I have other lives. Do other people have other lives too? This was my other life tonight.
“Dinner-time” I called. “Ooh, goody goody” chorused the children, as they gathered round the table, their eager faces aglow with anticipation. “Oh, wait a minute, Mummy”, said 10-yo. “Would you mind if I just picked up my dirty socks from the middle of the sitting room floor before I came to the dinner table? It’ll only take a second.” “Oh, that’s a good idea”, said 6-yo. “I’ll do mine too. Perhaps we could tidy the whole room while we’re at it.” “No problem,” I replied, with a chuckle. “The food will taste all the better for the wait.”
“Mashed potato and home-made vegetable stew! My favourite!” said 10-yo. “Oh mine too” joined in 6-yo and 3-yo. If I had been left with any doubts as to their enjoyment of this simple yet nutritious fare, the silence, punctuated only by the sound of expertly-manipulated cutlery on china, would have dispelled them. “Tomato ketchup anyone?” “Oh, no thank you, Mummy. It just disguises the flavor of the food. Why would we want tomato ketchup?”
“Seconds?” I asked. “Thirds and fourths too, please”, came the answer. “Certainly! But remember to leave room for the stewed fruit I’ve made for pudding” I laughingly replied. “Ooooh, stewed fruit! What a treat!” rang the little voices.
“Please may I leave the table, Mummy, and thank you for such a delicious dinner. Shall I help you stack the dishwasher and clear up the kitchen. There’s nothing I want to watch on television and the Playstation is so boring.”
My God! You share one of my lives! Do you also play a role in the one that goes something like this:
ReplyDeletehurry up kids, supper's going to get cold
silence. Except for cartoon network
I'm not a bloody servant you know
shuffle to table with longing, lingering backward glances at ridiculous Cow and Chicken or whichever lurid character is on the screen
what's this?
stir fry
what?! Again?!
it's very good for you.
do i have to eat the leeks?
try one.
i did. last year. i hated it.
Yuk. Courgettes, mutters another of my lovely, culinary appreciative trio as she carefully dissects her meal to eradicate slivers of green.
They feign eating, plucking offending pieces out of stir fry with such skill I know they're all going to grow up to do something really clever with their hands: like become neuro surgeons.
what's for pudding?
nothing, except (an afterthought) a banana.
they cast eyes gloomily in direction of fruit bowl and note small fist of bananas that look as if they've punched somebody's lights out.
they're black, I am told, as if I'm blind.
that's means they are very ripe. which means they are better for you: ripe bananas stave away constipation (which, given they've all avoided eating the fibre I'd so thoughtfully filled stir fry with, is clearly a danger).
Oh yuk Mum, TMI. which means, if you don't have font of all knowledge teen in the house yet, Too Much Information.
I give up. And let them all eat e-fuelled icecream. Whilst they watch cow and Chicken on the telly ...
You ever life a live bit like that?
You both describe my life and my dreams so perfectly! Especially the bits about the courgettes, and the leeks, and the dishwasher and the playstation. Oh and the pudding - OK, all of it.
ReplyDeleteHA HA!
ReplyDeleteI love it.
you know, i've read books that were written just like that. i think they were from the 1940s. and they were about as credible as this blog post....
ReplyDeletevery funny.
I'm bringing my children to your fantasy land for dinner tonight. :)
ReplyDeleteI dream of your other life. I am so stressed by trying to keep my temper in this one as Boy #1 refuses yet another meal that he wolfed down last week that I can't even think of an alternative. My all too real meal-times are as follows:
ReplyDelete'I don't like this!'
'OK, it's fine if you don't like it but if you don't even try it then how will you know?'
'But it's got green in it!'
'Come on, just one mouthful'
'It's slimy!'
'No tv if you don't even have this spoonful'
And so he has one spoonful, states he hates it, and still gets the tv.
I am a mug.
Enid Blyton rules!
ReplyDeleteMy kids like reading her, but don't seem to take on any of the washing up and eating heartily examples from her characters.
By the way - your spelling is becoming American...
Iota, I want some of whatever you were drinking when you wrote this, dear.
ReplyDeleteI'm so lucky, My children actually beg for cabbage and broccoli. We get weird stares from people in the supermarket.
ReplyDeleteAh, but picking up socks? Now, that really is fantasy island...God remember that awful programme?
"The Plane, the Plane!!"
reluctant memsahib - OMG you've been a fly on the wall in my house!
ReplyDeleteFantasy lands an excellent place, I live specifically in LaLa land, sounded great, I had to re read to check you were joking!
Okay, you really got me this time. I was actually in the third paragraph before I said "wait a minute here".
ReplyDeleteSee? And I just thought you had unusually tidy children with sock fetishes.
Love it! Especially empathise with the stewed fruit bit - my Sproglet (and his father) both look at me as if I've served up pig swill when I try that one. And they wonder why we yell at them 'Well you do the bloody cooking tomorrow, then!' Aaaahhhh.
ReplyDeleteMya x
Mashed potato and vegetable stew was/is one of my favourite meals, humph kids!
ReplyDeleteQuite a dream and very funny. Unfortunately, being a mum can be on occasion very thankless but on the other hand, I bet you wouldn't trade the job for anything else.
ReplyDelete