Food

A difficult lunch. These are the times when I begin to feel a little out of my depth in the whole single-dad thing. I think we all do about somethings (there is no manual on how to be a parent), my particular ones are over food and if the boy is playing up in front of people whose opinion matters to me.

The landlady made us a lovely lunch. The boy was a little out of sorts, still tired from the day before and much as I love him to pieces and above everything else... he can be a crabbit little sod when he hasnt had enough sleep and is still tired (I know he was tired as he fell asleep the whole hour and a bit journey back home to his Mum this evening). I know I get a little uptight over meal times with him anyway. I'll admit, I am not a good influence food wise. I don't eat well myself and being single and on my own all the time tend to resort to to ready meals to make sure I eat. Its bad, its lazy but its better than getting home from work tired and just eating cereal - or worse just skipping it, both of which I've done regularly. Anyway I do try at weekends to make sure he eats lots of fruit and a mixture of stuff but I know he doesn't eat as well here as at home. I think I try more than I used to, but I'm defensive about it. It doesnt help the landlady is a trained cook, creative, loves food. I know she understands how I am, but I tense up when it comes to meal times around the boy. Anyway today she cooked and the boy was grumpy and playing up. Playing with his food, trying to use his fingers, refusing to eat much of anything. We got him to eat eventually but it was such a fight. It was a little embarrasing, but we made it through. I know its something a lot of parents struggle with, meal times. At least nowadays I recognise when I get uptight over it that its me being defensive and so don't get too mad.

He was very quiet and his mum says he has had tummyache this evening. I guess maybe he wasn't feeling well after all, its just so hard to know when they are trying it on.