Fed and clothed
It's 92 degrees outside and I'm having a nice cup of tea. Proper tea, the Irish sort. Hot tea, if you really need me to specify. I'm sorry, (for you, and for myself too) but cold drinks just don't cut it. There's a point I arrive at after lunch, or mid-afternoon, or at some stage in the day, when only a cup of tea will suffice. I probably just need to get with the program and assimilate, but it was hard enough for me to leave the "--me" off "program", never mind anything else.
When I've been solo-parenting for a few days, I sometimes self-deprecatingly remark that I've kept the kids fed and clothed, and anything else is a bonus. But you know, even that much can be pretty hard. (Wearing a spider-man costume counts as clothed, right? Because that's how Mabel went to the playground yesterday. If her brother had tried to do that at a similar age, I would have put my foot down, unless it was within two days of Halloween. But that's second children for you - you've been beaten down and your personal goalposts shift a bit. Besides, I thought she looked cute.)
But I have the utmost respect for anyone who actually feeds children - especially their own - on a daily basis. I mean, people who do it properly, not the "throw some things out of the fridge and see who can catch them" technique I tend towards myself. Because tossing off "fed" as if it's a simple thing implies that children are like normal human beings in ways that mine - and yours? tell me it's not just mine - are not. Normal humans, mostly
- eat more than three different things.
- acknowledge when they're hungry rather than losing their mind in the loudest and most inconvenient way possible.
- are prepared to eat at mealtimes because that's when people eat, so that they won't be hungry later. Because later it will be not mealtime and you will be nowhere near food that is in any way nutritious or inexpensive, and you will then ruin whatever the next proper meal was supposed to be.
YES, I KNOW. Save your fingers. Put down the spacebar. If you do all that and it works, I'm so happy for you, and I'm sure if I did it right it would work for me too. (Except I'm not, but that's what you need to hear. Maybe it's just not in my nature to do it right.) It's okay. I'm not looking for advice today. I just want to whine, in a perhaps-slightly-amusing way. If you find it as hard as I do to keep your kids just damn well "fed," by all means leave me a comment commiserating, so we can all whine together.
My kids are growing. They're healthy and the doctor is not worried about them. I try not to feed them too much sugar, to keep them away from high-fructose corn syrup, to limit the juice. I try not to give them a complex about eating too much, or too little, but to educate them about foods and what's good and bad for their body.
It will all come out in the wash.
(That's a metaphor. I'll talk about my broken washing machine tomorrow.)
posted by Maud @ 12:41 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Whine away. I cannot even begin to imagine how frustrating it must be for you, especially when it seems that you do enjoy cooking/baking.
Thank you for clearly stating that this was a whining post and not an advice seeking post. It helped prevent me from being an ass-hat and giving ass-vice. I like those sorts of boundaries.
When I'm solo parenting, I say that my standards are to keep people in clean underwear.
As a former picky eater, you have my STRONGEST sympathies. And also reassurances: I turned out okay, despite my stringent diet of plain iceberg lettuce and Cheerios and the occasional carrot or piece of Wonder bread, I stayed healthy and when I grew up I broadened my palate considerably. And I have zero idea how I of all people ended up with such fantastic eaters. I know I had nothing to do with it. So as far as I'm concerned, you could do everything "right" and still end up with kids who subsist on sugar and air. Sigh.
Also, I think it's kind of funny when Canadians or English or Irish people have a hard time adjusting their spellings to the American ones when in the U.S....because I personally think it's fun to change up my spelling. When I was in Canada I loved writing "colour" and "cheque" and the like. And I loved going "to the cash" instead of "to the register." :-)
Ha! Catching up on blog-reading. Oh, yes, I know this.
And I confess to feeding my children frozen fish sticks (well, I microwaved them first, of course!) at least once per week when their father was away. And yes, I do sort of short-order cook. But there are not many things on the menu. And most of the things come right from the refrigerator. Black beans, for example, are just fine cold from the Tupperware.
I'm sure that there are people out there whose children are all fed exceptionally balanced meals every day, and whose ears are unnaturally clean. My children are not those children, especially when I'm doing it alone. Glad that your P.I.P. (Partner In Parenting) has returned!
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