Is exactly what I sound like most mealtimes in this house.
If it isn't the constant repetition of "Use your fork not your fingers" it's the endless classic of simply "Eat your dinner". I admit that I absolutely despair of toddlers and food, and due to there being four years between each of my three children (who are now 11, 7 and 3) it seems that the minute one grows up enough to appreciate yummy home cooked delights, there is another about to change from a happy weaned munching monster to a creature of a different mindset altogether.
This is what happened with my middle and youngest children, both boys (which may or may not be a factor) who as babies were ferocious with hunger, rarely threw up and when the time came they attacked the weaning process like starving vampires who happen to crave any and every pureed vegetable combination you could cook up. I spent hours in the kitchen making all manner of healthy meals, and it was a satisfying process appreciated fully by my bouncy bonny boys.
Then something happens, the arrival of toddlerdom, bringing with it that marvellous invention known as free will. Toddlers do not know how to handle free will, and seem to regard it as a fantastic way to piss you off. Negotiation as far as a two year old is concerned consists of outright refusal, all the usual tantrum related features and a determined conviction of their own rightness. At mealtimes it becomes particularly difficult as your once loved butternut squash and whatever casserole is now looked at with disdain, pushed around the plate and possibly shoved off the edge of the table. That is of course IF they have sat still long enough to do any of this, it's a hideous irony that the high chair with its powers of restraint (I mean safety) becomes useless for the older toddler, at the time when you could really do with keeping the little blighters in one place.
So it goes for a couple of years, until (in my experience) around six or seven when the powers of reasoning seem to fire into action and they stop seeing food as a battle ground or an amusing way to coax the grey hairs out of your head.
The only exception in our home is my eldest, my only daughter. From the moment she arrived she was a horror with food, every nightfeed was a millitary operation to clean up a torrent of milky sick. I permanently smelled of it regardless of how many baths or laundry cycles I was involved with, and despite her growing quite nicely in the face of all the 'fresh air dinners', I was permanently frantic with worry. Which obviously won't have helped! She was a nightmare to wean, spitting even chocolate pudding out with apparent glee (lucky it was cute, my carpet usually looked like a million childrens parties had been left to clean themselves up) and would only eat spaghetti on toast if I let her. Then one day, just as three years of this had pushed me to the edge of madness she decided she was bored of tempting a nervous breakdown out of me - and started eating pretty much everything. How very strange!
I truly look forward to the day my youngest switches back to his former food afficionado self, and we can ALL enjoy good food and each others company without my incessant prompts. I imagine it's far from over yet though, and unless I resort to a stream of convenience food on the table I'm likely to be tearing my hair out and scraping too much food into the bin at the end of the meal for a while longer yet. (Before anyone thinks I'm fully against convenience food or being pompous I do serve fishfingers and chips and suchlike a couple of times a week, but I still nag them to eat their peas because I'm a sod :).
So what's for dinner tonight? The only thing I'm certain of is that my toddlers portion will be around half eaten and stone cold by the time I relent and put the sorry remains in the bin!
Le sigh.
