Yellow Bananas

A blood-curdling scream. ‘AAAAAH!! ‘SHE BIT ME! MUMMY WHERE ARE YOU?!’ I thanked the Lord I was at the top of the house so I could say I hadn’t heard, and shut the door quietly. I was supposed to be shuffling debris around in Josie’s room, but was mid-reverie, re-playing a scene from that morning when I’d tripped backwards over a paint-water pot on her carpet and landed on her waste paper basket, squashing it flat. (The table that I bragged about fitting into her bedroom last week is now buried so she’s painting on the carpet again). Anyway, while I was blustering about the paint-pot, she had wagged a finger and smiled knowingly: ‘You’re a real visual learner Mummy,’ she said. ‘That’s why you want everything in exactly the right place!’ Like I was a real weirdo or something.

The door swung open. ‘MUMMY, MADDY BIT ME! DON’T YOU CARE?’ Damn, the game was up. ‘What did you say, Bonnie? She bit you? That’s terrible! Why?’ (There could be a good reason). ‘Because I said I would tell you she was drinking coke unless she gave me some’. Now I was interested - drinking flat coke with breakfast whilst lying on the sofa watching crap TV breached my relax-it's-the-Easter-holidays boundaries and warranted a rant, whereas biting Bonnie I could understand...

I stormed down to deliver the rant: ‘Coke at this time of day, Maddy? That is revolting!’ ‘It’s only a bit of Coke, no big deal’ she replied, bolting the rest. ‘Have a fruit if you want something sweet!’ I whined, bored to death. ‘You just think I’m fat’ said she, to throw me off balance. ‘No I do not!’ I screeched, overreacting ‘I’m thinking of your health...why don’t you have a lovely banana?!!’ ‘I only like yellow bananas’ she said, ‘yours are always rotten’. I decided not to say again that markings on bananas mean they are RIPE, and later in the day I purchased yellow bananas for her to not eat, carefully placing them in a controlled and cushioned environment offering uniform humidity, temperature and light.

I devised breakfast the next day in the Scandinavian tradition, casually laying the still yellow bananas on the breakfast table. ‘Would you like yoghurt today?’ I yodelled. ‘Or some yellow banana sliced over your Special Flakes – like the picture on the cereal packet!?’ I grasped a banana and a knife, and noticed I was kind of shrieking. ‘Ugh, no way’ she said. ‘But there are raspberries in the picture too - have you got any raspberries?’ (like I kept raspberries in my pocket) ‘No, I have not. I have got bananas’. Don’t get cross.

Maddy’s lunch box was enormous, because although I made the sandwich miniscule in order to starve her into eating her banana, I had to wrap the banana in layers and layers of paper towel and float it in its own special box in case of bruising. We’ve done banana cases - too embarrassing.

‘Did you eat your banana?’ I said, when she returned from school. ‘I’m not sure’ she said, and I knew what that meant. ‘I wasn’t hungry..’ she said, a crisp packet falling out of her pocket.

Time was running out; there were very faint black dots appearing on the bananas. We had tea. ‘Nice banana for pud?’ I was jolly. ‘I’m quite full actually’ she said. ‘Just have a half - ’ I said, ‘ - go on - I’ll slice it up!’ as if this would transform it into a Magnum. ‘Maybe later’, said Maddy, half out the door.

Then I lost it. ‘COME BACK HERE AND EAT A FRIGGIN’ BANANA FOR CHRIST’S SAKE’. ‘It’s got black spots’ she muttered. ‘It’s rotten.’ ‘IT IS NOT’. I grabbed a banana and peeled it under her nose to illustrate. I took an angry bite. ‘There! Delicious! Perfect ripe banana! Someone has grown this lovely banana’ (talking with my mouth full) ‘picked it, put it in a lorry, driven it to a ship, across the world, to London, then I (poor me, poor me) have slogged over to Woodgreen at your request...’ She paused and watched me in my madness. ‘So bananas have a high carbon footprint and are bad for the environment. Raspberries are grown in this country. Why don’t you get them instead next time?’

Very Rewarding!

