Louisa Simmonds

There’s major cause for celebration in the new house this week, firstly because the oven is still working after Kurt cremated a pizza in it at 4am on Sunday morning, forgot about it, went to bed and if not for the old man’s remarkable sense of smell, (or weak bladder), none of us might be here to tell the tale.

Added to which, for the first time EVER, my kids both asked for salad for dinner last night.

If anyone had asked me about my ambitions as a young mother, I’m ashamed to admit that I might have sobbed, ‘that my kids would eat something healthy.’

Rest assured, I’m not making such a big deal about this leap into the realms of successful parenting because I truly believe that my my kids are any fussier about food than other kids, and they do have a vague excuse for their lack of culinary adventure after all, because salad wasn’t exactly a core food in the UK where they spent their formative years, and where comfort foods such as carbs and even mushy peas take on a much greater appeal in front of a burning fire.

‘Salad’ compliments the warmer climes such as the climate we have here in Sydney, when in theory one’s appetite is less rabid and one should feel the need to hydrate far more often – both of which habits my body refuses to adapt to. Healthy, lighter foods such as watermelon and Pimms are much more enticing here under the heat of the sun, and although my two still wince at the sight of a tomato and retch at the odour of an olive, between them they now consume most variations of salad.

And that means I can tick one achievement off my ‘parenting’ checklist, even if it has taken me twenty-two years to reach this pinnacle of success.

I can see myself now at work tomorrow when I’m making small talk with my clients and I subtly drop into the conversation with appropriately smug voice, ‘by the way, my kids eat salad.’ 

So this is for all you young mums out there, suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from years of angrily pureeing veggies with your hand blender, then concealing them in mashed potato, before spitting into the concoction for good measure. For those of you who have torn your hair out because your kids gagged on their lettuce and regurgitated their radishes, let me restore your faith, because they will change as they grow up… in some ways for the better and in some ways for the worse.

Which is why today I will embrace this small moment of success. We have an oven that still works and the kids like Rocket, one of the five fruit and veg I am told they need daily to develop into proper people. As it turns out, the Coriander Kurt accidentally added to his salad because he thought its leaves looked interesting and because he also believed it would be as tasteless as the other lettuce, meant he didn’t follow through on the salad after all, but I refuse to feel defeated.

One step closer…

#success #Salad #Food #Humor #teenagers #Parenting