How To Get Your Children To Eat Vegetables!
The short answer to the above question: import into your house a miserable old boot of an aunt who will wear down your children with her incessant preaching about the virtues of vitamins so that they will eat anything just to shut her up!!!!!!
Not strictly true, but that was Natasha's take on things. For a teenager (and a girl! Goodness, they are moody creatures) she is generally tolerant of extended family members. As the eldest of my brood, she is the most used to assorted relatives visiting and cooing over the growth of each subsequent child.
She tries not to roll her eyes in that irritating way all teenagers have when confronted with adult stupidity - you know, talking, breathing, existing.... She only sighs heavily for my benefit, never in front of her grandparents, and keeps flouncing to a minimum. However, her aunt Georgina's recent stay has tried her patience mightily.
As I said before, Georgina has no immediate personal experience of having a husband/children etc and her own happy childhood as one of six kids seems a distant memory. Apparently she started laying down stupid, pointless rules for my kids the minute she walked into the house. Despite the best efforts of my mother in law to curb Georgina's enthusiasm for "discipline", she started issuing instructions and demanding instant obedience.
We have a very easy-going routine in our house for bedtime. Each child has their own pattern, worked out over many months. Natasha knows her bodyclock intimately and takes serious note of what it is telling her. She has been known to go to bed at 7.30 if "exhausted" or to be reading still at 3am if that feels right. Richard, however, needs gentle persuasion to be removed from his pc or playstation but generally complies after a second reminder. In either case, they know what they should be doing and don't need some inexperienced harridan shouting at them as if they have committed the most venal crime imaginable.
Similarly the two youngest also need/like gentle and familiar patterns at bedtime. Jack is allowed to watch television or read while Emily has her story and then Steve or I spend some quiet time with him before leaving him to settle himself down.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Ok, it's not perfect every time: I have been known to shout/scream/stamp etc like every other mother on the planet, but generally we get there. Not so when Georgina is around. Apparently it got so bad that first night that my mother in law had to invent things she needed from the supermarket just to get Georgina out of the house. It took all of her grandmotherly skills to keep the children from phoning Childline and then booking a taxi to get them to Kent. Emily even emptied her piggybank of 37p as her contribution towards the taxi fare in the hope that this would clinch the deal.
Needless to say, I have had every moment of their visit reported to me in the most minute detail by each child. If I thought the bribes I had promised before Georgina even came were expensive, the amount of largesse I will have to produce to assuage their hurt feelings may mean I have to go back to full-time work. Jack and Emily are making a list from the Argos catalogue, Richard has left a Dell advert for laptops on my bed and Natasha is looking at cars on the internet. I know they will settle for a dvd/pizza evening but they are going to make me suffer in the meantime. I just hope the pizza doesn't come with any vegetables!!
Not strictly true, but that was Natasha's take on things. For a teenager (and a girl! Goodness, they are moody creatures) she is generally tolerant of extended family members. As the eldest of my brood, she is the most used to assorted relatives visiting and cooing over the growth of each subsequent child.
She tries not to roll her eyes in that irritating way all teenagers have when confronted with adult stupidity - you know, talking, breathing, existing.... She only sighs heavily for my benefit, never in front of her grandparents, and keeps flouncing to a minimum. However, her aunt Georgina's recent stay has tried her patience mightily.
As I said before, Georgina has no immediate personal experience of having a husband/children etc and her own happy childhood as one of six kids seems a distant memory. Apparently she started laying down stupid, pointless rules for my kids the minute she walked into the house. Despite the best efforts of my mother in law to curb Georgina's enthusiasm for "discipline", she started issuing instructions and demanding instant obedience.
We have a very easy-going routine in our house for bedtime. Each child has their own pattern, worked out over many months. Natasha knows her bodyclock intimately and takes serious note of what it is telling her. She has been known to go to bed at 7.30 if "exhausted" or to be reading still at 3am if that feels right. Richard, however, needs gentle persuasion to be removed from his pc or playstation but generally complies after a second reminder. In either case, they know what they should be doing and don't need some inexperienced harridan shouting at them as if they have committed the most venal crime imaginable.
Similarly the two youngest also need/like gentle and familiar patterns at bedtime. Jack is allowed to watch television or read while Emily has her story and then Steve or I spend some quiet time with him before leaving him to settle himself down.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Ok, it's not perfect every time: I have been known to shout/scream/stamp etc like every other mother on the planet, but generally we get there. Not so when Georgina is around. Apparently it got so bad that first night that my mother in law had to invent things she needed from the supermarket just to get Georgina out of the house. It took all of her grandmotherly skills to keep the children from phoning Childline and then booking a taxi to get them to Kent. Emily even emptied her piggybank of 37p as her contribution towards the taxi fare in the hope that this would clinch the deal.
Needless to say, I have had every moment of their visit reported to me in the most minute detail by each child. If I thought the bribes I had promised before Georgina even came were expensive, the amount of largesse I will have to produce to assuage their hurt feelings may mean I have to go back to full-time work. Jack and Emily are making a list from the Argos catalogue, Richard has left a Dell advert for laptops on my bed and Natasha is looking at cars on the internet. I know they will settle for a dvd/pizza evening but they are going to make me suffer in the meantime. I just hope the pizza doesn't come with any vegetables!!
posted by Lisa Warner @ 1:07 PM
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