Richard Hearn sees the cracks forming
We’re at the dinner table and The Boy says two words, “animal biscuits”. Somewhere in my brain – how can I describe it – there’s a ripple, no, too gentle, a spider’s web crack of the glass like when a stone hits your windscreen. Let’s think of those two words as the piece of stone that causes the original chip in the windscreen of parenthood, with various cracks spreading outwards as the resulting topics. Let’s follow the paths these cracks take before returning each time to the chip in the centre.
The first crack that we follow is labelled ‘food negotiation’. There are rules on what food gets mentioned and when. This is a precise order, so that sweets and puddings are kept in reserve, never promised too early, but carefully timed to be the pacesetter on the final curve and finish line of a main course.
The coded way is to spell the first few letters, avoiding Youngest™’s understanding. But The Boy has
said it and the cat (and dog, and lion, and parrot) are out of the bag.
Let’s return to the centre and follow the second crack ‘animals’. Youngest™ has heard what The Boy has said and is now making signs. Fingers up as ears for a rabbit, the indication of whiskers for a cat. It’s a one-child re-staging of Dr Doolittle.
These biscuits are of course shaped like animals, not made from or for animals, in case you thought I was feeding my kids dog treats.
“The sheep is headless, the giraffe is legless”
Back to the central chip, and this time the crack we’ll follow is ‘sharing’. Somehow, there’s got be a way of dividing up any treat without WWIII breaking out. I set a limit of two each – parenthood is full of arbitrary limits; two biscuits; five more minutes in the park; ten more minutes before bedtime – and then I read the choices left in the box “sheep, parrot, tiger” etc. It’s what I imagine picking football teams on the Ark would have been like.
Back to the original chip and our final crack splintering off shall be known as ‘disappointment’. Animal biscuits are the promise, and now, as we reach the end of the box, the choices are lessening. In parenthood, a promise made and not kept – in all its specific detail – is a dangerous thing indeed. Although there is a sheep and a giraffe left to dish out, the sheep has no head and the giraffe is legless. They’re going to take this badly, no matter how much I explain. There’s no such thing as biscuit voodoo. Wish me luck!
