Food glorious food...

Right. It's a Saturday evening and the in-laws have just been round for supper. I've had a few glasses of wine, inspite of my self-imposed alcohol free month. It actually only took two weeks for me to break my promise as a client took me to a Gary Rhodes restaurant in the city and plied me with fine wine and Champagne. It would have been rude to say "no" wouldn't it?

Again I digress (and I'm seriously worried this is becoming a problem for me) so back to the fatherhood angle of this blog.

Ever since the birth of mini-me, we've been worried about how much she actually eats. In my limited and rather inexperienced view, I believe that children fall in to two camps:

1. Those that eat huge volumes of whatever you put in front of them.
2. Those that don't.

I would say that mini-me is a category 2 child. A typical day will start with me rising at the aforementioned un-Godly hour of 6.45am and making tea and juice for the house females. Around 7.30 I start to feel hungry and so deem it polite/necessary to ask the daughter if she too, by some miracle might be peckish. Quick as a flash and without fail, the reply "I'm not hungry" is pinballed back my way. I find my head saying "you will eat this food" but as a slave to my daughter I find it impossible to stand up to her so a rather weak "OK darling" droops from my lips. At this point I sally forth to the kitchen to munch Crunchy Nut Cornflakes or Readybreak (do you remember the BMX rider ads?) to prepare for my day. Around 8.30am, Cameron gets involved and coercion is used to ensure the little one nibbles some dry toast - I kid you not. Last week she actually asked for some toast without butter.

Towards mid-morning when Daddy's blood sugar levels plummet and I get ratty, I again suggest a light snakkeral to the kid but yet again she throws it back in my face and Cameron uses some clever mother technique she inherited through evolution to ensure food passes the lips of our only child.

Lunch time is no different although I do remember once in the Summer of 2005 when she accepted my offer for food and we ate a sandwich together - ahhh those heady days.

Blah blah, this pattern goes on and to be honest I'm not entirely clear how our daughter doesn't get blown away on windy days. Mind you I guess I'm no paper weight myself but nonetheless it does concern me that the genetic need for food that most humans inherit seems to have passed her by. Having questioned the wife, mini-me's typical daily menu consists of:

Three bites of toast
Mango smoothy
Mini yoghurt drink
Quarter of a sandwich
One chicken nugget (home made)
A chip (home made)
A fimble tree (asparagus!?)

In fact the other day, she uttered the immortal quote "Mummy I'm hungry"

to which my wife replied "are you"?

to which she replied "I know, I've never been hungry before"

Even on car journeys when sweets are more permissible, we have to persuade her to eat a bite of chocolate lolly. She must be the only person I know that will eat no more than two or three Maltesers from a packet before handing them back. I know we should be happy about this but Maltesers are nutritious....right?

So what do we do about it? Someone most know. Food is not the issue here. She does eat - JUST NOT WITH US!!!!! Do you think she senses our weakness via some clever woman aerials? Do you think she can tell that, given my guilt complex, I will offer about as much resistance as a tracing paper umbrella in a rainstorm? I figure yes to both of these and so I have spent some time researching this and thinking through some approaches. Readers (if there are any) the answer is based on the psychology of proposition making.

Let me explain. When a supermarket displays an offer, ask yourself how they display it? Do they say "Get one free when you buy one"? Do they make the offer of the thing you will get PRIOR to asking you to do the thing they want you to do? Nope. They ask you to take an action first BEFORE giving you the outcome you want i.e. Buy one, get one free.

I'm ranting.

Think of it this way: if you eat this sandwich (i.e .buy one) then I'll take you to the park (get one free). This is the approach I have been taking and hey bloody presto is works.

We can now confidently get our daughter to eat a full lunch with no tears or upset. The only cost to us is a visit to the park or similar. Yippeeeeeeeee! This is great news as I can now ensure my daughter eats AND do cool things like visit the park which helps me with the topic of a previous ramble - guilt.

In my book, everyone's a winner.

Good night y'all.