Thursday, February 19, 2009

Never Deny The Cake

If there were ever any doubt about the provenance of my son, there would be no requirement for a DNA test. Apart from the fact that he looks EXACTLY like his father except that he is 2, blond and cannot (as yet) curl his eyebrows; he is addicted to cake.

Let me put this into perspective for you. The frog, for all his civilisation and niceties is only French by birth. And accent. And family. And... oh for godsakes. Anyway, he's not what you would call 'into' food, he just wants it to arrive quickly. Yes yes, I realise there may be thousands, indeed millions of French people who don't particularly care for food, although I have to say I've only met the one. He would have lived out of boxes and packets forever if I hadn't coaxed him into accepting home-cooked meals and I did this by introducing home-baked cakes to our lives. And, since they are so ridiculously easy to make, cakes started appearing on a fairly regular basis.

I did, on becoming pregnant, decide blindly that my child would have no processed sugar for at least a year and we did fairly well until around 18 months old he went through a difficult period of teething which his father, under the excuse that "It's the French Way", alleviated via the medium of cakes, biscuits and chocolate milk. 'Bissik' is in fact one of the spud's earlier words with 'cake' added at his second birthday. Since then, he's been an unstoppable cake-a-holic like his Father and the only way I've been able to limit his access to the stuff is to not bake any; however since this equates to 'I don't love you anymore' in frogland, this has been a little fraught.

Last weekend being Valentines, I did attempt an ironic nod by buying some heart-shaped cookie cutters. However, the spud had a particularly large poo just at the critical point and the resulting biscuits were comedy black hearts by the time I actually got them out of the oven. This clearly meant stronger measures and so... I baked a cake. A big one. With icing. And chocolate hearts. And EVERYthing.

My dear sweet darling frog then decided, one morning while Charlie was resisting his shreddies, that a piece of cake would be better than nothing and so there was my 2 year old son, sitting on the sofa eating cream cake at 9 in the morning. God almighty, just call Jamie Oliver and have me shot.

Since then it's been bad. Very bad. Until the cake was gone, the spud was trying every ruse in his little book to get up to the counter and at the thing. He begged, he pleaded, he pretended to be interested in the kettle, he lay on the floor squirming and screaming 'Caaaaake!!! Caaaaaaaake!!!; he batted his eyelashes and demanded hugs and kisses and then added 'and cake please Mummy?' in a hopeful little squeaky voice.

I picked him up at nursery and as his key-worker trawled through his day she said 'and he and his friend played in the kitchen and pretended to make a cake' and when I asked him (as usual) what he did in nursery, rather than ignoring me and pointing at a bus he said 'Cake!' and didn't stop saying it until bedtime.

Perhaps this is why he's been ignoring me for the past few days: I have Denied The Cake.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

A friend's son, on seeing a freshly made cake from Granny, launched angelically into "Happy Birthday to you!"

He's learnt that when he sings that song, in the presence of a cake, a large slice inevitably follows.

Can't fault his logic!

Michelle said...

I can imagine the scene perfectly because you write it so well! I am only left to wonder what kind of cake it is that you make, one so delectable to the Spud and the Frog? Do you bake it from scratch? Is it a box type cake, like what I buy here? Whatever it is, it must be delicious! As the saying goes, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." Seems you've also found the way to the Spud's heart, too!

Anonymous said...

Cake Denier!!! Why don't you just slap him in the face and make the abuse official? ;-)

I love it when you divulge the nitty gritty. Eyelash curling? For reals?

Fyi, had the funniest dream, and you were in it. And the spud - who flooded the upstairs bath. Very ominous...

Lisa @ Boondock Ramblings said...

You won't even give the kid cake? Ah, now, come on.

Truth be told, I try to limit the cake too, but Jonathan has eaten nothing in two days due to -- something or other that has invaded his little body -- and if he'd eat cake I would be ecstatic!

Here's to hopping your Spud lets up on the cake begging soon!

(It's your fault for being a good cook, I'm sure. :-)

Helen + ilana = Hi said...

Baking cakes and easy .... words I cannot put in the same sentence since my cakes come out all pudding or toast..... in our house we have these rules for breakfast foods:

1. Cheese cake is full of cheese therefore it is one of your 3 daily servings of protein

2. Pie is full of fruit; one of 7 servings our government insists we consume per day

3. Muffins (ie little cakes) are full of grains (flour and possibly even bran); yer asposed to have 3 of them too.

4. Cookies are cute.... so they count.

These rules were settled on when our first 2 year old decided to live on air.............

Now they are rules and you can't change rules.....

Right?

eery my WV is maked as in Has you maked cake today?

Sparx said...

Mud - yes, the spud always calls cake or candles 'Hap-bur-day' in hopes of getting a slice! He's not singing yet but just give him time! Clever, that.

Michelle - from scratch. I have this brilliant recipe - '4 Quarters' cake. 4 ingredients, eggs, sugar, flour, butter. Weigh the eggs and put the same weight of each other ingredient - simple! 4 eggs makes a normal sized cake and you can subvert it by adding any other ingredients you like. If they're wet, like marmalade or fruit, add a little extra flour and some baking powder... if they're dry like chocolate powder, add a little milk and bingo. Works every time!

Jennie - Yes, the eyebrows are that long... I'm dying now to hear more about your dream! I love that the spud flooded the bath, it's SOOO likely to happen! It's because he looks so much like Dante I bet!

Jonny's Mommy - well I try not to give it to him but you know exactly how hard it is to resist a toddler when they're being super cute...

Helen: I can has burday cake? Actually I'm not that clear on what you mean by that last bit!

Anonymous said...

Oh - eyeBROWS. Makes even more...sense. Can they not be trimmed? Oh, I should probably butt out of the cosmetic habits of grumpy frogs in England...

Well, the dream. Lets just say that you have bloody big houses in South London. Posh bastards.

Been dreaming a lot about blogging buddies lately. A sign. Must be.

Ps - word verification? Thafeck