Mother's Day again

So it's rolled around again.....the day of flowers, chocolates and no housework. In Kieron's world it means daffodils clutched in a sweaty hand brought home from school or occasionally a potted primrose. A present bought at school for a pound that's usually borrowed from Jade and a box of chocolates bought with pocket money and again any shortfall made up by Jade.

My chocolates....Kieron eats half of them. A few years ago, a friend and I went on a spa day. To be totally honest, after a few hours I got fidgety. I'm not used to sitting around and doing nothing but wander from one treatment to the next. But the spa idea caught on with Kieron and he often offers to give me a spa. Translated, this means a foot rub as when he asked me what I did at the spa, I had to explain what a pedicure was. Whether I'm sitting on the settee or sunbathing in the garden, I'm generally guaranteed a foot rub.

Kieron is very tactile. Every day involves loads of cuddles and frequent touches when we pass each other. Kieron likes to make physical contact and some of our most precious moments are on non-school days, when a knock on the wall connecting our bedrooms tells him I'm awake and he runs in for a cuddle. Often, Kieron dozes off again, leaving me with a squashed left arm around his shoulders and little boy legs thrown over me.

So, as last year, I knocked on the wall and waited. And waited. And cried.

Eating Out

Last night I took Jade and Callum to our local carvery as I just didn't feel like cooking. Taking the kids out for a meal was something I used to do quite often as it gave me a break and also gave all of us quality time together.

For Kieron, eating out means a couple of things: yummy desserts and the chance to dodge anything green. Food in Kieron's world is best if it's white.....pasta, pancakes, rice,  mashed potatoes, chicken, noodles, bread. Some other colour foods are ok.....eggs, bacon, lime marmalade, Korma. Jade and Callum have always been good with food and prepared to try anything new. Kieron looks fearfully at anything strange and dry heaves before it even reaches his mouth, grimacing as he puts it in his mouth before hurriedly coughing it back out again. I soon learnt to grate carrot into cottage pies and Bolognese, make orange mashed potatoes with the cunning secret ingredient of swede and any number of sly ways to up Kierons vegetable intake.

Junk food is a totally different story. For some reason, any colour goes if its full of sugar, salt, fats and other equally unhealthy ingredients.  Fruit is ok, as long as it isn't red and soft. Kieron can happily munch satsumas and bananas until I tell him to stop.

Kieron's favourite place is Cosmo. An 'all you can eat' Chinese restaurant with a non-stop supply of rice and profiteroles. Kieron always gets a plateful of rice, noodles and chicken dippers (they cater for fussy kids too), follows it up with a dish of profiteroles dipped under the chocolate fountain and then decides that actually, he wants rice and noodles again, before going back to the profiteroles.

Kieron's last 2 birthdays were spent at Cosmo, with his best friend Lewis competing to see how many profiteroles they could eat, while I waited anxiously for one or both to start being sick.

 
So last night, with an empty chair opposite me, we ate out. I won't be in a hurry to repeat it.