Tuesday, April 01, 2008

The white post

So, we’re off to the outlaws in France on Thursday and I have been dutifully cooking all the perishable food in the fridge. Yesterday was a good courgette pan fry with peppers and quorn, today there was only some cauliflower, celeriac, aubergine and potato left, apart from the salad stuff.

So, I roasted aubergine and celeriac, steamed the cauliflower and baked potato, put it all on the plate and… it was all white. Apart from a few skins of course. I think if you’d asked me to plan a white meal I may have struggled but now I think it may have to be the theme of my next dinner party.

For his part, the star of this blog is mainly eating white food as well, as in bottles of milk, pots of plain yoghurt and bowls of porridge. He has a fearsome cold, blocked sinuses and a hacking ccugh, which means of course that I have it too now because it is highly amusing to bite one’s parents in the face and generally slobber all over them. Ha ha ha. Perhaps this is the White Food Virus. So far the Frog is germ-free however he is much less receptive to the general pawing about that I seem to accept from the spud in the name of motherly love. Either way, we have to start eating real food soon or there will be way too much of us to go around.

His most recent trick, the Spud’s that is, the Frog has no recent tricks, is to attempt to mount one like a horse every time one crouches or bends down. This means that the simple act of cleaning the floor under his high chair is now fraught with the danger of standing up while he is clinging on, not to mention the inconvenience of trying to hand-scrub pasta sauce off the laminate while a 33 pound monster is clinging to one’s bottom.

Oh go on, laugh. Should he succeed in climbing on (normally with help) he is so proud and happy that we have to inch past a mirror so he can preen at his reflection, pushing himself upright into a proper sit for a second and tucking in his chin for a coy smirk before resuming his giggling, petrified strangle-hold on a parental neck.

This evening I did some gardening after picking him up from his childminder. You can imagine the rest, me dutifully planting aquilegia seedlings with him scrabbling away behind me. Every time I knelt upright to reach into the compost bag he would swing from my shoulders like an enormous goiter. When he got bored of that he spent some careful time sliding his hands under my shirt and grasping thoughtfully at my spare tire as if weighing it up and comparing it to his own. ‘One day’ I could hear him think ‘One day I too will carry this interesting soft stuff in bags around my waist.’ The neighbours must be completely agog. At least he didn’t try to drag a boob out with both hands as he did the other day nearly every day last week. He may have a vestigial mammary memory that once upon a time in a place far away there was a magic land of Boob but I think it’s a sensory thing – he just likes the feeling of all the vast softness in which I am clad these days.

Which takes me back to my current diet, or lack thereof. White food just screams ‘carbohydrates’ and so I think I am going to have to review the colour scheme in my fridge. For now, I am going to take my white sinus pills, some white Kleenex and drag my pale, sick arse into bed with my lovely warm frog.

anon.

11 comments:

DJ Kirkby said...

Well! Where do I start with my comments? Too hilarious as usual. Love the bits about Spud using you as a horsey. As for your spare tire, yeah, yeah, I bet! What does that make the jelly around my waist then, spare artic tires I guess... Hope you get well soon.

Anonymous said...

So, you too are feeling like a miniature pony these days as your child attempts to sit upon your back. I thought it was just my weird kid. Does he ever try to sit on your head as well? Mine does this all the time.

The spare tire...I have at least two spare tires that the little one also enjoys squeezing and pulling and giggling at. I don't squeeze and pull at his fat little legs...geez.

Funny post as usual.....

And watch the "whites" they are full of carbs.

-- Jonny's Mommy

Sparx said...

Hey DJ - no, really, you could roll a tractor on my spare tires! Jelly my butt (well it is, as a matter of fact...) I've SEEN pics of you on your blog you skinny thing!

Jonny's Mommy - I know I know, we don't poke fun at them, it's hardly fair that they point up all our deficiencies, hey?!

DJ Kirkby said...

Hmpf, you are lying and your nose is going to grow until it hits the computer screen! I saw those NYE pics of you, Frog and Spud, you couldn't possibly have sucked it all in for those pics?! If you did then you have nothing to complain about now get your butt to France and eat enough lush food to get healthy again! You have no idea how old those pictures are on my WHC blog, look closely, do you see any grey hairs on my head in them? Nooo? Thought not...If I ever get slim enough to fit in a camera lens again I will get Chops to take a pic of me now. Yipes...

Anonymous said...

Hey! Vast softness is just perfectly... *cough* Come to think of it, after my vast softness has been hiding under layers and layers of winter garb, I'm afraid it resembles all those pasty white veggies you describe. Must go visit cancerous tanning bed at gym after riding bike going nowhere.

Have a lovely trip! Very funny btw with the Frog and lack of recent tricks!

Grit said...

erm, in my so far limited experience, kids actually don't stop climbing all over you... sorry to mention that you may have years ahead of this. it actually gets more undignified as time goes on.

Shannon said...

Is there a school out there teaching all of our children to do uncomfortable things to us?!

I have to say you sound like a much better sport about the back climbing while cleaning. I don't like to clean so the added weight on my back just makes for a crabby mama.

As for the spare tire...I'm not sure mine qualifies as exactly that. Too many. What ever it is, it is beyond pale, sagging and far too often shown to others by my children. I am glad that I am not alone in startling my neighbors.

Have a great trip!

Ms Anonymous said...

I once heard a 5 year old ask my friend, a fellow teacher, "Miss are you growing a baby in your butt?". They're just missing a filter is all. It'll grow. Just like their teeth.

Rob Clack said...

Great post, as usual. Sorry to have been lax in keeping up. I did wonder what you were going to tell us the Spud had grabbed, but then realised I'd misread shirt as skirt. Should I admit that, d'you think?

Michelle said...

You are always so candidly funny! I can relate to your scenario. Hope that your travels are pleasant and that the Spud recovers from his cold soon.

Sparx said...

DJ - sadly tis true... you know, if you bend back far enough you can crop your front belly RIGHT OUT OF SHOT! erm...

Jennie... I don't believe you... but then it HAS been a long winter. I think we all deserve a trip to a tanning salon and a martini lunch afterwards, don't you?


Hi Grit and welcome you doom sayer you... although from memory I do seem to recall my poor father having to perform all sorts of dog and pony tricks, not to mention shoulder carrying and swinging and... oh bother.

Shannon - another Mummy pony I see! What is it with these kids? Where do they get this stuff? It's like some sort of international children's telepathy network...

Ms. Anonymous... that's... that's... well that was my cereal all over the computer anyway! Really f-ing funny.

Rob - that's ok, I'm lax as well at the moment in keeping up with my favourite blogs... and, erm... er... ahem... god your poor imagination, it must still be reeling...

R&Michelle - thanks hon! Life is a funny thing. Still not over the cold though...