Saturday 18 October 2008

I am a giant box of cornflakes

I had a lightbulb moment this morning. Not bad given it was 6.30am. My husband had gotten up with the beasties at some even more ungodly hour. Before you wonder why I was up and not having a lie in, it's because I'd spent 5am to 5.45am trying to jam a duvet between me and son 2 who was determined to make pretty patterns on my back with his toenails.

Then son 1 arrived announcing that he couldn't find his one and only gogo and that he needed my help to find it. I asked whether he had looked under his pillow and blankets. He assured me he had. I sighed, hauled myself out of bed and went to his bed. There lying right in the middle of it was the missing gogo.

I pointed to it. He smiled sheepishly and said: 'I didn't see it'. Of course you didn't dear, because you are a boy. That means you are cursed with 'boy-looking', an evil affliction that will last a lifetime. It means that one day when you're married you can yell to your wife that you don't know where the can opener is and she can yell back and say 'It's in the drawer where it always is' and you can deny that emphatically until your long suffering wife arrives, opens the drawer and points to the can opener lying right in front of your very eyes before picking it up and smacking the back of your head with it.

And so despite my husband getting up, I was now awake. I attempted to read but I needed caffeine. I arrived downstairs scowling, my hair sticking on end and looking like a grumpy womble. As I stumbled over to the kettle my children who had been playing contently with their father, noticed that I was there. There was no 'Good morning mummy' or anything of that ilk. No. The minute they saw their mother, like Pavlov's dogs responding to a bell, my children's stomach juices started going and out came the plaintive cry: 'I'm hungry'.

And that's when my lightbulb moment happened. I looked incredulously at my husband and asked whether they'd mentioned being hungry until they saw me. 'Nope,' he said. At that instant I realised that to my children I am nothing more than a large box of cornflakes that wanders the house. I am the human embodiment of breakfast cereals. In fact, I am a life size representation of all food groups.

It all makes sense really. From their earliest days, their food literally came from my body in the form of breastmilk (not to mention the in utero feast they'd had for nine months). And since weaning them off me, I've still been the provider of food three times a day. So it's only natural that they associate me with food. I just hadn't realised quite how acute the programming was.

I might start viewing the loving smiles they bestow on me in a new light now. Whereas I used to think their affection was genuinely for me, it appears it might actually be because they're peckish and they're simply sizing me up as a large, juicy steak.

5 comments:

katyboo1 said...

My mother always calls it 'cupboard love' i.e. you don't love me for who I am, you love me for what is in my store cupboards. She actually has a pantry full of food and even now, at the age of thirty six, one of the first things I do when I go round is open the pantry door and have a look in to see if there's anything good.

Anonymous said...

Emma assures me that I am always very appreciative of her cooking, and that she therefore doesn't mind being my provider of food. Could you perhaps consider installing some sort of 'gratitude meter' on the fridge? You know, no-gratitude, no-food? I'm not exactly sure how you'd measure that in little lads, but I'm sure you'll come up with something!

Home Office Mum said...

Katyboo I'd probably do the same if my mother lived slightly closer than the 30 hour flight that she does from me.

David, we need to meet for a drink so that I can brief on the joys of parenthood mate. Gratitude. From children?! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I could go on. You need to lower your expectations by quite some way before yours arrives.

Welsh Girl said...

Come down to breakfast one day actually dressed as a large box of cereal. This would freak them out completely!!!

Anonymous said...

I don't know whether to be comforted or terrified by my children's parallel behaviour to your own beloved sons. My other half is rarely asked to provide sustenance for my lot, yet the moment I appear they are swinging off the pantry door and hanging around the fridge like starved demented chimpanzees.