If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. It's probably a chicken.

It tastes just like chicken… 

Let me start by saying I didn't always have a picky eater. I couldn't shovel enough food into her. It started with Cheerios, and we quickly moved onto fruits, veggies and meats. You name it, she ate it.
From when she was a baby I whacked anything I could find (baby safe obviously) into the baby food processor and made delicious, gooey baby food. She even eats canned asparagus today (even though you could pay me to and I won’t).

V is a simple kid with food. It doesn’t take much to make her happy. Her favourite meals are chicken, pumpkin, pizza and any vegetable really. Or at least she was a simple kid.

My kid had a heart attack three week ago when she realized that chicken is/was a real live chicken.

She went full tilt, yo…

About three weeks ago, we were having dinner…chicken, pumpkin and roast potatoes.

The conversation is below…

V: Mommy, what is chicken?

Me: What do you mean what is chicken?

V: nothing. Whatever.

Me: *stop being a cheeky shit

Me: No V, tell me what you mean…

V: I MEAN, what is CHICKENNNNN?

Me: *think to myself ‘rude’…

Me: Chicken is chicken V. Why are you asking?

V: What do you mean? Do you mean “cluck cluck” chicken.

Me: Yes.

V: *screams WHAT?

Me: Jeez V, what is the problem?

V: Do you mean the chicken I’m eating is like a Mommy chicken?

Me: Well yes. I guess it could be a Daddy chicken as well.

V: *screams again A DADDY CHICKEN?

Me: Oh my god V, why are you screaming? It could be a Granny or Grandpa chicken too. What is wrong with you?

V: *starts crying. I can’t believe you let me eat cluck clucks. They are so cute and I ate them. And off she got up and walked away…

Me: I sat there for a minute wondering what the fuck just happened when it dawned on me. Cluck cluck. oooohh shit. That’s what she means.

Then I made her scrambled eggs for breakfast about a week after that. She had not mentioned the cluck cluck incident again and I hadn’t made chicken since then. She was eyeing out the eggs in the Tupperware. She picked one up and looked at it with careful consideration; she asked me if these were the same eggs chickens lay. 

I said yes without thinking... (fuck!!!)

She suddenly dropped it on the kitchen counter. It cracked and out oozed the yolk. 

I looked at her and before I could say anything she screamed “BABY CHICKS. I WON’T EAT A BABY CHICK” and ran off crying.

If you tell this kid we are having chicken for dinner, you will get this response, "You cannot make me eat birds!"…

She will not eat steak, because she knows it's a cow, I'm not sure who told her, but it wasn't me. And if I knew who told her I would literally open a can of whoop ass. Do you have any idea how much harder you have made my life? I now have to justify every move I make in the kitchen.

I am praying she doesn’t figure out that haddock is fish. If anyone tells her it’s you and me.

You and me son…

Mama bear. Out.

Bad Mom...

Story Number 3… My Mommy says you can’t play with me.

Just the other day I spent about 3-4 hours cleaning up after three kids a little older than her that came over to play. I cleaned up mud. Swept up sand. I washed dirty hand prints off the walls. I even had to wipe boogers off the walls (whattheactualfuck).

These kids are rowdy, noisy and messy AF. They have broken most of her toys, and have walked off with some of them. It’s not pleasant. I’m pretty sure these kids have parents but I don’t know if the parents know they have kids. They would come over about 2 – 3 times a day for about an hour each time and the four kids together eat me out of house and home. They started coming over at 7:30am on a Saturday and that’s when it got a bit much so eventually I spoke to them nicely and told them they needed to spend more times with their Mommy’s and Daddy’s and less time at me.

V asked me why I did this. I was honest with her about it, I usually am and that’s probably a stupid thing because kids remember more than you think. I told her they’re too messy, that they bring sand into the house (they literally bring sand into the house by the handfuls) and that they break everything. I told her they can do that at their own house – not mine. She said “oh okay” and we carried on and had a great weekend.

Fast-forward to four days ago.

I got home and was in the parking lot of the complex getting bags out the car. Three kids walked up to myself and V with an adult. The kids all said hello to V by name. The adult said hello to her. I had never seen the adult before so I asked who she was. She told me her name was Sylvia and was their Mom.

The kids asked if they could come over and play and in my head I was like “no, no, nooooooo”…

Before I could answer my little asshole did.

“My Mommy said you can’t play at us because you guys are dirty and break things. She said you must do that at your house”.

I…can’t believe she JUST said that. Whyyyyyyyyyyy?!

My only natural response to that was “I never said that V’. And V looked at me like I was the biggest moron in the world and said “Yes, you did. You said it the other day when they put mud on the wall”. Her and her fucking treacherous memory.

For about 30 seconds Sylvia and I had a stare down. Things got tense. I think I saw a tumbleweed in the distance behind her. She easily could have taken me, her and her three kids would have given me a serious beat down. Instead she gave me a filthy look, and turned around and stormed off. I breathed a sigh of relief. Holy shit. That was close. 

They haven’t been back, I have managed to fix some of her toys and I no longer have to clean mud off the walls. What she said was not really that bad. It was the truth. 

And besides, I have more time with her now and her boogers are the only one’s I don’t mind cleaning.

Good little a-hole. Mommy loves you.

Orange is not my colour...

So I mentioned that V has become a bit of a story teller since she turned 5. This was one of her epic asshole stories that almost got me arrested. 

Story Number 2... Mommy is a thief.

One day I took V with me to go grocery shopping. I don't know why I do this to myself. I know all too well that grocery shopping with V is comparable to a lobotomy. Anyway, back to said grocery day. V for all of her little fibbing ways is actually a weird little human (I love her). Whenever we go out she insists on taking one small toy with her, she will not leave the house without the toy. But you can get stuffed if you ask her to bring said toy out of the car and back into the house - noooo...the backseat of the car looks like a mini toys'R'us on a good day.

Off we venture off into the store and I looked down to see she was holding her Chase figurine from Paw Patrol and it's not like this was a small toy. It was easily the size of both of my palms. I told her to give it to me and I put it in my bag. She asked me why I did that and I told her I didn't want the staff getting confused and thinking we've stolen Chase. She nodded her head but didn't say anything else...

We got all of our groceries - she was even pretty well-behaved wanting to help me out and so I rewarded her with a few packets of stickers for her collection. We got to the cashier, and I paid (shit is ridiculously expensive and I don't understand how people are expected to survive. I mean R16.95 for a loaf of bread???) 

Anyway...we paid. The packets were packed and as we got close to the exit V starts chanting loudly "mommy stole Chase, mommy stole Chase". The security guard looked at her - then me. And V said "Mommy stole Chase, it's in her bag". Fucker.

They asked to look in my bag - I was furious, I told them they were mad. Why would I steal Chase. And then logically I realised I was looking guilty at this point because there WAS a Chase toy in my bag. I spent about ten minutes convincing them that I had not stolen it. They eventually let us leave. After they checked the CCTV footage. 

I never said a word to V. I just walked to the car in silence while she asked quietly if I was angry with her. I told her that I was. Very angry. Because it wasn't funny to fib like that. 

And she looked at me and was a little teary eyed and said "I'm sorry Mommy, I won't do that again. Do you forgive me?" And I did. Because I always do. She's my child. We were in the car and she was staring at me. I asked her what was up. She laughed a bit and said "your face was so scared Mommy"

Asshole. 

Side note: So even though what she said wasn't cool - she is still only a child. My point is we need to be careful what we tell our kids, and how we tell them - if we want to teach them a lesson about life, right and wrong there is a right and wrong way to do this. I think maybe I have been doing it wrong, so I was the asshole here. Not her.