Food, glorious food

IN the two and a half years since Harry arrived on the scene, without doubt the most consistently stressful aspect of life has been mealtimes.

There is pressure – from the minute babies are born – to make sure they are feeding properly. There’s the whole breast milk versus bottle milk debate and, as soon as that one is dealt with, you have the challenge of weaning.

It has to be said that we were pretty fortunate with Harry. He had a big appetite from the moment he arrived and that took away a fair amount of stress. The switch to solids was also relatively straightforward – you could puree up just about anything and Harry would devour it without complaint.

Since he turned two, however, things have changed. Don’t get me wrong, he still loves food and his big appetite remains but there are now some things that he refuses to put anywhere near his mouth.

Trying to be a responsible parent in these circumstances is challenging. Of course you want your child to grow up eating fruit and vegetables and nothing processed. The reality – at least in our case – is that that you have to compromise.

Harry loves certain fruits – particularly bananas, grapes, pears and apples. Try getting him to eat tomato or melon, however, and you’re likely to end up wearing it. On the vegetable front, he’s pretty good and will eat just about anything if he’s in a good mood, although his favourites are potato, sweetcorn, peas and, somewhat surprisingly, courgettes.

Typically, Harry also loves plenty of things he shouldn’t: crisps, biscuits and, just like his mum, chocolate and lots of it. He eats cheese at every opportunity and would probably have baked beans for every meal given half a chance.

Harry’s favourite meal, though, would probably be a roast with all the trimmings. In that sense at least, he takes after me.

England or Wales?

THERE’S always been a little bit of tension in our household about Harry’s nationality.

Harry was born in Wales and his mum is Welsh, and very proud of it. I, on the other hand, am English, and also proud of it. We’ve come to an agreement that Harry will decide where his loyalties lie when he’s older (and, more importantly, which football, rugby teams, and so on he will support).

At least he won’t have much of a choice when it comes to cricket – there is only one national side with Test status and that’s England.

Regardless of the nationality debate, because we live in Wales Harry will be taught Welsh at school and I agree completely with Melissa that this is a very good thing indeed. In fact, it’s already started now that he’s attending Chirk pre-school playgroup four days a week.

When I was putting Harry to bed the other night, as he was drifting off to sleep he started singing un, dau, tri (one, two, three) to himself. I was very impressed and immediately told Melissa about it. Of course, she knew already and told me that the same day he’d said bore da to the ladies greeting him at playgroup. I was even more impressed.

I asked him about this the following day and Harry proudly told me that he said bore da when he went to playgroup.

Melissa has already decided that I need to learn Welsh so that I will be able to help Harry with his homework. So the pressure’s on. I am actually looking forward to it, although I’m sure Harry will pick it up a lot more quickly than I will.

Funny phrases

Harry’s little phrases are a constant source of amusement. Honestly, at times it’s like listening to an old man. Shortly before I was due to leave work the other day, I got a call from home. It was Melissa. “Harry wants to speak to you,” she said.
There was some fumbling then Harry’s voice: “Don’t be home late daddy. I want you to mow the lawn.”
And there’s plenty more where that came from. One of his favourite questions when I arrive home is: “Any news? Any good news? Any bad news?”
If you ask Harry how he is, he invariably replies: “Not bad thank you.”
Perhaps his favourite question is: “What are you talking about?” This comes up all the time, particularly when Harry enters a room in the middle of conversation – he obviously doesn’t like to miss out.
If I’m ignoring him and he wants to get my undivided attention, Harry has a habit of climbing up onto my knee, taking hold of my face and saying: “Daddy, be quiet, Harry’s talking, it’s very important.”
Of course there’s also the ultimate question: why. We’ve had a lot of this lately. Whenever Harry sees something new, he wants to know why. If you ask him not to touch something, he wants to know why. This can be frustrating after a while – for both of us.
At other times, he simply copies things he’s heard one of us saying. The other day as he got up off the sofa, he put his hands on his legs and said: “Oh my knees” – a phrase he’s picked up from Melissa’s dad.
The best bit is when Harry unexpectedly announces “I love you daddy”. This is, however, rare and even then often follows the distribution of chocolate buttons. It’s still great though.

