YAAAAAMS

She had yams and scrambled egg for tea last night. J, her much-loved childminder, (and one of the happiest woman on the planet) told me proudly that she ate the lot. It was an awful, awful lot. I know because it came out in a technicolour yawn all evening and well into the night. Actually, not technicolour, very pale. Yaaaaaaaa-m she roared into the potty we had by the bed, over and over again. She was so, so good, not a spot spilt anywhere. And it just went on and on. I felt so useless, just rubbing her back and saying good girl over and over again, as if she was a dog. Finally, at about two, she fixed me with steely eyes, over the top of the potty and said: tell her not ever to give me so much again. 

But this morning, just as I (laid low with sleep deprivation and a stinking cold) was thinking of 

wantonly giving up a whole days pay and staying in bed and watching daytime tv X was ready to go again. If she couldn't go school she wanted to be back at J's, hanging around with me just wasn't cutting it So I delivered her back to J, told her not to give her so much of anything X didn't want- but plenty of water- and trudged off to work.

It wouldn't surprise me if it put her off yams for life. Last night they didn't just disagree with her- they violently argued....