Lauca was a really difficult baby.
But fast forward on oooh, say seven years in the future.. that difficult baby turns eight years old and you are dragging your tired self home from work one evening and you ring ahead to ask if you need to stop at the shops to buy something to cook everyone for dinner:
Lauca: “No, I have already cooked dinner”.
Me: “What on earth did you cook?”
Lauca: “Pie”.
Me: “What did you put in it?”
Lauca: “Whatever I could find in the kitchen”.
When I walked in the door that evening I found her lying on my bed reading a novel while the pie finished baking. So wonderful. And then on the weekend she woke me up with breakfast in bed. She had found a recipe for Greek yoghurt pancakes in her cookbook. Finally, that evening she asked me to show her how to cook a roast. My god.
You’re so lucky. My kids know how to cook bacon and a few other things and that’s it. They’ve just not been interested.
Of all things for her to develop her own self-directed interest in cooking was an effing great one.
What sort of roast? I’m guessing roast vegies or is there something complicated but wonderful that you do?
I do sometimes make a nut loaf to go with roasts but this time it was just roast veggies, yes, and some steamed beans and corn and then some marinated tofu. Yum.
She baked you a pie? She is pretty much my dream child.
My eight year old makes me coffee. It really helps balance out the times he screams at me and says he hates me.
Well someone tell me this happens to most difficult young children!! I’m going through that F*ing crazy 3 yr old child phase now so ill sit here and hope your story becomes mine someday 🙂 and of all the things PIE!! Jackpot I say!!
That is so lovely to read. I remember when my first was a baby, I used to read and re-read your old posts about parenting because it was the only thing I could connect with. God it was hard and I was so grateful you shared your experiences. It’s just so lovely to know that Lauca is now all grown up nurturing you with food.
I don’t know which I like better, that Lauca made you dinner or the tone of surprise in your writing about it. It’s a terrible but true thing how surprising it can be when the kid does something nice. Because really, he’s nearly always nice. It’s just that the not-nice bits are so much more goddam memorable.
I believe you meant to type “I’m God.” Easy mistake.
+1 to all of this. M and T were both quite difficult/demanding as babies, at times, but they were lovely 8 year olds. They have got the cooking bug in their mid-teens. For M’s 20th Xmas I got her Stephanie Alexander’s Cook’s Companion, viewing it as a later-lifetime investment purchase, but she squealed with pleasure and started cooking from it immediately! Pie was also the first thing she did from it. T does perfect bangers and mash and fried rice – Quite difficult to grill bangers and not burn them when you’re inexperienced but they both have a really good “feel”
Go Lauca!
Ahhhh, blue, this makes me feel so happy for you! And I can’t believe that when I first found you Lauca was younger than the Tyrant is now!
Thank you for sharing. I’ve read your blog for a long time, and I don’t often comment, but I cannot tell you how helpful your writings on your children’s early years were to me. My now 2 year old was a bit of a shocker in her first year and it helped to know that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t love the baby stage. Though she’s not too bad as a 2 year old, does that mean 8 might be hellish for us?!?