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but we have taken the plunge and embraced the convivial family evening meal! The full a la carte is back on of course, which means tipping out the fridge and cupboards on to the table and getting stuck in; and for me, it means being butler, chef and general drudge as usual, but also eating and looking as if I’m listening to the conversation as well. But surely the laughs, the debate, the refuelling amongst those you love, will repay the effort ten-fold - this could be very rewarding!

Conversation is tops:
‘Soph, I had a very productive DMT meeting with the LGO sub-committee today – Bonnie, I said I don’t want a ponytail, take the ribbon out!‘
‘Mummy when you make this stuff can you not put all those kinda like green bits in it, then I won’t have to pick them all out-’
‘Maddy, why are you holding your spaghetti up to the light?’
‘I’m checking there’s nothing in it.’
‘Sorry Alan, very productive what?…Alfie! Don’t you dare put your cucumber under the chair – PICK IT UP NOW!’
‘I can’t reach…can you get it?’
‘Bonnie knitting needles don't go in tomatoes!’
‘Plate in the sink please’
‘Oh my God, that’s so unfair! I’m only taking my fork!’

Current affairs thus mulled over, it’s first to the top of the stairs gets to put Alfie and Bonnie to bed (which used to be the short straw) because the other sucker’s got the entire contents of the fridge and cupboard to put back in again, and the whole kitchen to clean up, including fifteen items of crockery and cutlery per child because each food must be served separately so that nothing touches anything else, obviously.

At least I had a stage for my latest dramatic outburst. I spoke my opening lines gulpingly (so’s I could barely swallow my mash):

‘Has anyone noticed that I am very unhappy?
I can’t go on any more,
Asking you to do your jobs,
For you to then ignore’

There followed a moving soliloquy describing the life of Poor, Poor Mum (“Practice! Do your homework! Go to bed! Get up! What’s that doing in the middle of the floor? Brush your teeth, I shouldn't have to tell you! Turn off the telly! Pick it up, who do you think is going to pick it up if you don’t – me!..”). I explained that Poor, Poor Mum kept this jabbering up fourteen hours a day minimum, but that YOU ( and I cast my eye around the table, very effective) just move off out of earshot, rendering Poor, Poor Mum increasingly dispirited and stompy.

I think I pulled it off. At any rate, everyone came in with ‘Sorry, Mummy, sorry, sorry’ and there was alot of patting of my arms, and hand-squeezing, which led to me cancelling the seriously shouty climax I'd planned. A daily checklist of chores was drawn up, which everyone agreed to observe in a responsible and cooperative manner - it's all been very rewarding.

Shakshuka!

‘Mummy could I have a little word with you?’ said Josie. She's taken to addressing me like a busy but benign employer just lately. It’s part of GCSE over-drive; she’s the career woman, I’m the aged clerical assistant, past her best but too old to sack. I dried my hands on my apron, straightened my hair and stood to attention. ‘Yes’m?’ ‘I want to eat proper grown up food with you and Daddy in the evening from now on, vegetarian of course.’ Just like that, after 15 years of extreme pickiness.

This was a major development! Goodbye a la carte open all hours nursery food cafe, hello sit-down (vegetarian) suppers with older daughter! My imagination ran wild; I was Nigella Lawson, swinging through my state of the art kitchen, bestowing appetising plates upon my children, glossy smile, cascading locks, fullsome bossoms... We would have pies! We would have puddings! Oh the memories we’d have of convivial family meals, laughing and eating, happy and beautiful…I slipped my new Ottolenghi cookery book off the shelf, now let me see…My eyes lit upon ‘Cauliflower Frittata’ – I had the cauliflower but darnit the smoked scamorza (?) had run out…Leek pattie! Leeks I had, but no red onion….or onion…Here we go! – ‘Shakshuka’ – ‘meltingly soft and sweet’ red peppers, lightly spiced with an egg cooked to set in the middle, interesting side salad – Josie will love it.

I announced the new regime – dinner with Josie at eight! – to Alan, who was excited on two counts: first, the menu was to change from reheated childrens’ tea with a rasher of bacon on the top; second, he’d have a new (and captive) audience on whom to bestow the livelier Human Resources anecdotes of the day, instead of a slack-jawed wife in a dead doze in front of the TV. Before I knew it he’d transformed the kitchen into ‘Le Bistro Alain’- soft music, low lights, a candle! I told him the guitar was a step too far.

