Our Contrary Child

Kaisey is a funny wee thing at times.

On Friday just been we had American Hotdogs for dinner, usually a favourite. Paige and Annabelle tucked in. Kaisey decided she wasn't interested and yelled. When this happens I can usually remind her she likes it by popping a tiny taste into her mouth. Not this time, I smeared a tiny bit on her upper lip and she screamed louder, rubbing it away as hard as she could, arching her back to get away from the offensive food.

All we could do was laugh. I don't think this helped much, and of course Paige wanting to seem more adult joined in with that loud forced laughter kids put on, you know that "HAHAHAHA (I wish I knew what was so funny...)".

So after several minutes of trying to talk over the noise and feeling increasingly stressed by it, we did what we sometimes do with the twins when they do this, we turned Kaisey around to face away from us.

She immediately stopped, that is fairly common, its bit of a surprise to be facing away from the family all of a sudden. What happened next is less common. She started eating.

It was like: Oh that's better, I can't stand eating in front of people.

By this point, Annabelle had stuffed so much in her mouth she couldn't chew it, so she started that low pitched moaning that kids do when they are confused.

The picture here is: Annabelle moaning with saliva and bits of food slowly dripping out of her mouth, Kaisey turned about in her highchair in the centre of the kitchen peaking around the back from time to time and grinning with her mouth full of food, Paige at the table mouth full of food wide open "HAHAHAHA (I wish I knew what was so funny...) and Don and I staring at each other across the table feeling and looking very bewildered.

We thought, well Kaisey seems happy now, turn her back around. No! We turned her around and she arched her back and screamed again, we turned her back and she went back to calmly eating.

I fished the mountain of food out of Annabelles mouth. Very pleasant. She decided that she was not keen on eating any more since it had offensively made her mouth so full before (Annabelle had nothing to do with it you know) and she looked around at Kaisey in the centre of the kitchen with her back to us and started to cry. So we moved Kaisey to sit beside Annabelle with her back to the rest of us.

Dinner finished fairly uneventfully after that, and we did our Hi-Lows (a tradition where everyone has a turn to say their high point and their low point of the day). There was a slight air of melancholy over the proceedings though, one of our kids had rejected being with us for the meal.

Bloody contrary child.