Treats Treats Treats

Every kid loves a treat, don’t they? Mine certainly do! Be it chocolates, ice cream, lollies, crisps, yogurt or sweets (in our case the compressed fruit kind rather than the more conventional type), they are all over them. We go through so many each week that we often find ourselves chasing our tails, and if we were to catalogue how many we’ve bought and write an inventory based on cost, it would almost be too much to bear. OK, that is a bit of a dramatic way to put it, but I’m sure you get my drift, and I’m absolutely positive we would be better off if we did not take the terrible twosome shopping with us. Both girls always end up snacking as we walk around the shop, resulting in us paying for quite a bit more than we actually leave the shop with. I know it’s totally our fault, or at least much of it is, but at times, especially when we’re in public, we’ll do anything to shut them up.

We all like a treat. Heck, me and my wife have been known to order a late-night cookie dough, brownie, waffle or cake from time to time. These girls take it to another level, though (as I’m sure most children do, or would like to do). It seems like the minute the final bite is in my little girl’s mouth, she is asking for something else. It’s like she has to get through at least one of each item in any given day and she’ll list them in an attempt to offer up proof that we somehow owe her – eventually getting her way (usually). Then there’s my littlest girl, who isn’t the greatest with her talking but will just go to the freezer and pick out a lolly for me to unwrap. That, or she’ll guide me to the fridge before saying yes or no to each item. These ‘needs’ can work in our favour too though, as treats can act as a distraction that is almost as successful as that of the TV, albeit it in a less mind-numbing way.

The hardest days are those which to girls have off school, especially if we have nothing planned with them. On any given day, it’s almost as if from the moment she wakes up, my little girl is mithering for a snack of some sort (usually a cake), but on weekends or holidays, it by no means stops there. It doesn’t help when we forget to hide the Pringles (one of her favourites) and it’s not enough that she gets chocolate pancakes for breakfast every now and again, as she’ll then commence with asking for a treat once every half ‘n’ hour or so. Almost as frequently, the youngest will be on her belly, screaming after I’ve shut the freezer door on her. We try to limit their frequency to certain times of the day, such as dinner or tea time; but, shall we say, one of us is more lenient than the other (or at least less tolerant of the shrieking and whining, not to mention the constant up and down). It doesn’t help that on my work days, I’ll grab a cake myself as a quick breakfast (do as I say, not as I do and all that).

Easter will be the worst, with chocolate eggs aplenty available to them. It will be up to us to keep them hidden or they will just be there to eat and eat and eat – to rot their teeth and make a complete mess of their clothes. Oh, the mess they can make as we find chocolate on body parts we didn’t know could be reached or they spread crumbs across the living room. We’ll be forced to hoover up every nook and cranny from each corner of the room and clean up lolly drippings before they get too sticky; we’ll find discarded sweets under the couch cushions and wonder how long it had been since the last time they were lifted up. When the bunny visits, things are sure to get just that bit more treacherous, but it’s all in a day’s work I guess.

I’m sure that they sound like truly spoiled kids, and that cannot really be argued with, in more ways than one. That being said, they have the staying power and stubbornness to rival the stamina of an Olympic long-distance runner; especially the eldest (who I call our little lawyer). Her tastes tend to change, but the ferocity for which she bombards us with her requests never waivers. I guess the moral of this story is to plan something for each weekend and school holiday, away from the children as much as possible (wink wink grandparents), or to gain a bit more tolerance when it comes to their bellyaching (or to stop buying sweet things, but that seems a bit too cruel).

By Calum Dewsbury