after the pool party

Having survived a pool party this afternoon with my non-swimming children, we arrived home tired and (I thought) full of pizza and cake. Freya was asleep, I stripped Matilda and hustled her into a warm bath. Steve was preparing a lovely dinner in the kitchen, and it was looking like an early night.

I should have known better. As Matilda is getting out of her bath and dinner is just about ready, Freya starts crying from upstairs, something about being starving I think. So down she comes and eventually we settle around the table to eat fish and broccoli and sweet potatoes.

Usually Freya is a non-eater. She just doesn't seem to believe in eating anything unless it is absolutely necessary (or made primarily of sugar), and usually it is not.

"Mmm, Daddy, how did you make this fish so yum?" she says, shoving fork fulls in her mouth and brandishing her knife like a miniature rapier.

"It's called Tilapia, do you like it?"

"Yes, it is yum. Whenever I say 'Talipa' you have to bring it to me on a plate. That's the new rule."

Having made her decree, she settled back into eating, and talk turned to Steve's recent resolution to stop eating meat.

"I think it's just because you're tired of spaghetti and meatballs," I say and I'm still pretty sure it's the truth, although I can't really blame him, spaghetti and meatballs is a food that I will never get tired of, and our weekly dinner menu for the past seven years proves it.

"I like meatballs," he says, "I'm just tired of pasta."

"Blasphemer!" I say, much, much too loudly.

Freya points her finger at me and says, "Don't ever say that at the table again."

And so I wont. One of the important things about mothering an evil child is learning how to pick your battles. This one is easy - I can always whisper "blasphemer" quietly to myself on the inside.