Hunger Games

I think my children must have hollow legs judging by the amount of food we are getting through at the moment. During the Easter holidays I felt like I was constantly making meals. I keep discovering the lid off the biscuit tin or the evidence of cheese and crackers on the table. The fridge is continually being raided and meals are supplemented by bowls of cereal at any random time of day, as well as being their traditional breakfast and pre-bed snack.

I do remember as a child myself always wanting food. I was nicknamed ‘the bottomless pit’ at school and even after having seconds of school dinners I would hang around my packed lunch friends hoping I might be offered a crisp or two. Actually, I still have a reputation for being a bit of a pig with a high metabolism, so I can’t really wonder where the children get it from.

My mother-in –law looked after all the children for a day and told me that next time they came she was just going to lay out an all day buffet for them. The cumulative effect of their hunger is quite astounding if you are not used it.

On our family days out the rucksack carrying our lunch is both heavy and bulging. We are having a lot of days out at the moment, which is a result of my fierce determination to get our money’s worth from the Merlin passes we splashed out on this year. It does cover us to visit a lot of theme parks and aquariums and London attractions, but even at half price, for six of us it is still pretty exorbitant. My justification for these is that it is my youngest’s last year at home before she goes to school and possibly the last year our eldest will want to be seen with us, as secondary school looms. I want to make the most of doing fun stuff with him before I lose him to his peers.

One day, when we were with friends at Legoland, Ben complained;

“Mum, you didn’t bring enough food!”

This was after they had eaten between them, 22 mini sausage rolls, 35 cocktail sausages, buttered tea cakes, apples, peppers, grapes, cucumber, tomatoes, yogurts, a choice of ham and cheese, ham or cheese and pickle or tuna and sweetcorn pitta breads, ham wraps, packets of crisps and a packet of biscuits. They also helped their friends demolish a tube of Pringles in seconds and took anything else that was on offer in the communal food sharing. They also had cups of hot chocolate. When they were still hungry, four of the children had half a hot dog each. (We weren’t going to pay for one each! We’d brought lunch with us.)

A lot of the time feeding the children is just a good tactic to keep them busy in the queues for the rides or in the back of the car, so I do always try to make sure I’ve lots to offer them. I was incredulous at Ben’s complaint. I literally couldn’t have carried anymore.

I figure they are just growing children and this is just a normal healthy appetite, until Patrick asks for a pint of milk and broccoli with his breakfast one morning. This is not normal.

“I am trying to grow tall” he explains “I need to be 1.3 metres so I can go on all the rides by myself.”

These Merlin passes are clearly going to end up costing me a lot more than I thought!