Mayonnaise, Chips and Ice Cream

Jo Everall - 26 May 20

Apparently I made the worst dinner ever tonight! 

Maybe I should just give up?! I mean who cares if it has no nutritional value, as long as they’re not crying at me for serving the worst dinner ever? In fact I could maybe just serve them chocolate for every meal, then they’d be two very messy and very happy little girls! 

School and nursery tell me they eat EVERYTHING!! They lie!! They eat beige food and chocolate and the youngest will only eat food that is covered in mayonnaise! Ask her what she would like for any meal and she will ask for mayonnaise! Or as she calls it “naise”. “Chips” she says, “I like chips….. and ‘naise” and very little else!

I did actually give her “naise” on her cereal once (I know!!) naively thinking that might put a stop to this whole ridiculousness, it did not, she LOVED it. I then had to backtrack as to why ‘naise wasn’t a suitable condiment for cereal and we got in a terrible mess! Now she knows that she is safe to ask for it in a meal that involves chips, she asks for chips A LOT!

The youngest also doesn’t seem to like cake, who doesn’t like cake? She likes the icing and will ask for cake all the time just so she can devour the top and fling the rest back at me saying she’s “done”!! 

She does a lot of negotiating back at me at mealtimes, reversing the very tactics I use on her to try to get her to eat more. “Just one more spoonful mummy and then I’m done”. All well and good but she’s only had one spoonful so far…. She’s not a bad negotiator only she has no idea of the size of numbers so if I say she needs to eat 3 more spoonfuls I often get the comment back, “no five more mummy”, whatever you say Dot, whatever you say! 

I know lots of kids are fussy and this penchant for beige food is not all that unusual in children but I thought in lockdown that I would be able to try a few more things out. I mean I have to supply 3 meals a day every day, EVERY F***ing Day!! We ran out of “acceptable” variations after day 2, which doesn’t usually matter as we only feed them at weekends! (Just to clarify they do get fed in the week, just we don’t do it!)

So far, 9 weeks in to lockdown, I think we have added one meal to the repertoire which is acceptable to them, ONE! And that one is vegetarian quesadilla, it’s basically a pizza (which was obviously on the list anyway but only if it is cheese and tomato and nothing more adventurous). The quesadilla is cheese and tomato.

Tonight I made them chicken fried rice. They like rice, they like chicken, they like peas and sweetcorn (these are apparently the only acceptable vegetables in the world), but put them together and NO, NO, NO, the worst dinner ever!! How is that possible? I even skipped the red pepper as I thought that might be a step too far… 

Tomorrow I shall be serving ice cream with a side serving of chips and ‘naise. I’ll try again when they’re through this phase, like maybe when they’re 20 or something!!

Jo Everall

Mum of 2, trying 2 make sense of life with small people.

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