Bad Mother Moments #4 - A case of not believing when your youngest says he’s feeling sick while looking at a plate of salad…

This is What I Think of Greens!

It is a truth universally acknowleged, that a small boy in possession of a dish of greens, must be in want of a way to get rid of it. And if that way is to throw–up then throw-up one must.

Problem is this does not endear you to your parents - in particular your Mum, who lives in fear that you will never grow because you don’t always eat your one a day let alone your five.

Thus was I faced with a rebellious small boy on Sunday evening flatly refusing to eat his salad.

“It makes me sick!”

“Horrocks! Greens never made anyone sick!”

“They will you know! They’ll make ME sick!”

Shades of Violet Elizabeth  Bott, I thought murderously. We have been battling for months with Bog Boy to get him to eat fruit and veg, especially the green stuff, and after a long half term, and an equally long Sunday, this latest mutiny was one too far and I flipped:

“If you throw up I will make you eat it all back up!”

I didn’t think he was going to be sick, honestly I didn’t! I just wanted him to stop being a pain in the neck and just get on and eat his supper including his greens. I was tired and I wanted both my boys in bed so I could finally relax safe in the knowledge that tomorrow it would be someone else’s problem.

I gave him a gimlet-eyed stare and stomped off in to the TV room before I said anything further. Sometimes it is safest to leave them to it.

There was very little sound from the kitchen and all seemed to be going well but then there was the most almighty wail. The kind of wail that has any parent up in a flash. The wail when you know your child is not mucking about and that this is an emergency.

The sight before my eyes was not pretty but it was the terrible moans escaping from Bog Boy that wracked me most:

“Oh NOooooooo” he sobbed almost incoherently, “I’m going to have to eat it all up!”

Of course I didn’t make him do anything of the sort but I was still angry. Little toad had drunk so much water he’s effectively made himself sick.

Fast forward to Monday and off they trundled to school with Bog Boy still behaving  in a ridiculous manner saying he was going to be sick if he ate breakfast.

He was still complaining at suppertime but everything had gone well at school so he had to be alright surely.

Supper was lovely Spaghetti Bolognese with a rich homemade tomato sauce. I promise he did not eat that much but at 10 o clock just as I was going to let the dogs out and trundle off to bed I heard a creaking on the stairs and was met by a wan little face with the most enormous eyes.

“I really have been sick this time Mummy and I didn’t make myself!”

Oh boy had he been sick several times along the corridor, the bathroom and oh dear god all over his bed the floor and everywhere – even bless him on his teddies Jelly and Puppy! There was not a hope in heck that he had made himself do this!

I felt SO very guilty! My poor little mite had been telling me he wasn’t well and I bad mother had totally ignored him!!!

PS. My Poor little mite is not going into school until Thursday and in the meantime he is sitting next to me playing on my ipad. The best cure for being sick he says….

The best excuse for not eating vegetables…

Not eating vegetables!

Now my boys, like all boys, are not overly keen on vegetables and trying to get them to eat their statutory five a day is a task that would make even Hercules struggle.
But I don’t give up that easily and nor, am I afraid, do my boys.
They are ever on the lookout for excuses not to eat fruit and vegetables particularly ones they dislike. Obviously I try not to give them food I know they hold in abhorrence but just sometimes I feel it is good for their souls to be forced to eat something a little out of the ordinary or something that I truly believe they will enjoy some day.
I am not a sadist, I don’t force them to eat foods that I know they detest all the time, just occasionally, so that they get the idea that they should just get on with it. Nothing is more painful and embarrassing that when you take your child to a restaurant or to someone else’s house and they kick up a fuss about the stray Brussels sprout that is totally out of proportion to the situation. And you land up in a fierce whispering row about the fact that they should eat it because it is rude not to and then your host or the restaurant manager says its fine and not to worry but you’ve cornered yourself and it becomes a matter of principal and the whole meal/occasion is ruined and will be forever remembered as “The time when Mum blew her top over a Brussels Sprout and we got barred from the restaurant/were never got invited back again”.
There are times I look in askance at those hosts who serve up Brussels Sprouts/broad beans to children - it is almost as if they don’t like you…
Anyway back to the boys and the novel ways they engineer to get out of eating food they don’t like or at least think they don’t like because half the time you just know they have never even tasted the stuff before.
Now Bog Boy, at the grand old age of six, has taken to not bothering to go to the loo if there is something more important happening such as playing on the Wii/Nintendo/iPod or even playing on the trampoline and I get the jolly task of having to deal with his pants and the skid marks.
It is not pleasant and he and I have been having a running battle of wills all through the summer. He fails to make it to the loo and I threatened to put him back in nappies. Invariably I lose.
So when we were in Wet Welsh Wales he had another accident while we were out by the rock pools and I blew my top saying that that was it he was going back into nappies and he’d have to deal with it himself.
“But it’s all your fault Mummy!”
“Why on earth is it my fault? You are the one who has pooed his pants!”
“You make me eat tomatoes!”
Of course I did! Silly me! In my quest for healthier eating I had decided that all of us should eat tomatoes on a daily basis. Each boy should eat two baby plum tomatoes at lunchtime and as far as I was concerned they could smother the wretched things in mayonnaise just so long as they were eaten. I won that battle.
So there I am on the beach and he’s hollering at me.
“You make me eat tomatoes and they are poison.”
“How on earth can they be poisonous?”
“They are! They are making me go to the loo quicker so it is your fault that I poo in my pants!!”
“What!”
“Eating vegetables makes you go to the poo and you making me eat tomatoes is making me poo quicker so I don’t have enough time to go to the loo properly! You should NOT make me eat vegetables.”
He was so adamant and so very, very cross with me that I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing and no, he didn’t have to eat any more tomatoes; I am still standing firm n vegetables though!