Feeding the Family ~ Clare Hardess

I don’t know about you, but I sure can relate to some of these shenanigans in the kitchen! Clare has a great way of painting a true picture…and a very funny one! 😄

by Clare Hardess, The Catholic Family Australian Magazine

I often contemplate motherhood with all its ups and downs, and reckon that if I could dispense with one aspect of it, I’d choose the food part. To be more specific, I’d eliminate the evening meal. Well, maybe just sometimes.

The kids would ask, “What’s for dinner?”. I’d reply, “Oh, we had it last night, remember? We only have dinner on Tuesdays and Saturdays”. They’d say, “Okay, no probs”, and I’d continue with whatever I was doing.

But every mother knows that kids don’t learn that phrase till they’re responsible adults and have left home. The evening meal, for some reason, causes a certain amount of anxiety. By the end of the day, a mother is feeling a bit frazzled, and the babies are rostered to whine and cry between 4.00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

Tomorrow is already booked up with all the things you didn’t get done today, which may still include getting out of your dressing gown. Oh, wow, let’s live dangerously, perhaps you might even take a shower. This is the same time when the phone rings and your beloved husband says that he’s working late. This sort of news is on a par with earthquakes, flash floods, and for certain Catholics, the advent of the three days of darkness.

You respond calmly and sweetly, with dignity and modesty, just as the saints would have. Well, you wish you had. You just need more practice. You asked God for patience, and instead He gave you eight children. There’s a very Catholic lesson in there somewhere, but it’s not in demand like the evening meal is. If you ever make sainthood it’ll be in the category of “patron saint of late dinners and whiny babies.”

After recourse to prayer and a cup of coffee, things seem to get worse, but you know it’s just a little test of faith. The kettle has finally packed it in and the chances of refueling on a lovely cuppa are looking slim. Time to go shopping, late as it is. There are essential items in the house, and a kettle may not be the most important, but it’s right up there with oxygen.

Besides I was having trouble thinking of a birthday present for Peter. Maybe he’d like a really good quality kettle, like a top of the range, stainless steel urn. You know, the type that government departments have.

Just as we hoped, Daddy was surprised, to say the least. In fact, he could hardly wait to ask a lot of questions about it. Like how much was it, and how much it was going to cost to keep water on the boil all day long, and last year’s excess water rates. I reckoned it was a better solution than microwaving endless cups of coffee. He wasn’t so sure.

“How about you make a cozy for it?” he suggested. That was incomprehensible. I haven’t got time to sew for his children, and he wants me to make clothes for an urn.

Needless to say, Peter got used to his birthday present, and I acquired a cordless drill for mine, and different bits and pieces in between.

The need for material goods bothers a mother from time to time. Is it a necessity, or a worldly luxury? Sometimes it seems like a luxury to finally gain a necessity. Am I too materialistic? Too fond of my worldly goods?

If only the children could catch on to the idea of being attached to their worldly goods. But no, it would be easier to train a circus animal. A child has no idea of the value of shoes, hats, sweaters, or anything else it invariably sheds and walks away from. It’s not as if they haven’t been told. “Don’t forget your hat”. “Where are your shoes?” “Go get your jacket”. One day I’m going to check and see whether their ears are painted on.

It crosses my mind that if there is a religious vocation in the making, there’ll be no vow of poverty to take. Everything was either left somewhere or lost years ago.

Well, somehow, the evening meal ends up on the table, and a lot of hungry little souls are temporarily satisfied. There are also significant bits of the evening meal that end up on the floor, and by the time it’s all collected, you’ve seen the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Yep, about twelve basketsful leftover. The first part of the miracle is a pleasure.

The second part, the cleanup, is another test of faith, especially if you have carpet in the dining room. This would have to be one of the worst nightmares with which, occasionally, a mother finds she has to live. Food just seems to dive from the table to the floor, and if there’s going to be a spill, it will happen on the carpet, missing the tiles by inches. The plate will land upside down, as will the lid of the honey, the peanut butter sandwich, the Weetbix, and the pizza.

Others worry about their organic diet; your problem is the organic carpet. You’re afraid to eat sesame rolls, because the seeds that fall to the floor may very well sprout after the next glass of water goes over. Visions of lawn in the living room wake you at night, and it’s bard enough getting the backyard mowed without the inside as well.

Mind you, tiles in the dining room may also prove to be a nightmare. Everything breakable breaks, and if it’s sturdy enough not to break, the tile will crack instead. If the older children make a mess at the table, it’s nothing compared with what the baby in the highchair can do. Feeding my littlest is like a total body experience in a Heinz can.

At meal time, my baby does a taste test on the first mouthful to check whether it’s vegetables. (A friendship with these delicious portions has not yet developed). If it is, war is immediately declared on the offending meal and the spoonful is returned to me in a variety of ways.

Bibs are a waste of time on a child going into combat with vegetables. Much better for the mother to wear a raincoat, and stand the high chair in the shower recess. Some mothers play games like “aeroplanes” to encourage reluctant baby to eat, but I play dive-bombers. The spoon, loaded with pumpkin and gravy, can hit target mighty swiftly often scoring a hole in one… or preferably one in the hole.

Sometimes there’s a miss and if the spoonful doesn’t go up the baby’s nose, you can guarantee that it will end up in its ear. It’s amazing how a baby can do a 180° head spin when it sees a spoon about to land.

