Peas

I like a little boy who likes his food.
This week, he's been eating well. On Wednesday he had a nice nourishing lunch of home made risotto followed by fromage frais and a little bit of home made cake. As he was finishing the latter (open mouth wide, cake on palm of hand, slap it in there) I popped upstairs to do a few important things like tidy up and change the sheet on his cot which was getting a few dribble stains on it.
I arrived back downstairs to find a very sated little boy, belly pushed out and generally leaning back in the chair like one very exhausted. He even seemed to be breathing quite heavily and I was really rather temped to offer him a "waffer theen mint", but decided not to as I didn't want to risk an explosive side effect.
Today we had a garden centre lunch and Joseph had "chicken boulders and chips" which to you and I would be nuggets, but I guess to a small child they must look more like boulders. He began by picking up the peas one at a time in his usual fashion and when the food had cooled to a more palatable temperature for him he began to make good progress with the chips. For the boulders he needed a little help as he just couldn't seem to get the idea of picking them up and biting off a small piece. They wouldn't go in whole and it upset him. Still, he ate nearly all of it in the end which impressed me as he's often not so keen on chicken breast meat.
It would seem that little old ladies like a boy who likes his food too. My son is already turning into something of a flirt, he's got sweethearts of all ages. The old ladies love him and we were interrupted in our meal twice by comments about how good he was and how handsome he was. I know how handsome my son is and I'm very proud but here's the odd thing: - when the old ladies comment they hardly ever talk to me! More often than not they just address Joseph as if I'm not even there (ooh, you are a good boy aren't you, yes you are!) and I'm left sitting there with a piece of chicken boulder on a fork wondering whether I'm meant to join in the conversation or not.
Towards the end of the meal Joseph started throwing peas at one table of old ladies, but they didn't seem to notice. It's certainly not my idea of a chat up line.
In the end, he had to concede defeat. I had chosen a rather nice piece of cake for us to share, but it was a classic example of eyes being bigger than the head. We had to keep the cake hidden as it distracted him from his peas, throwing, eating or otherwise. I cut the cake into small pieces with the idea that for every small piece he ate, I'd have a bit. This was to stop me eating my share too quickly.
Like every small child, the cake on the plate is always more interesting that the bit you're squashing in your hand. The icing was eaten first, followed by the sponge, but by his third mouthful he was struggling, his mouth full of crumbs. It was spat out all in a lump, but that didn't stop him demanding more. In the end I realised that it was the icing he wanted as with the last piece he sucked the icing off the top and dropped the rest. It was more cake for me, then. This left him with nothing more to do than to pick a few discarded peas out of his bib and see just how far he could throw them.