Tricky is having some whopping great dinner tanties of late.Last night for instance. We had the whole screaming, arching, fling your bowl off the highchair extravaganza.
When I took him out of the high chair to attempt to calm him down he shouted angrily that he wanted to sit in the big chair, which meant on my lap perched on a stool, and plucking small pieces of food from my plate. Some of these were hot! and so I had to blow on them first.
When I tried to slide him back into the high chair there was more screaming arching flinging, mix and repeat ad nauseum or until Mummy's small intestine dives up through her throat and hogties her windpipe in a mercy killing attempt.
We think it's the daylight savings; dinner is effectively an hour later and he's never been good at waiting for food. C's the same when his blood sugar levels drop, except he doesn't demand to sit on my lap (now if it it had been in our courting days...) and of course there's the three day a week childcare business and his resulting desparate need for attention, and almost definitely just our crap parenting style in general.
It's not going down well with my early morning dashes across the city to get bled and dildocammed in our attempts to defrost the last of the famous five. This morning I was back again, for both delights, only this time the capricious Sydney traffic decreed I should be ten minutes early and actually have time to mooch about on the street and wish I'd remembered to bring my latest literary adventure "The Long Winter" (Laura Ingalls, also doing battle with various frozen items, such as the livestock, the water pump and her hoity toity blind sister Mary).
So tonight we're dining early, ala pensioner hour, and hopefully food will actually make its
proper journey down his gullet, instead of across the floor.
And I won't be following through on those muttered threats last night to send him back to the freezer he came from.
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11 comments:
hello - I love your writing. My flower's a month younger than tricky and we're facing the great thaw a month after you [we'll be searching out your book when in Aus for said thaw].
SO good to be reminded of the fun clinic visits/blood letting/studious avoiding of eyes. At least needles are left out of this one..absolute best of luck! julieb
Sorry that Tricky has been playing up, and I have no doubt at all that there is nothing wrong with your parenting skills, it is just that you have reached THAT AGE, you know the one where you patience is sorely tested at every possible opportunity!
I have got my fingers crossed for next week, and I hope that you are not finding the various intrusions too much to cope with (and just as you are being reminded what a joy it is going to be!). Hold strong.
we have had high chair refusal for a few months now. Lil'mooey sits, or kneels, at the big table on a few cushions, or at a little table, or eats on the run as per her toddler whims. I have heard that toddlers eat better when their feet are supported rather than just hanging as they may in a high chair....
My 19-month-old son does that occasionally, but I confess, if I put his bowl out of reach and then ignore him and carry on with my own meal, he usually calms down pretty quickly and eats up his food. Of course winning that battle over a soundtrack of noisy screaming and tears can be pretty tricky!
I love when you mention your reading matter as it so often equates with my own. I derive great comfort from knowing I'm not the only one to read children's books (at the age of 41). I'm currently on Children of the New Forest.
I agree with Mima incidentally on your apparent parenting skills, which seem to me to be some of the best around.
Thinking of you and your early morning dashes across the city.
Kate
x
It's freaky how much P and Tricky are behavioural doppelgangers. Just last night I had to put up with screams of "chair! chair!" whilst I tried to cook her dinner. I might add that I started said cooking 2 minutes after I walked in the door, and it was only pasta which is quick anyway. Nonetheless, CHAIR CHAIR. When dinner was finally ready, guess who still threw the plate on the floor? Sigh. This is hard work.
I do so love your segues.
Try using a booster seat on one of the big seats so Tricky can sit at the big table on his own. We've used them for a while (not having enough laps to go around...) and the kids love it (although they can now use their little legs to push themselves away from said table between each mouthful. Happily they can just scream until we push them back in when they want another bite. So that's okay, then)
We have also moved to the booster seat. There is still some flinging of the food, but it isn't as bad. The dogs are sorely disappointed, of course.
They really should design high-chairs like the chairs for upside down roller coasters.
3-point harness?? Oh, how toddlers must mentally mock us and our feeble attempts to restrain them.
Oh I do love, as always, the route you take to share your tale. Of course you could take the bad parent route and let him run around like a baby barbarian, flinging favored bits of food his way when he so demands. Or just let him sit on your lap while he gets used to the idea of the new booster seat that sits tantalizingly few inches away. I expect it's time to deep six the high chair (at least for another year and a bit or so).
Good luck with the Famous Five. Perhaps if you took those Famous Five staples of ginger beer and ham rolls with you, it would all be a bit easier. I can just see you on the table, chomping on your ham sarnie and yammering on about adventuring and Kirrin Island and how's Timmy the dog.
xoxo
Oh..... the terrible twos! In our house Millie still has the occasional one like she did today at the lunch table. She is three!
Sometimes, Amber has one & she is five!
Love 'em!
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