Sunday, March 15, 2009

messy

So I'm looking at the floor and am changing my vision. That crap? Is "agility training". Wading through it for the rest of my natural life might just be the difference between having a broken hip and NOT having a broken hip at some point in the future. Of course, it could also BE the reason I fall and break a hip, but no doubt with all this training I'm getting in in the meantime, it would have been a LOT worse if not for my finely honed Dodge And Weave skills.

So! Not only am I getting in some physical conditioning, this mind control thing is giving me some psychiatric help because if I keep seeing this entire mess of crap as JUST an entire mess of crap, I'D GO NUTS.

and he doesn't eat, which in and of itself, doesn't particularly bother me.

Think of it: if he doesn't want to eat, I don't need to cook.

*punches sky*

He eats when he's hungry, which is NEVER, but he's not skinny, his eyes are bright and his nose is wet (what?). Point being, he's a picture of health, even more so than (dare I say it) most of his peers who (dare I say it??!) all seem to be carrying a layer of Soft & Spoogey all over their little bodies ALREADY.

I PREFER it if he gets ONE good meal in a day, say, some tuna and corn (which he - and this is no lie - just walked in and REQUESTED) or some meat and vegetables (he LOVES broccoli and cauliflower), but I'm not about to get all control freak about it and INSIST he eat if he's told me he doesn't want to.

And lest anyone think I'm taking MY body issues and laying them on Daniel, I'm NOT. He has a ready supply of vegemite sandwiches for snacks each day, we always have fresh fruit on hand, yogurt has a permanent place in our fridge, and snacks aside, we're never without the makings of a well balanced meal.

AND

He gets a happy meal once a week, and other sugary crap MORE than once a week, because junk food is more about being FUN food, and denial is just that. Denial. It's something wanted and being missed out on, and he's THREE, if he can SEE it, he WANTS it, and if I don't make it a part of MY food choices for HIM, he;s being DENIED. Hopefully too, because nothing is off the menu, he'll (eventually, at least) continue to make good food choices SOME of the time when he's got the chance to pour whatever he wants down his food hole, and not go nuts ALL the time because I never gave him that shit NOW.

At three, he already DOES make healthier choices, so it's AMAZING to me how many mothers think it's okay for them to insist MY child drinks a soda, but who would get offended if I insisted THEIR child drink water INSTEAD of soda.

No amount of "no, really, he LIKES water" will get them to stop, so Daniel has been poured a LOT of soda and has subsequently REFUSED a lot of soda too.

Aside: THAT really (and silently) bugs me. I mean, I NEVER insist anyone else's child drink water instead of soda or juice, or plain yogurt instead of flavored, or plain milk instead of chocolate, or some wholewheat crackers instead of a cookie, or or OR. BUT, I can't begin to count the number of times another mum has insisted Daniel have something he doesn't even LIKE. They don't give up though, not even after two or three "no, really, he'd RATHER have water/plain milk/other non coloured flavored sugared variant" explanations from me. "Oh, let him try it", they say, and then I say "Oh, okay", like I'm giving him the chance to try the fucking manna from heaven I've denied him his whole life, and...he doesn't like it.

And instead of seeing that I don't say "he doesn't drink soda" because I don't want him to have it, and getting that I say it because HE'D RATHER DRINK WATER, I get judged because OBVIOUSLY if I'm giving my child only the (apparently way out and hippy) alternatives, then I MUST be judging them for NOT being like me. Which I am NOT.

No shit, one of the mothers we used to hang out with was FOREVER apologising for the chips, the cordial, the biscuits, the SHIT she gives her kids and offered to Daniel, and I was all in my head thinking "whattherfuckever, but if you feel you need to apologise for your menu selections, then a) WHY do you HAVE those menu selections, and b) it's not ME you should be apologising to.".

Which, where did that all come from??

Cleansing breath.

Rewind.

Daniel doesn't eat (much), and it doesn't usually bother me. I figure too, what with the Obviously Not Starving thing he's got going on, I must be overestimating just how much a three year old needs. I could also be underestimating just how much nutrition he's getting within the structure of our At Least One Good Meal a day system.

Like, maybe he doesn't eat all day because his inner bucket of vitamin and mineral requirements is replete?

He eats a LOT at childcare too. They're always all "Isn't Daniel a GREAT eater?!", and I'm always amazed that kids will eat ANYTHING as long as there's competition.

He's only there once a week and the food smells AWFUL and is composed of a lot of filler and not much substance, and their sandwiches are made of day old bread and the directors go through the fruit the parents bring each day and take the good stuff home to their families and leave the daggy stuff to be cut up for the daycare children (it PAYS to be in with the staff, I swear. Also, basket of fresh fruit by the door, basket of yesterday's fruit in the kitchen being cut up. YOU don't have to be a mathematical genius to work it out, even if you're NOT in good with the staff)(my god, I sound like a conspiracy theorist), but much like animals in the wild fighting to stuff their faces the fastest, the kids could be served ANYTHING (raw buffalo?) and they all stuff it down SO FAST in order to...I dunno. Win?

So Daniel eats a lot on Mondays and takes the most righteously stinky dumps on Tuesdays, and then seemingly exists on air for the rest of the week. That changes the second he's offered something composed of artificial everything and is served by a teenager asking if he'd like to supersize that.

When he REQUESTS something that requires I heft my ass out of this chair though, and that I SLAVE over ingredients to create some culinary MAGIC and THEN doesn't eat, that's when I want to tip it over his head and then throw them both in the wheelie bin outside.




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