When It's Not One Thing, It's the Other

Is there some law of nature that says when a child is doing one thing well, they have to do another thing badly?

Seriously, I want to know.

See, here’s the thing…I hesitate to even put this in writing because I know there is something out there just waiting for me to write this out so they can cackle with evil glee and flip a switch that will make things horrible again. But…here goes…Olivia has been sleeping well lately.

Yes, I said it. I wrote it. She has slept through the night, in her own bed, for the last three nights and it has been glorious. Then angels have been singing, the birds chirping and the sun shining brightly every single day that this has happened.

But, perhaps because of that wonderful sleep, her eating habits have gone to hell.

For reals. She’s horrible at breakfast, her lunch comes home half eaten and I have to tie her to her chair in the evenings and force-feed her the dinner I slave over.

Tom is at the end of his rope where breakfast is concerned. He’s just about had it with her. He keeps threatening to make me feed her breakfast, which, no. How is that punishment for her? It’s not, it’s punishment for me because it means I’d have to get up at least twenty minutes earlier so that I could fit everything in if I’m feeding her breakfast as well as showering, getting her dressed, doing her hair, packing her lunch, making sure her backpack is ready, blah blah blah.

No. I’m not doing that and he can’t make me. Even his taunting little comment about, “So you don’t want to feed your daughter?” isn’t going to work. I feed that child every single night. I pack her lunch every single day. I FEED my child. He can feed her too.

So yes, things are tough right now when it comes to Olivia and food.

Basically, she’s being a brat. As soon as we relent and let her be done with whatever meal she’s supposed to be eating, she’ll ask if she can have chocolate.

I know! Obnoxious much? Of course we don’t give her chocolate but that doesn’t motivate her to eat the toast we put in front of her at breakfast, or the grapes I packed for lunch or even the mashed potatoes swimming in butter and gravy for dinner.

I know this is partially due to her age. At eight, she wants more autonomy, she’s pushing the rules and trying to figure out what she can get away with. It’s driving us all crazy.

But hey, she’s sleeping great! If I’m being perfectly honest, I’ll admit that I’ll take the good sleep over the eating any day. Why? Because when she’s sleeping badly, it’s all on me. But the bad eating? That stress is spread out over both me and Tom. And I’m all about equality in a marriage.