A while ago I wrote about how some bad habits come back to bite you in the bum when you have kids, especially noxious ones like swearing. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that your kids will ape you and that your actions - good or bad - will shape their behaviour, which is just as well because between the sleepless nights and the brain numbing cartoons, we parents have little grey matter over for free thought.
Kids are by nature messy eaters and I've long said that my least-favourite part of being a Mum is meal times. Carl has spilt every drink ever given to him and rarely stops talking long enough actually get food in his mouth. Niels eats well but prefers a reclining open mouthed posture which means by the end of the meal there is invariably a trail of food down his front. Yes, I was the woman who used to sneer at the bad table manners of other peoples kids, and yes I was the one who declared her kids would be eating tidily with a knife and fork by age four, and yes I am now having to swallow my words along with my dinner every night.
In an effort not to get stressed by the everyday messiness of mealtimes I seem to have adopted the saying "don't worry, it's got to go in the washing machine anyway". I guess it's more for my sanity than the kids reassurance that I say this as I struggle not to sweat over the little things every day. I didn't realise quite how it sounded however until last night. We were eating a stirfry with rice and marinated pork and I left the table for all of 20 seconds to get Carl another cup of water to replace the one quietly puddling around his feet and dripping off his chair. When I returned Niels looked up guility at me and froze, a bottle of thick sweet black soy sauce poised above his rice. "Oooops" was all he said. At first I couldn't see anything wrong - then his widened eyeballs slowly rotated downwards to a long trail of black sauce oozing down his chest and stretching all the way along his thigh like a string of gorilla snot.
With a fixed grin and gritted teeth I squeezed out 'don't worry, it's got to be washed anyway' then peeled off his t-shirt and we carried on.
For dessert he had a big bowl of yoghurt with Frosties and Carl, who still hadn't touched his dinner but was in full flow with a story that seemed to invovle Darth Vader and a school bus, spilt his water. Again. I leaped up, grabbed a cloth from the kitchen and in the nano-second it took to return, Niels had managed to drop of whole spoonful of soggy yoghurt and Frosties not only into his lap but actually straight into his pocket. Guess who was going to have to scrape that goo out with their fingernails? Probably seeing the steam starting to puff out of my ears he looked at me, gave me a condenscending smile and said "it's ok, it's got to go in the washing machine anyway".
How comforting.
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