No You Can’t Have Three Desserts!

Kids! Or more specifically, four year olds. For those of you struggling with a fussy eater, all I can say is stick to your guns! I acknowledge that some of this is my own fault as I’ve cut my daughter considerable slack with food because of her allergies to eggs, nuts and milk. Hence, the recipe pages I’ve done for Little Devils’ Delights. I’ll admit that I have let her have savory biscuits for dinner in the past as I knew they didn’t have any of her allergy ingredients in them and it was just easier than arguing over something else.

Well, she’s four now and really, there is no excuse. So the other night, when she asked for three desserts, it was a resounding NO! I stood my ground, she whined, I persisted, she tried harder, and I stuck to my guns (some days it does feel like a battle ground, but I do say – choose your battles).

You know the words:

- Why do I have to have healthy food before I can have a treat?

OR

- I don’t want my dinner, I just want dessert.

OR

- Why can’t I have an ice-cream every day after kindy?

AND in that delightfully hideous whiny voice:

- Why is it just a sometimes food, I like it every day!

- I know you’d like to eat it every day, but it’s a sometimes food because it’s a treat. It has a lot of sugar and fat in it so it’s not good for you to have every day. Just like Elmo says, it’s a sometimes food.

- But I like it!

- I know, I like it too, but you can’t have it every day. It’s not good for you to eat every day.

Round and round in circles we go until I get to….

- I’m not discussing this anymore.

- But Mum!

- No, don’t ask me again or there will be no cartoons before bed.  (AAAAHHhhhh! I want to scream, would you just stop!  But I don’t, I’m screaming on the inside).

Then it’s bedtime, which I strategically announce half an hour earlier than usual so we have enough time for the constant blah, blah, I want, I want. Thank goodness she can’t tell the time yet.

Just as she’s getting ready for her bath, she says:

- I’ll have my dinner now mum, then my dessert.

- Only one dessert though.

- Okay mum. (Yay, finally!)

After she eats her dinner really quickly, she asks with her best manners:

- May I have my dessert now please mummy? (That’s better, I think)

- Yes you can, especially when you ask me nicely like that.

I give her the one dessert – 2 squares of her special nut, egg and dairy free chocolate which she proceeds to gobble down in about two minutes flat! Damn, this normally takes half an hour! Little Devil!

Then she gets five minutes of cartoons, bath, toilet, teeth, bedtime story, lights out and two minutes of quiet time before mummy gets to leave the room – yay!  Peace at last! I love her to bits, but some days, I am pushed to my limits. So we take it day by day and No by No.

If you’re wondering if this is normal, yep, it sure is! They all push us to our limits like we’ve never been pushed before, but still we wouldn’t be without them. And then before I head off to bed myself, I sneak in to check on her, sleeping like an angel and give her one more kiss goodnight and tell her I love her. I soak up the good stuff as much as I can before she becomes a teenager.

Author: Julianne Browne