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Saturday 15 December 2007

Drum roll please

Two degrees at 8:30am. Lots of low-lying cloud mingled with wood smoke. And trying very hard to SNOW.

Thank-you to everyone who commented on the parenting dilemma I outlined in November (Parenting problem - can you help?), either publicly or privately by email.

You may remember that AJ refuses to eat anything at lunchtime at kindergarten. We pay, he says nay (actually, he says "Niente! Solo pane!"). My quandary was whether I should feed him a pseudo-lunch at home or on the way home after kindergarten, or whether I should make the little hard-head wait until supper-time (a tantrum-filled ten hours since breakfast).

The overwhelming response was to ignore his lunchtime mule-act and feed him whatever he wants when he wants it. I in fact decided to feed him a late lunch any time until 3pm so as not to spoil his appetite for the supper I hoped he would find delicious.

Now it's time for that drum roll.

Yesterday, AJ ate pasta al pomodoro at kindergarten. And everyone, including children from three separate classes, kitchen staff and teachers of other groups in other parts of the building, came running to tell me. AJ was the centre of an enormous, Italian, round of applause and not a few kisses. And you know, if I didn't know better, I could have sworn someone was throwing roses...

Signs are also that he is starting to expand his repertoire at home. He has added three new foods to the menu in the last week. His list of yes-foods is now about a dozen strong if you count three different kinds of fried potato and all the fruit you can throw at him (and boy do I want to sometimes). And this morning he demanded three times the usual quantity of porridge, a food that until today was a definite "no, no, No!".

Walking with him back up the hill yesterday afternoon, I discovered a fairly unfamiliar emotion bubbling up inside - elation. The topic of conversation in between bouts of "Old MacDonald had a farm..."? The fact that now AJ ate something at kindergarten, Babbo Natale, the Italian Father Christmas, will be hitching his reindeer to the chimney pots of Carmine Superiore after all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful! He can only go one step at a time, but it must be great to see that first step.

Anonymous said...

Thats Great!! Think the undiagnosed whooping cough which he has had since starting school, a nasty stomach bug, separation from mum and not knowing Italian might have had something to do with not eating and now all those things have gone ...Allelujah!!!

Saturday 15 December 2007

Drum roll please

Two degrees at 8:30am. Lots of low-lying cloud mingled with wood smoke. And trying very hard to SNOW.

Thank-you to everyone who commented on the parenting dilemma I outlined in November (Parenting problem - can you help?), either publicly or privately by email.

You may remember that AJ refuses to eat anything at lunchtime at kindergarten. We pay, he says nay (actually, he says "Niente! Solo pane!"). My quandary was whether I should feed him a pseudo-lunch at home or on the way home after kindergarten, or whether I should make the little hard-head wait until supper-time (a tantrum-filled ten hours since breakfast).

The overwhelming response was to ignore his lunchtime mule-act and feed him whatever he wants when he wants it. I in fact decided to feed him a late lunch any time until 3pm so as not to spoil his appetite for the supper I hoped he would find delicious.

Now it's time for that drum roll.

Yesterday, AJ ate pasta al pomodoro at kindergarten. And everyone, including children from three separate classes, kitchen staff and teachers of other groups in other parts of the building, came running to tell me. AJ was the centre of an enormous, Italian, round of applause and not a few kisses. And you know, if I didn't know better, I could have sworn someone was throwing roses...

Signs are also that he is starting to expand his repertoire at home. He has added three new foods to the menu in the last week. His list of yes-foods is now about a dozen strong if you count three different kinds of fried potato and all the fruit you can throw at him (and boy do I want to sometimes). And this morning he demanded three times the usual quantity of porridge, a food that until today was a definite "no, no, No!".

Walking with him back up the hill yesterday afternoon, I discovered a fairly unfamiliar emotion bubbling up inside - elation. The topic of conversation in between bouts of "Old MacDonald had a farm..."? The fact that now AJ ate something at kindergarten, Babbo Natale, the Italian Father Christmas, will be hitching his reindeer to the chimney pots of Carmine Superiore after all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful! He can only go one step at a time, but it must be great to see that first step.

Anonymous said...

Thats Great!! Think the undiagnosed whooping cough which he has had since starting school, a nasty stomach bug, separation from mum and not knowing Italian might have had something to do with not eating and now all those things have gone ...Allelujah!!!