Once, after spending the best part of an hour in the kitchen preparing a delicious meal for her family, a very tired Mummy called out "Dinner time everybody!" in the vain hope that this evening they might all just get to sit and eat without a bloody argument.
No such luck.
The threenager plodded in, with a familiar sulky look on his face, "What's for dinner?" he grumbled.
"Spaghetti and meatballs..." Mummy said hopefully, bracing herself for the completely irrational response she knew was to follow.
"OH BUT I HAAAATE PSKETTI AND MEATBALLS!!! I WANT SOMETHING ELSE!" Declared the ferocious toddler, stamping his foot repeatedly.
The threenagers mommy took a deep breath.
"You liked it last week when we had it. You asked for more...You said it was your new favorite..." She tried.
But it was no use. The threenager was already starfishing on the kitchen floor, tears pinging from his bright red little cheeks as he screamed "YOU'RE MEAN! I DONT WANT TO EAT THAT! ITS DISGUSTING! I WILL ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY BE SICK!"
Mummy took another deep breath, and a quick swig of
But then she realised that if she put him to bed hungry he wouldn't go to sleep, and then she'd have a whole evening of crap to deal with.
Mummy couldn't face that tonight.
Mummy just really wanted to just watch bloody Big Brother in peace and quiet, and so she gave in...
"Ok fine, would you like a sandwich?" she ventured.
"I'm not hungry!" The threenager exclaimed, with another stamp of the foot.
Mummy rolled her eyes so intensely that she wondered for a moment whether they might disappear into her skull forever, and sighed.
"You have to eat something or you'll never go to sleep..." Mummy said, realising her mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth...Now he knew she was desperate. He knew he had her.
"I want a Barny..." The Threenager said...glaring deep into Mummys soul. He could sense her fear....it was Friday night, eviction night!...how was she going to get him into bed before Emma Willis descended down the steps if he didn't eat something bloody quickly?!
"You're not having a Barny for your dinner...." Mummy said, cursing the day she decided to buy a box of the sickly sweet bear shaped snacks when they were on offer in Asda for a quid, as she now realised they were basically the equivalent of crack for children and supporting his two box per week habit was becoming a financial strain now the bastards had put the price back up to £1.89 ...."What about some cereal?"
"Cereal then a Barny...." The threenager said.
This was familiar territory. Mummy knew that once the hostage negotiations started she was pretty much screwed. The pair of them stood eyeballing each other for a moment, neither of them wanting to be the one to give in first.
"Oh ffs fine!" Mummy mumbled, and she passed him a Barny to munch on while she prepared a bowl of cereal - consoling herself with the fact that the box stated it was fortified with iron and vitamins which is basically the same thing as eating veg, isn't it?!
In the 0.5 seconds it took her to pour the milk and cheerios into the bowl, the Barny was demolished and suddenly the threenager had forgotten his denials of hunger...
"I want more Barny!" He shouted
"NO! No more Barny, eat your sodding cereal!" Mummy insisted, placing the bowl down in front of him.
He looked at the bowl in absolute disgust, declaring "I DON'T LIKE THE RED SPOON! I ONLY LIKE THE BLUE SPOON! WAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Three spoon changes and one very hairy incident involving the wrong color juice cup later, the cereal was finally inside the threenagers tummy and Mummy prepared to escort him up the stairs to bed...
But the threenager didn't want to go to bed. Suddenly, the threenager was STARVING and simply MUST have more food or else he wouldn't be able to sleep.
Mummy offered the threenager a slice of toast, but he didn't want just a plain old slice of toast. He wanted toast with nutella.
She offered him a banana. But he didn't want just any old banana, he wanted the one with exactly the right amount of brown spots.
She offered him a yoghurt, but he didn't want just one yoghurt - he wanted every yoghurt in the fridge.
Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime of negotiations, tantrums and every single bedtime story known to man, the threenager fell asleep.
A little while later, Daddy came home.
"Hiya love, what's for dinner?" Daddy asked.
But Mummy was already asleep on the sofa, glass of wine in one hand and Barny in the other, too exhausted to even give a shit who was getting kicked out of the Big Brother house....
Oh well, there's always next Friday....
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