I arrived from my windswept bike ride home in pretty dismal spirits. It’s quite amazing how being pulled from pillar to post during the day, and headbanging your way through complex programming problems can deplete your levels of cheer and good will.
All of that was corrected the instant I walked in the back door, greated by Little Miss Five (nearly six) who informed me she was making me a cup of tea.
Balancing on tiptoes atop a stool while attempting to stir hot tea is a feat to behold. She’s terrifically proud that we let her make tea, and carries each steaming cup to it’s recipient as one might carry explosives.
“Want cup tea Dad?”
“Oh, yes please”
“We having Sketty Bolgnese for dinner Dad”
“Are we?”
“Yep.”
Ten minutes later we arrived one by one at the dinner table. Little Miss Seven looked down her nose into her bowl, and an almost imperceptable flicker of “I’m not going to eat that” flashed across her face. As her eyes looked up, I glanced away.
Sure enough, after eating perhaps one forkful, she began yawning. I snapped. I didn’t raise my voice - I just cut off everybody’s conversation and began talking…
“Mum cooked this for you - you ate it last week, and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s really lovely, and everybody else is eating it - why aren’t you?”
No response.
“We are not throwing perfectly good food away. If you don’t eat your dinner, you’re going to bed immediately.”
She dropped her bottom lip, and started looking at the edge of the table.
“This is your final chance - are you going to eat it or not? If you’re not, you’re going to bed.”
No response.
“Right then.”
I got up, pulled her from the chair by her hand, and started to lead her out of the room. I don’t think the full horror hit her until W didn’t intervene.
As I delivered her to the bedroom, pulled the curtains, and switched the lamp on, I issued one last instruction;
“Get your pyjamas on then, and into bed”
“I’ll eat my dinner”
“It’s too late”
“I’LL EAT MY DINNER”
“It’s too late”
… and I walked out of the room, followed by the quite predictable wall of sound - similar in many ways to an air raid siren.
The next five minutes were pretty much filled with continued screams of “I WANT MUMMY” at the top of her voice.
While washing up, I emptied the lunchboxes from the childrens bags and found her lunchbox - the same lunchbox she had been denied chocolate bars for this morning. Surprise surprise - she hadn’t eaten her lunch either (a lunch comprising of non-chocolate things she had specifically asked for).
I showed W. This might have been compared to lighting a touchpaper.
W dissappeared upstairs, and the crying stopped on her approach. Obviously Little Miss Seven thought her salvation had arrived. Mum was going to bend, and let her come back down.
She got that one wrong.
W returned down the stairs accompanied by another wall of sound - only this time it was comical;
“I’M NOT YOUR BEST FRIEND, I’M NEVER TALKING TO YOU EVER AGAIN, AND YOU’RE NOT COMING TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!”
… followed by a volume of howling we’ve not heard in quite some time.
After about twenty seconds of the onslaught,
“I WANT MUMMY”
Hmm… so “EVER AGAIN” wasn’t so very long after all.
It was all we could do not to laugh as we shook our heads in the kitchen.
Don’t laugh in front of the other children. Don’t laugh in front of the other children. Keep a straight face.
When I took the youngest up to bed half an hour later, the source of so much noise and fury was tucked up in bed, fast asleep, sucking her thumb. I pulled her thumb from her mouth, and she woke with a start - staring at me in that wild eyed gaze that children do when not awake - and then slumped back down into the pillow and slept.