Food Frustrations

‘Frustrating’, is the word with Rachel. She is in the habit of getting me to make her things she doesn’t actually want. To be fair to her, she does actually attempt to get them herself (with predictable results) but clearly the enjoyment is in the opening, preparing or cooking, not in the eating of the food.

They all do it sometimes; opening a banana and deciding they don’t like it, that sort of thing, but some days she goes a little bit too far.

Yesterday morning, she got out of the fridge some leftovers of tuna sauce, rice and vegetables, put it in the microwave and turned it on.  Apart from the fact she obviously doesn’t realise that she is still only 2 and probably too small to be safely operating the microwave, it was 7.30 am.

Now, I am not one to put my preconceptions of what one should have for breakfast upon my children, when they clearly have other ideas. So I thought, fair enough, I’ll maybe stop her heating up the whole Tupperware container of it, but she can have a little bowl of it to eat. It is quite a healthy breakfast after all, even if it didn’t appeal to me. In the event, it didn’t appeal to her either – she wouldn’t even sniff it and the other children complained of the smell when they came down for their cereal.

This morning, Emilia got up first and tried her hand at making the porridge. What she didn’t realise, is that it expands, a lot, and by the time I rescued it and added enough water and milk to her quantities to make it the right consistency, it was a vat of porridge. Good effort though. Rachel didn’t want to eat that either -unless it was 2/3 syrup – which I wouldn’t allow.

She asks me to open her an orange, I do, and she won’t eat it. She opens a yogurt, eats a spoonful and leaves the rest, and I can’t help but go round all day finishing everything she’s rejected. It works out be the equivalent of a meal in itself.  

She likes to ask for lunch at breakfast time, and breakfast before bed. She went to a friend’s for tea recently and came back telling me that she’d had a lovely dinner party.

The main thing is that she likes to help herself, and I am all for independence but when she walks around with open bottles of squash to make herself a drink of mostly concentrate, or staggers up the stairs into my bedroom for assistance with a 4 pint container of milk and a cup, I start to feel maybe it is not such a good thing.

It’s a puzzle!

Perhaps I am making excuses for her, but maybe I should have shown Rachel the whole picture first, rather than quizzing her on the pieces of the ‘Find the Rhyme’ jigsaw whilst we’re making it. They all seemed so obvious to me.

We started with "jam in the...?"

"Buggy" says Rachel confidently.

It was clearly a pram.

Fair enough, the next one, pig in a wig, not a term nearly 3 year olds are all that familiar with. It was ‘pig with hair’ before I explained it.

OK, an easy one now, "It is a pen and a.....?"

"Chicken" suggests Rachel, she is not asking,

Yes but no, Rachel, "it is Hen, rhymes with pen, do you see what we’re doing here?"

She starts making her own observations. "Cat in a tree"

"Rachel, it is Bee in the Tree there, Cat in the Hat. Can you hear the rhyme?"

"What about this one?" I ask

"Clown in a hat" she says.

It is a crown, not just any old hat.

"Fish in a bowl."

"Dish, fish in a dish,"  - maybe not all that obvious.

"Flower in the rain"

"It is in a shower isn’t it –not rain- look there’s train in the rain, it’s flower in the shower."

"OK, how about this one, snail on a.....?"

"Humpty Dumpty?," surely she is just messing with me now,

"On a dolphin!"

"Whale, Rachel, snail on a whale," we’ve read the book even.

"Slug in the...?"

"Cup of tea"

It is a jug, slug in the jug.

Is it possible that she is not even accidentally hitting on the right word?

I’ll make it easy for her. "Look Rachel, fly on the p., p..."

"Pizza." Really? It doesn’t look like a pizza.

"No," a little impatiently now,  "Fly on the p...."

"Pancake"

"Pie! Fly on the pie."

They don’t call them puzzles for nothing!

Caribbean Capers

"It is very brave of your uncle to invite you and your four children here" remarked Rowena, a new found friend of my Mum's who is also renting a place in Grenada, and who had come for lunch.

"It is" I agreed.

"That's why they've gone out, I suppose" she reasoned.

It is extraordinary of Richard and Rick to have us all. To say the place is beautiful is an understatement, the house is just fantastic. It is spacious and incredibly tastefully and comfortably furnished, right on the water, with a spectacular view of the sea and the boats. The kitchen is huge, and after walking from the kettle to the fridge, to the teaspoon drawer and back again Mark commented "I'm exhausted!"

