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| Brothers in harmony! |
Cue drums, trumpets and fireworks. I’m going to introduce the child food reprocessing system to knock your socks off.
It’s called DAFTS the Dinnertime Automatic Food Transfer System. Actually it’s the brain-child of my marvellous sister and she’s a health care professional, therefore, knows stuff.
Let me explain the idea behind DAFTS.
Parents seem to fall into two categories, those with small children who routinely turn their little noses up at whatever it is you’ve lovingly created for them to eat and those with bigger children who seem impossible to satisfy.
The first lot may spend hours with a pancake batter-splattered copy of something by Annabel Karmel. They may even have created a meal in the shape of a domestic pet or mode of transport in the hope of charming/fooling their small child into scoffing the lot. It will have failed, there may even have been tears of frustration and mutterings about ingratitude.
The second lot joined their new category almost overnight. Their children have suddenly gone from being content with a curiously named ‘happy meal’ or a few fish fingers and some potato wedges (AK’s tome having gone to the school book sale years ago) to needing huge quantities of nourishment. They will clear their plates so fast you think they may be hiding the food. Then they ask for more, gazing longingly at your portion. Going out for meals requires a budget re-think as there are now adult-sized appetites to meet.
I’m extraordinarily lucky to have sons in both categories. Theoretically my feeding should be efficient. Any of his supper that Boy Three doesn’t fancy can be scooped off the floor/chair/table/shirt and served up to Boys One and Two. Hay Presto no wastage.
Um. It doesn’t work like that though. Firstly One and Two don’t want to wait until their little brother has finished the long and energetic process that can loosely be called having supper. (Not much of it will be recognisable as eating actually supper though.)
And as he is using mealtimes to explore texture and sensation with his food, what’s left may not be the most appetising.
This is where DAFTS comes in. It collects all the food Boy One and his peers have scattered, flung or otherwise rejected and processes them into something the likes of Boy One will devour… probably pizza or possibly popcorn or cheese toasties. Brilliant.
If you weren’t as clever with your family planning as me, don’t worry. With your purchase of a DAFTS food reprocessor comes membership of a brat-match scheme. Toddler parents are linked with conveniently placed brink-of teens and handover meetings arranged.
All you need to do is cough up and a brand new DAFTS will wing its way to you just as soon as I invent one. You won’t regret it.