Let me Rock you

I am making Rock Cakes tonight, they are helping me to calm down from a big fight with the kid. We don't fight much, Gabe and I, we are generally in tune with each other. But not tonight. we were so out of tune that the band leader would have thrown his baton to the floor and stomped from the room. Or I would have, Or I did. Whatever.

Solid and dependable, strong like man muscle.

I want an alcoholic beverage and I want it now. I can't drink though because I am meant to be writing. Ah... yes now you understand why two blog posts in the same day. Avoiding. I am in the process of avoiding. Anyway, it's all temporary - I have to write and because I have to write I can't drink. I can't drink because I am a hopeless drinker. One drink and I'm blearily slow dancing to a song off the Jukebox and then laughing and crying and laughing again. I am basically a Joni Mitchell song when I drink. Spell checker tried to convince me that I wanted juicebox then, not jukebox. You can go to your room too spell checker if you're going to take that tone.

So Gabe didn't want to eat his dinner. That old chestnut. And if all I was feeding him was an old chestnut then I think that he would have grounds for complaint. But I fed him bangers and mash and peas and corn. These are all well within the acceptable realms of edibility. He ate the sausages. Then he lolled, and complained and squashed peas on his plate and took tiny scrapings of potato, like an archeologist at a dig, and ate them painstakingly. The TV was on, I may as well admit that now. I don't so it all the time, but he loves to eat dinner in front of the TV and so I do that - for a treat.

He stared at the TV the same way a woman who is sick of her child stares at gin. Longingly, entranced. I warned him:

-you need to keep eating Mr. or I'm turning the TV off
-I don't know what to eat next...
-All of it
-Aww of it?! But I don't love peas... I only love corn and potato.
-Eat them first then.

Sigh. Groan. Loll. Slump. Eyeroll.

I pause the TV. That gets things moving slightly faster. I turn it back on and he stops. I turn it off. Completely.

Gabriel starts up his patented Howl of Protest. I yell. Very loudly. The neighbours can probably hear me. He bawls, he screams, he hides under furniture. He tells me he wants Daddy.

Who can see the angry child

The TV remains steadfastly off. We are both STILL looking at his untouched plate of vegetables though. He has the gall to ask for something else and I immolate him with my eyeballs. He then goes to bed like a lamb. I read him a story and turn his light out. Asleep at 6.45pm. Wish I was too.

Instead I need to make soothing rock cakes to work out my ire over the food argument. Normally I don't enter into food discussions with children as it is a thankless, Sisyphean task. However eventually, at some point, you gotta push back.

Mix 200 grams of SR flour with half a teaspoon of cinnamon. Rub in 90grams of butter and then one third of a cup of sugar.

fuzzy and unclear. Ingredients.

Ignore your child's lunch box on the counter - a sight that usually makes you think of your adorable pipsqueak with affection and love.

lunch box of the Devil Child.

Mix in one cup of sultanas and about half a cup of mixed dried fruit or peel. I cut up some apricots and pineapple. I don't like mixed peel or even dried mixed fruit (the kind that comes in a box) - they are revolting on a normal occasion - at the moment they are unspeakable.

Hello fluffy mixture - you look sweet!

Beat one egg. Beat the hell out of it - beat it till it can barely talk - beat it until you are sweaty and quivering with rage. Then add half a cup of milk to that and stir it through the dry mix.

Malleable and sticky. Easy to work with. Well behaved.

Drop Tablespoon full balls onto a lined tray and cook them at 200cel for 15 mins. I usually just wait until they are brown and can be moved around. They don't spread too much - tend to keep to themselves - they're loners.

Don't stand so close to me.

And now I'm just tired. It's times like these folks that I realise that I just can't do it all, every day. Some days I have to accept that things are going to be hard, or shit and that I am not going to be a model of patience.

It's still the same day, except now there are rock cakes.

Also I'm Hanging Out here - Writeme