Something's wrong

FOR some reason, I had an inkling that something was wrong before I opened the door. When I did so, my suspicions were confirmed by the look of resignation on Melissa’s face and by the extremely unpleasant smell coming from the kitchen.

A shelf had collapsed in one of our kitchen cupboards and the only item to smash, unfortunately, was a bottle of fish sauce – a potent concoction made of fermented fish and used in Thai dishes.

I immediately asked where Harry was (he was nowhere to be seen), and Melissa told me he was on his potty in the living room. Fortunately, he was out of the way when the shelf fell down, although he was quite excited by the noise and had been quite keen to help Melissa clean up.

Things, however, were about to take a turn for the worse. I walked in to the living room to find Harry stood up pointing at the carpet shouting: “Poo on floor daddy.”

For some reason, Harry had decided to empty out the contents of his potty, and it wasn’t pleasant. When I asked Harry why, he tucked his chin into his chest and said: “Don’t know daddy, sorry.”

Melissa was at a loss to explain Harry’s behaviour. Apparently he’d been really good all day and wasn’t even particularly tired (the most common excuse for naughty behaviour).

Anyway, the combination of fish sauce and the potty incident prompted a frenzied spell of cleaning from Melissa, while I got the less challenging task of putting Harry to bed.

When I returned downstairs, everything was back to normal – apart from a strong smell of bleach. I don’t think we’ll be having Thai curry for a while though.

Wake up call

Harry is nothing if not inventive – and he is particularly creative when it comes to waking me up in a morning.

The other morning, I heard Harry padding into our bedroom but before I could open my eyes, he’d jumped on to my pillow, grabbed my face and told me it was time to wake up and clean the cars.

This was, it has to be said, a bit much first thing in the morning but at least it wasn’t the most painful wake-up call I’ve had.

That award goes to the day when Harry decided to carry the Argos catalogue into our bedroom. It’s a pretty hefty publication but on this occasion he managed to get it into our bedroom and somehow hoist it up onto the bed before finding the strength to drop it on my head.

It was a bit of a shock. “Sorry daddy,” he said as I rubbed me head furiously. “It’s a bit heavy for Harry.”

Unfortunately, the Argos catalogue is currently Harry’s favourite book – even overtaking the Three Billy Goats Gruff – and he will sit for ages, flicking through the pages saying he “needs” this or that. He even takes the book to his bedroom at night to keep it safe.

When I ask him who’s going to bring him all of these things he needs, his reply is always the same: “Santa.”

I’ve tried to explain that Christmas is still a long way off but Harry is undeterred. At this rate, the book might have to go missing soon – otherwise, it’s going to seem like a very long time until Santa squeezes down our chimney.

Fashion advice

I THINK it’s fair to say that everybody finds parents embarrassing from time to time.

It’s particularly bad, if I recall correctly, from the age of about 12 to 16. At this stage of your life, pretty much everything your parents do makes you want the ground to open and swallow you up.

I am reconciled to this eventuality; Harry, I am sure, will be utterly embarrassed by me in future. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was Harry dishing out fashion advice to me just yet.

I was therefore a bit shocked when Harry told me that he didn’t like my tie shortly before I left the house to go to work the other morning. “It’s pink daddy,” he announced. “Pink is for girls.”

Suitably chastised, I changed my tie. “That’s better daddy,” was Harry’s conclusion. Anyway, he’s now taking matters into his own hands and choosing clothes for me to wear. Generally, anything stripy is good (“Harry likes stripes too, daddy”) and anything else, well, causes friction.

The side effect of all this fashion advice is a very messy bedroom floor – Harry likes to take every item of clothing out of the wardrobe when deciding whether or notI should wear it.

Some days, though, I get it right. “I like your shirt daddy,” he said yesterday morning. He even told me morning that he wanted a shirt, suit and tie like mine. “And a case to put my dinner in,” he added.

At least it’s not just me in the firing line. When Harry stayed at my parents’ house a couple of weeks ago, he made my mum change her top because he didn’t like the colour.

As Harry is fond of saying, “I am a bossy boots.” He’s spot on with that even if his fashion advice is a little bit suspect.