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I make her organic prawns (hey they were half price…) and she eats one of them…. I make her oatabix, she throws it on the floor. I clean it up. I eat a packet of mini eggs sneakily whilst she isn’t looking. I (n case she wants any) after all she’s a toddler…sugar and toddlers don’t mix do they… I give her an apple. Sh e rolls it under a chest of drawers. I try to poke it back out with a ruler…. I grate cheese into a bowl- she dangles bits into my mouth trying to feed me. I refuse to eat any, as I’m lactose intolerant, (unless there’s cake or biscuits on offer of course). This upsets her and she tries jamming the spoon up my nose and in my eye. A spoon of peanut butter is dunked into my purse. I sigh and give up trying to get any food inside her. Why won’t the child eat! She picks at food like an anorexic pigeon then wakes in the night yelping for bottles of milk. In the morning she eats hardly anything. She always wants to eat when we are out and refuses the healthy sandwiches I have made preferring to fill up on fruit or flapjacks. Anything sweet. I’m pleases she’s eating carbohydrate so encourage her to eat the oats even though its full of sugar. Is this why sugar was imported- to make toddlers eat their blummin oats? I find myself today sprinkling molasses on her oatabix’s, (it contains iron and more calcium in tablespoon than a glass of milk) its so sweet she looks like she turns her face nose up and empties the bowl onto the tray, pushing it around mindlessly singing. How cute- her grandparents would think. How f*cking annoying her mother thinks. I’ve cooked/toasted/grilled her so many foods and made myself none. I’m staving. I look at the half chewed discarded grub strewn around; none of it looks edible anymore.

I make myself toast and sit quietly hoping she will be engrossed in Mr Tumble for long enough not to notice me wolfing down ‘0ff we go to hospital’ grade A allergy food. (She has a wheat allergy). She typically toddles over squawking “eek eeek” at me like a dolphin surrounding a lost sardine fisherman about to be eaten by a shark. EEEk eeeeEEE. I hate this noise. I don’t want to understand this language she speaks, yet I do, I’m fluent. It means “Hey lady hand over whatever is in your hand NOW and I mean NOW!” I stuff the remainder of toast in my gob and remember what the doctor said about ensuring I “ate in a relaxed manner to aid digestion”. Not giving her this prize to which mother holds, ends up with my toddler’s face turning to thunder… She goes red and sits down sobbing as if I am the biggest cow on earth. This is not helping my digestion. Stress levels are high. I throw a dummy onto the bed like a bone to a dog and she runs after it panting, and returns laughing and smiling pointing at a monkey on TV. “Munnnkweeeee” Her stress totally forgotten. Meanwhile my toast is stuck in my oesophagus and I need a drink. Ahh another lovely family mealtime.