She eats five bites or less of either. “I want some ice cream, Mom.” Sometimes I cave at this point (hell, sometimes I cave at eight in the morning – it’s food, right? Calcium?)
Suppertime: Mom makes a fresh pot of coffee. Little Miss eats four bites of chicken and eight bites of broccoli, but only after Mom says, “Hey, little baby bird, cheep-cheep!” and feeds her like a mama bird (well, a mama bird that has a spoon, that is).
Food isn’t the only thing we avoid around here – we also avoid bedtime. For one whole day the baby bird trick worked for that, too … “Curl up in your nest, baby bird, cheep-cheep!” but she caught onto that one almost immediately.
There’s no question she’s an absolute crab-ass, especially when it rains the whole weekend. Combine being malnourished and overtired with stubborn (excuse me, “strong-willed”), active, and creative – and it’s no wonder I often think I’m going to lose my mind. I love my husband, I do, but let me tell you, the thought of sending her “somewhere else” every other weekend is unbelievably appealing. Except he says it won’t work that way… something about a shotgun, a shovel, and a new garage… so I guess I’d better just watch my p’s and q’s.
Among all our whining and complaining we must be doing something right. I heard last weekend that she was an angel at the circus and at the restaurant afterward, at least compared to the other kids.
She says ‘excuse me’ – even to the dog. She sometimes needs prompting to say ‘please,’ but she always says ‘thank you’ – even in the midst of an all-out temper tantrum. And she says it in this tiny-little baby voice that melts my heart and makes me forgive her anything.
But that’s my job, isn’t it, forgiving anything? I’m the Mommy, after all.
Perhaps we can live on love (and coffee) alone. Lord knows we’ve done it long enough.
I keep saying next time I’ll marry for money, but this time around … love seems to be working for all of us.
Sometimes life can be better. Sometimes it’s perfect just the way it is.
Reader Weekly archive: http://www.readerweekly.us/2006/369/Sheri_Johnson.html
No comments:
Post a Comment