Don’t feed the babies

Mealtimes in my house have devolved, says Sophie White, and my kids are now devouring every morsel on my plate before I can — a plan of action is needed

We’ve entered a new phase of parenthood lately. The family dinner. Before, we had a separate meal for the wild babies. This meal was a moveable feast, in that it usually took place halfway between the cooker and the dining table, with the babies scaling my body while braying for scraps, as I tried to bring the plates to the table and pleaded with them to be civilised. To no avail.

Of late, in a concerted effort to civilise the children, I’ve instated the family dinner, complete with proper table settings, candles, and an appeal to all family members to at least try to be less feral. It was naive of me to think that supplying them with fire and knives would inspire them to be anything other than even more untamed, but I’m persevering because, since they’re my children, mealtimes with them are not optional.

It wouldn’t be so bad, but most of the time, I am outnumbered at the table, as my husband cleverly absents himself for mostly made-up work reasons. Therefore I spend most repasts fending off their advances and desperately trying to protect my own plate from their pilfering ways. Like all children, they eat nothing that isn’t chips — unless that ‘nothing’ should be something that is on my plate, in which case, they are all over it.

I know that mothers are supposed to be selfless creatures who place the welfare of their young before any and all personal needs, but as everyone who knows me knows: Don’t. F*ck. With. My. Food.

They’re playing a dangerous game, these babies, and it’s getting to the point where I’m going to start lashing out at the next random child — albeit one that I spawned — who nicks my food. Knowing that lashing out is not a viable option for parenting, especially as the optics in this instance are particularly terrible

— “Your Honour, he took my last roast potato, I had to scream at him like an unhinged psychopath” — does not a good defence make.

What about: “I was hungry, Your Honour, and when I’m hungry, I can transform into an apocalyptic bitch in a matter of seconds?” It still makes me sound like the bratty child in this situation, so my new approach is to essentially treat myself like the third toddler in the family. Now before I go to do the pick-up, I ask myself a series of routine, cajoling questions before leaving the house: “Sophie, do you need to go wee-wee?” “Do you need your jacket, it’s cold?” And, most importantly: “Sophie, do you need a little snack?”

One cannot go into battle — or, indeed, parenting — hungry. These brownies do the job nicely.

“Your Honour, he took my last roast potato, I had to scream at him like an unhinged psychopath”