Expectation: It's lunchtime and you are just wrapping up some morning errands. On the way home, you buy a nice kids meal, lovingly and thoughtfully tailored to your child’s specific tastes and desires. Your child is grateful and excited and eagerly eats the meal with gusto. They thank you for it. You talk and laugh at the dinner table like normal human beings.
 |
| Forever the Meal of Choice. |
Reality: It's lunchtime and you are just wrapping up some morning errands. On the way home, you buy a nice kids meal, lovingly and thoughtfully tailored to your child’s specific tastes and desires. Your child complains that you didn’t get the right drink and that they are worried that the meal will be too spicy (even though this is what they get every time). They complain that they are starving the whole way home (a 10 min drive at most). When you actually get home, you hurriedly bring the child and the food inside, because you are worried that they might actually be starving (when did I feed them last?).
You open the box, take out the items, open the dipping sauce, open the drink and position the straw just right. Your child complains that the food is too large and needs to be cut smaller. You oblige. Meanwhile, your child complains that they only want ⅓ of the items in their meal and definitely does not want the biscuit and insists that you get it off of their plate immediately. You remove the biscuit. Your child consumes the drink without stopping to breathe - and still has not taken one bite of their food.
You ask the child to please eat something. The child pretends not to hear you and needs their back scratched. They need to know why their box has a chicken on it and your box does not. The child then needs to go to the bathroom but cannot go with their shirt on because it has an attached tutu and needs it removed immediately. You remove the shirt; they go to the bathroom. You take a bite of your food. The child screams at you from the bathroom that they pooped and need you to wipe their fanny. You go and assist. You help them wash their hands. You wash your hands. You put the child’s shirt with the tutu back on. They sit down and spill sauce all over themselves and the table. After you finish cleaning up the sauce, they need more sauce. You open another sauce (thankfully the drive-thru lady put extra in there). The child eats one bite of food. They are full now. Child requests dessert. You realize that you just spent actual cash on this lunch. It is gone now along with all of your joy.
-Jessie
#truth
ReplyDelete