Padlock or face the consequences

In the wee small hours I turn off the telly to stagger up to bed.

At least I now have a few ideas about what to cook for supper.

A few wee small hours later, I find a small boy in a pool of light from the television. I return him, reluctantly, to his bed. Failure to lock up the telly cupboard.

The following day, or rather, later in the same day, we break with tradition to have an alternative breakfast. The croissants are warm and inviting. I pop them in the basket wrapped in the checkered cloth, a delightful gift from yesteryear. I am familiar with all the objections in advance, or so I thought.

“Dey have dah smoke!” he squalks in an adenoidal tone as his fingers pinch his nostrils shut.
“It’s just steam, because they’re warm dear.”
“I am not eating dah hot. Dah hot is bad!”
“You don’t have to eat one lovey, but they have to stay on the table, you know that rule.”

It’s all part of the exposure to new foods campaign. We maintain calm resilience, as I know that they’re all hungry first thing in the day.

“They’re called croissants. They’re French.” The other two tuck in with gusto, and offer words of encouragement.
“They’re a bit like bread,….or rather like cake, you might like em if you give em a try!”
“Dey are sweet like ………er cake…….but dey are salty too! You like dah salt!”
“I do not like dah crudite!” We are all too well aware, that vegetables are not included in his diet of 17 foods.
“I do not like the Croissants dear,” I rephrase for him.
“I do not like dah crescents.”
“Ooo yes, they are shaped like that, but they’re called croissants dear.”
“Dey are dah ‘w’?”
“Um sort of, that’s how French people pronounce it. It’s your favourite ‘qu’ sound again.”
“How you are spell?”
I oblige.
“Where it is?”
“Where is what dear?”
“Dah ‘w’?”
“Ah. Well the ‘w’ is silent, just like the ‘g’ in ‘gnat,’” I pander.
“I do not like dah croustini!”
“Croissants dear.”
“Croustini is dah ‘w’?”
“Um, no I don’t think so.”

If he could touch, smell or look at any one of these items, I think I would die of heart failure.

“He is dah croque monsieur?”
I pause, mid munch to look at my speech delayed six and a half year old; dumbstuck, me, not him. I begin to feel distinctly unhinged, more so than usual. Is this a reference to our recent sandwich making exercise with his brother, a school project? Are we entering a second language phase when we have yet to master the first? Is this just an off shoot of his current craze for all words that have a ‘qu’ or ‘cr’ sound?

No.

This is direct result of watching the food channel unsupervised in the middle of the night. I decide that this ‘self exposure’ to new foods, is a step in the right direction.