Or no how much care you take to aim the spoon correctly towards the mouth, the baby will manage to give it a left hook and send it shooting across the room. Don’t attempt to retrieve it. Just leave it there with the other half dozen spoons lying dead on the kitchen floor. You have to expect a few casualties.

Past experience will remind you never to leave the enemy alone with a bowl of veggies. He’d rather wear it than eat it, which usually means the bowl becomes a helmet. At this stage, the mother is ready to surrender, and there would be few of them who haven’t contemplated a fire hose cleanup. Thank God and the angels that “mush” stage eventually comes to an end, and the “I can do it myself” stage takes over.

Junior is now attempting to dive-bomb his own face, but most often without the spoon. The spoon is merely a tool for calling order in the court, and no High Court judge could bang it louder or better. Then again, sometimes, the spoon is more of a weapon which, unfortunately, catches him on the head from time to time.

Veggies are okay now, and pumpkin squeezes up nicely into fist balls. The peas are always left behind, and whatever didn’t quite make it to his mouth drops to the floor as he slides through the bottom of the highchair. He’s off to play, via the dish of whiskettes on the verandah. Sometimes you reckon you’ll sprinkle a few on his dinner just to help him finish it. If he was purring by his second birthday, you wouldn’t be surprised. Meantime, the cat is quite happy to finish off his leftovers.

A year or so later it’s all changed. He’s old enough and wise enough to join in the fights with the big brothers and sisters over what color plate he’s getting. Food doesn’t matter, so long as he gets the right plate. That is, the one that everyone else wants. All drinks go down better with a straw, and anything bought will be more popular than anything you went to the effort of making.

He’s joined the others at the big table and grazes on sandwiches, discarding the crusts after licking off the spread. There’s no safety in numbers with all the older ones just waiting to tell on him.

The older ones are starting to help themselves now, and you’re not sure whether this is a Godsend, or an occasion of sin. To make the simple peanut butter sandwich, the knife must hit the very bottom of the jar, and peanut butter must go right up the handle. Lunch isn’t over till there are at least four knives standing bolt upright in it. (Everyone takes a new knife in case someone did a lick clean job.) The bread packet also has to be sticky, and if possible, its label imprint melted onto the toaster.

The lids of the jam, honey, peanut, and Vegemite have all gone onto the wrong jar at some time, and a new, dynamic tasting spread has been developed there in your own kitchen.

The best one the kids can do though is the time-saver sandwich. Here, the knife is carried, twirling the honey from pantry to bench top. Saves getting the jar out, and develops fine motor skills.

It would be an impossibility to write about feeding a family without mentioning the graduation of the children from Mum’s home-cooked meals to take-aways. Fast-food is a very long, slow stage that children don’t seem to outgrow. Gone are the days when a baby’s first words are “mum” or “dad”. They’re likely to be “Kentucky” or “burger”. And what does the little fella want to be when he grows up? Ronald McDonald.

And where are the objections from the baby who won’t eat vegetables? He’s crying because the fries aren’t going in fast enough. It’s very hard for a mother to compete with the razzle-dazzle of the eat outs, but I tried. I bought soft white -rolls, home-brand burgers, plastic cheese slices, diced pickles and ketchup. I made the best cheese-burgers, and served them wrapped in waxed paper, straight from the oven.

I knew it was a success when the kids ate the burgers and left the pickles in a pile on the paper, just as always. The children thought it remarkable that I could turn out something as complicated as a Big Mac. The repercussions of the venture are also remarkable in that the littles have assimilated the Big Mac and the Big Smack. Every time they’re in trouble they think they’re going to McDonalds.

It doesn’t matter when you feed the children, they’ll always appear again as soon as you sit down to grab a bite for yourself.

The fridge is under constant surveillance. A child can’t walk past without the subconscious reflex action of opening the door. The boys, especially, just like to stand there.

“Would you like something to eat?”

“No, I’m just looking.”

“Well, if you’re going to be there much longer, put a jacket on. Take a photo if you want.”

We’ve already bought a commercial washing machine and oven. Maybe a supermarket fridge with glass doors will be next, or better still an industrial cold-room where they can actually climb inside.

Feeding the family is an ongoing chore for a mother. It involves thought, shopping, preparation, cooking, and cleaning up. And all of this when you’re already busy doing something else.

It’s amazing how you can whip up a nice meal in a few minutes flat with a bit of practice. It’s also predictable how a recipe you put hours into can go incredibly wrong. Like the time you overdid it with the chili, and even the cat failed to appreciate your effort. It may not have been good for digestion, but it scored a beauty for humility and perseverance when you have to start all over again.

And the time the pressure cooker hit the ceiling and it rained lamb Stew. This time pussy thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

All said and done, the evening meal is here to stay and hungry children are a fact of life. Just thank God that we can feed them and remember what a privilege it is to be able to say grace before and after meals.

Tonight, say a little prayer for all Catholic mothers in the kitchen, cooking the meals and washing up. Ave Maria

“One thing is certain: When the time has come, nothing which is man-made will subsist. One day, all human accomplishments will be reduced to a pile of ashes. But every single child to whom a woman has given birth will live forever, for he has been given an immortal soul made to God’s image and likeness.” – Alice von Hildebrand

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