There is a little beach right there and a wonderful infinity pool. Of course, one of the first things Rachel does when she arrives is to try and reach infinity by climbing over the edge of it. (Her great uncle's genes, if ever I saw them.)

We told the children there were only a couple of rules. No whingeing, no quarrelling and do what the adults tell you. They've been having a wonderful time, swimming in the pool and sea, attempting to catch the fish that swim around them in little shoals, and playing in the sand.  It is all very idyllic.

Apart from my paranoia about them being burned by the sun, it is very relaxing and stress free. We are slightly conscious that the children aren't bothersome, with the result that Rachel gets her own way pretty much all of the time. We compromise before we reach the point of her being too high pitched in her objections.

This morning, she wanted for her breakfast the entire fruit platter Mum had made to share. It was early in the morning and the volume of her insistence was reaching unacceptable. 'Granny' can usually get round Rachel, so I leave Mum to deal with her.

When I returned, I saw that Rachel had two bowls of fruit in front of her and she was spooning the contents of Mum's one into her own already full bowl. As she was putting the fruit in, Mum, with another spoon was eating it, from Rachel's bowl, right under her nose. If she noticed her bowl was never getting any fuller she didn't object. As compromises go, this didn't seem a bad one.

The Grenadian people are really friendly and there is a lovely maid called Cherrie Ann and a Rastafarian jewellery making gardener called Garbo. Garbo likes to bump fists with the children and say "Respect." Rachel wouldn't though. Garbo, who has 11 kids, told her "you a good girl aren't you?" Her response to this was to fold her arms and blow a big raspberry at him.

Rachel was slightly more charming when meeting the guests at Richard's dinner party one night. She was introduced to a slim, glamorous older lady dressed head to toe in pink. 
'Like Barbie!' said Rachel. Patrick was being very forthcoming and marched towards each lady and gentleman hand outstretched to formally greet them.

Ben has been studying the map of Grenada and found a place he wanted to visit called 'Dragon Bay.' (His obsession with mythical creatures tries us everywhere we go.) We packed a picnic and set off in search of it. We drove round the twisty, turn-y, hilly roads around the west of the island hugging the coast. There was one small beach that could have been it, but it wasn't very accessible (or nice looking) so we drove on and found ourselves at the Concord waterfall. This was a forty foot drop of water into a pool 54 feet deep. The boys all went in for a swim and before long Mark found a place half way up from which to jump in.

I watched him wistfully; 'There was a time when I would have joined you jumping into waterfalls. It is a shame I have to be grown-up and sensible now,' I commented.
'You don't,' Mark challenged 'as long as we do it one at a time.'

'Well' I bluster, realising now I might be a bit chicken, ' it is more about getting all wet and uncomfortable when we're all getting back in the car in a minute.'

But no, this isn't me, no excuses, I decide I will have to do it too.


Standing on the slippery rock, looking down into the water far below, I feel a sudden stab of fear, I jump quickly, before it overwhelms me and hit the water like a stone. It is cool and clear and exhilarating.


I rejoice in proving myself not to be an old fogey after all. It is quite important not to be, in our family anyway. I have a fine example to follow in that both my Mum and Uncle can still stand and walk on their hands aged 65 plus. Only the day before, Mum and I had a cartwheel competition, she did seven in a row and I did nine.

I don't consider myself to be that competitive, though I find myself beating Emilia at Uno, in my defence, it is a very difficult game to try and lose. It is all luck of the cards and if you have it, you have to play it. I look at her disappointed face and feel maybe I could have done more to lose.

We have been having a brilliant week but reality beckons. I shall miss this. The children’s swimming confidence has come on tremendously, particularly the little two who have developed their own alter egos of ‘Goggle Boy’ and ‘Water Baby’ and refer to each other by these names when in the pool. Rachel seems unfazed by her couple of near drowning incidences. It is terrifying, because when they go under it is completely silent. You expect to hear a struggle or splash but there is nothing. You get complacent after a week by a pool but luckily we’ve had Rachel, who likes to remind us if we’re a little under-cautious ‘I can’t swim, REMEMBER!’