Breakfast Behaviour

November 25^th 2011

This morning Miss ‘I do it myself’ wanted sugar on her Weetabix. Now sprinkling is not the most natural of skills for any small person and commands technique that even the bigger ones have yet to acquire. Mark, not noticing my concern, passed her the loaded spoon. With one flick of the wrist Rachel managed to get sugar everywhere but in her bowl. The actually quite small amount of sugar was widely spread across the table and floor but not a single grain landed where it was intended.

I remember once when Emilia was about 3, her trying to put sugar in our tea and spilling it all over the counter. On being told to be careful she replied: “I’m not a very good carefuller.”

This accidental mess is one thing, but my brother, when he was little, playing his idea of a practical joke, stuck the sugar bowl to the lead of the kettle with elastoplast, thereby setting a sugar booby trap for my parents...I have all that deliberate stuff still to come.

Also, as I was reading the sort of things we said and did as children, I came across this conversation between my mum and me

October 1981

Juliet: “ I want some coffee”

Jill: “That’s not the way to ask.”

Juliet: “Please Mummy, can I have some coffee”

Jill: “Yes, certainly.”

Juliet: “Or I’ll kick your face in”

This did not make me think, what a horrible little brat I was, though that does seem to be the case, but just begs the question why was I drinking coffee aged 5?

Plainly I was quite awkward.

1979

Mum: “What will you have on your toast, Juliet?

Juliet “Marm.........”

Mum spreads marmite

Juliet “....alade”

Or my brother also aged 3

Mum: What do you want for breakfast, Nicholas?

Nicholas “I want toast with nothing on”

Mum: “Where are you going?”

Nicholas: “You make the toast, I’m going to get nothing on”

And from awkward to belligerent, another morning:

Mum “Do you want some toast

Nicholas “No”

Mum “No what?”

Nicholas “No toast”

My own children are the same, and while most adults can claim ‘we were never like that as children’ – I can’t....it was all documented...we truly were.

Ben (age 2) once demanded I cook his porridge cold.

If anything that was put in front of him was too hot, he’d waft his hand over it and explain he was trying to get the smoke out.  Unlike Charlie, who tonight continued to eat hot chips, cry because they were too hot and burned his mouth, then try to eat more, he could not be convinced to eat the other food first and let them cool down. They had to be removed from his plate until they got to an edible temperature.