2024-05-06 17:11:28
My daughter was almost six months old when she was scheduled to visit the child health clinic.
The road there was difficult, as many things are when you have an almost six month old baby. We had forgotten the vaccination cards, but we had a disastrous night and not only that. This morning my daughter refused her bottle of breast milk and if anything could hurt me deeply, that was it. That you, with great reluctance, hooked up to a pumping device for several minutes, carefully frozen everything, later re-heated just as carefully and then it was rejected. Your liquid gold. Won during an energy-consuming production process – I’d say. That you can relax there, because reheating twice is out of the question. I couldn’t handle that very well. I’ve never been a fan of the ‘pump and dump’ phenomenon. I might have been given some joie de vivre (read: glasses of wine) if I had enjoyed it, but I thought throwing away milk was a mortal sin.
Well, that consulting agency. Despite the forgotten vaccination cards, my daughter was allowed to be vaccinated, much to her and my own tears. In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m a whiner. As always, we received a brochure pack on an event. One brochure in particular really shook me. It was a menu. Daily menu for children from six months. I was scared. At four months we carefully started with practice snacks. These practice snacks were mostly met with much disgust. We didn’t have much work to do on that yet, because we didn’t eat more than a spoonful at a time. I once smashed various fruits and vegetables into an ice cube tray and froze them, and we’ve been enjoying them for almost two months now. And by pleasure I mean shivers, horror and nausea.
Burning hoop
Now suddenly there was that daily menu. And there was a lot of it. It was really a day’s work: in the morning a large plate of porridge had to be eaten, an hour later there was to be a moment of fruit, around lunch time bread had to be eaten, in the middle of the afternoon it was snack time, a few hours Later, dinner could be served (vegetables, potatoes/rice/pasta, meat/fish/meat substitute) and we could also start introducing water and weak tea. I barely fell out of my chair. I couldn’t even fit a mashed carrot into this kid’s mouth. They might have told me she’d have to jump through hoops next week.
Catering company
In addition to the fact that I seriously doubted that my child would eat all of this, I was also surprised by the time it would all take. Because this whole menu had to be on top of the bottles she already got. And I already had a day job doing the whole pumping and feeding thing. Not to mention everything else that comes with having a baby. I wondered if I would be better off just quitting my job and starting a catering company, because catering is what I was doing all day anyway.
Caught at the health clinic
It is now five months later and I did indeed resign, but that was for other reasons. I also did an incredible job sticking to the daily menu and all subsequent daily menus. Or rather: my baby didn’t stick to it well, because she didn’t eat most of it. Bread has only recently been introduced and when I think of bringing porridge, she knocks the spoon out of my hands with such a bloody force that the ceiling could be white again. Another visit to the clinic is scheduled for this week and I’m already resigned to the fact that they’ll probably take me. I have already put the vaccination cards in my jacket pocket. Can I immediately demonstrate during the questioning that I am able to learn from my mistakes despite my incompetent behaviour. Maybe I will be released soon and live to see the day my child eats a full meal. In twelve years or so.
Tara (29) is the mother of daughter Rosie (1). Follow her momlife through Instagram.com/tarastokdijk
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