Little Girl has been given a lot of different nicknames in our house since she appeared on the scene, not least her official foetus name ‘Otto’, but it should not surprise anyone to know that she is now frequently called by her animal name, what with living with father obsessed with giving animal names to everyone around him. She started off as Babybear but it has since involved into all sorts: Bearchops, Bearkins, Little Bear, you name it, she’s probably been called it.
This might help to explain why there is such a thing as a Bear Tax in our house. It’s a food tax and it is a steep one. She gets to apply it at the drop of a hat whenever the envy takes her and let me tell you, the envy takes her often and she ain’t kidding about it. Badgerman and I have calculated that at the moment we have to pay a 25% Bear Tax on all food items.
At times it feels like all I need to do is think about the food I’m going to eat and she magically appears next to me and makes the sign for it – or says ‘concot’, which has gone from just meaning ‘fruit compote’ to ‘me want food NOW!’. She can hear the sound of packaging being open from the other side of the house and comes running to share in the pleasure I’m about to experience. We have dinner together in the evenings as a family and she eats the same thing as us but always stops her own dinner halfway through to get her hands on the stuff she likes from both our plates before going back to her own. When I was still in the early days of pregnancy and had a huge craving for crisps, I eventually had to wait until she was sleeping to stop her from standing in front of me screaming until I’d given her some. Thankfully, she’s just the same with healthy food, so all is not lost.
I’m so glad she loves her food and is easy to please but I would quite like to be able to eat my cereals in peace in the morning and not have to see this small hand sinking into my milk and rice krispies just as I’m about to lift the spoon to my lips, especially when the little miss has already had a satsuma and a whole bowl of porridge.
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