It was the teeniest bit annoying that Josie had to finish her TV programme before we ate, so the ‘shakshuka’ was a little tired, but we admired the sweet meltingness of the peppers anyway, and merrily chomped our way through the interesting side salad into which, with a surge of devil-may-care, I’d rashly cast my entire crop of five cherry tomatoes. We ignored the fact that the guest of honour was quiet, head down, plate untouched. Was she wretching? ‘What’s up Josie?’ I said eventually, when it could be ignored not longer. The flood gates opened: ‘Mummy I’m sorry you went to so much trouble, but…all these slices of pepper!...and the egg is in the middle!’. I felt slightly sulky, but we must not make an issue of food, must we, no matter how much we feel like saying EAT THE DAMN SHAKSHUKA or we will have anorexia on our hands, guaranteed, so I enquired: ‘Where would you prefer your egg?’ (it was a genuine enquiry) and ‘are the slices of pepper too large, too small, too sliced…or are they lying in the wrong direction?’ ‘I can’t do it, I just can’t!’ she wailed and took her leave. Alan and I blinked at each other, somewhat shocked. What would Nigella do? I appraised the middle-ness of Josie’s egg, then swallowed it in one (ouch) so I didn’t have to look at it any more. ‘She’s high maintenance,’ said Alan.

I was tempted to catch the last half of Dragon’s Den, but wired up with wine and work, Company Man nattered on past ten ‘..let’s face it, Soph, the strategy has to adapt..’ when Josie came back in for a hug (‘Mummy, what can I have to eat?’ Grrrr). He was still going as he climbed into bed ‘..you won’t believe the timeline on this proposal-’ but when his head hit the pillow, the snores. The usual pushing and punching brought no relief for ages, but then a megasnort followed by utter silence. He was dead. Now I wanted him to snore. I pushed and punched some more until finally I was rewarded with the teeniest little snuffle, building and building until – yes! yes! - the room was alive with the full glorious repertoire. Phew.

Fishy Wishy

Depressed after slopping out the zillionth packet of Batchelors Supernoodles whilst delivering another of my obviously pointless healthy eating lectures, I did a deal with Bonnie and Alfie; if they came shopping for something nutritious, they could leave their homework. I turned my back to shove a few toffees in my mouth and off we went to join the well-heeled foodies in a polite but firm queue at the fishmongers, warning the children before we entered that if they said ‘pooh’ as we entered there'd be no Supernoodles for a year.

This was, for us, an exceptional foray into the world of inconvenience food. My fellow customers probably separated the fish from the finger before their children could say ‘more asparagus please!’, encouraging good eating habits – and interesting conversation - around the family table. Not us! I’d tried, but my children were strong, and I was weak!

‘One fillet of rainbow trout, one of mackerell, please’, I bellowed excitedly, obvious fake, explaining the fillet and the steak as we waited. ‘We get our fish-fingers from Iceland’, said Bonnie, advertising to all and sundry my supermarket of choice, newly discovered (fish fingers two packets for £1, come on). My inner snob screamed 'Shut that child’s trap!’ and I leaped on her, fishes flapping, and tickled her violently out of the shop.

We all took part in the Grand Grilling (oily fish don’t need additional fat, oh no no!). ‘It’s so shiny! Look at the lovely crackling skin!’, we chattered, serving up, slice of lemon on the side. I dug in, and they folded theirs this way and that. Alfie even talked to his a bit as if that would count. Sadly, neither was quite in the mood for fish. ‘Eat it while it’s hot!’ I sing-songed, ‘Mmm, it’s scrumptious!’

The bile rose in my throat as I watched them stir their fish to a paste. I grabbed their plates and spooned the gloop into my mouth ostensibly not to waste, but really to make them feel bad. The convivial meal was shot to pieces. ‘I love you mummy’ said Alfie putting his arms around me. ‘I love you too’ I said, ‘but I wish you would eat your fish’. ‘Fishy Wishy‘ he said, gently. ‘Let’s give it to the cats.’