I can't help it I HATE well meaning parenting blogs. I find mysef listening to their parenting advice wondering if they have ever met a small child. Let alone had lunch with these tiny but fierce magnifcient creatres.
Their big smiling grins turning to intorabe rage if a pea dares to touch ANOTHER pea on the dining plate.
From "helpful parenting tips'' like making meal times educational to telling children that eating carrots can make you see in the dark.
That is all well and good but today my child (Xanthe) only wants to eat blue peas or pink food and tells me she has a torch to see in the dark - so who cares about the carrots and they are BLURRRHH.
Or she only wants to eat the piece of food that I told her not to give to the dog - that he has now eaten so we have floods of tears. Even a time machine wouldn’t solve that. Knowing the result she would still give it to the dog and expect a different outcome.
Watering the tomatoes in our postage stamp garden in Whitstabe, Kent.
Grow the food with them and they will understand and appreciate it more is what I got told - have these people ever met a toddler? I took some beautiful photos of her watering her seeds and felt like an idyllic picture perfect Mama.
Then she tried to replant them as they didn’t grow fast enough. Not great for our neighbours trying to enjoy an afternoon snooze. Great for lessons in instant gratification though.
Then we had tears as the purple beans she had grown with Daddy turned green when cooked. I tried to reframe them as magic beans that changed colour - she said I should magic them back to purple then.
There is also great upset that we REFUSED to plant a Marmite tree and the month of the Dragon Egg. We had to leave the window open and build a nest in case her Dragon Egg aka passionfruit hatched.
Marmite Lover and her precious treasure.
What we were amazed to learn is that your taste bud cells repopulate every 20 days . So even if you or your little ones didn't like something two weeks ago they may like it now!
So my top tip to get your eyes rolling is to let them keep trying, let them poke it, touch it and of course taste it. Then there favourite - throw it at your on days when you are wearing your favourite outfit and decided to go for it and brush your hair.
Though I jest there is also definitely more excitement to try things that she has grown with Mama and Daddy. So do grow things. Also the bonding and excitement is amazing.
Everything is new and pretty amazing to them. The kindness they can show to a little fly or bee really does make my heart melt.
Oh and have a stash and lots of Beetroot to dye everything pink. On those days that nothing else will work. I call it my secret stash of Barbie Vomit.
Thanks to @saltwickmedia for this amazing photo of Xanthe living her best life around the fire on the beach at the foot of Tankerton Slopes. While Daddy cooks and Mama pours us all a rather large gin after a rather nice swim,
Living her best life on Whitstabe Beach. Photo Credit: Micheal Jackson Salt Wick Media.