What my baby ate this weekend

The sun is out, the toddler has a feast

Carrot cake
Friday is my day off with P. When I wake her up in the morning she is so happy, pointing to the moon and stars on her bedsheet. She can’t say the words for these things yet but she babbles as though she can. I love stroking the hair from her warm face and picking her up like a bundle of freshly tumble dried laundry. She smells so good in the morning. Her whole room smells so good, so babyish. Sometimes, after she’s gone to nursery, I’ll walk inside and just have a sniff.

Even though it’s very hot, I make her banana porridge for breakfast. We go out and I buy her her first pair of jelly sandals. I overhear a conversation in the children’s shop between two mums. ‘The biggest mistake I ever made,’ one of them says, ‘is putting my name down as primary contact for her school. Whatever you do, put your husband’s name down.’ I make a mental note.

We have a quick play at the park before lunch, where I ask one of the other mums how she keeps a hat on her toddler. I’m so afraid of P’s pale skin being in the sun even with suncream on, that I spend the whole time shepherding her towards the shade.

After lunch, we drive to Leigh-on-Sea to visit my cousin. The air con in the car has stopped working again and when we arrive P is bright red and her hair is damp. I feel bad that she never complained during the hour’s journey.

My cousin has a new baby who seems impossibly tiny. When I hold her, it is a shock how light she is, like holding a loaf of bread. My cousin has a beautiful garden, manicured and neat. She has a conversation with her neighbour over the wall and P trots happily around, picking up stones, sitting in the grass, testing the integrity of every lovely and fragile-looking garden ornament.

My cousin produces a box of cakes and I take a slice of the carrot. I can’t eat in front of P without her wanting whatever I have, so I share it with her. It is sweet and sticky and soon enough P’s hands are covered in icing.

We take pictures of the babies together. In moments like these I realise P is no longer really a baby, but that’s difficult for my brain to compute. She keeps pointing at the new baby, saying ‘bahbee!’, but when we go to put the baby on her lap she shakes her head emphatically.

Barbecued chicken
On Saturday, I’m late for a barbecue at J & R’s house because I’m getting my hair cut. Somehow the whole experience takes three hours, probably because it’s busy in the salon and also my hairdresser keeps turning off the hairdryer to talk to me. By the time I arrive, P is still feasting on the food laid out on a table. She puts her hand in a bowl of crisps and tries to crush them. She then puts her finger through a brioche bun, designating it hers. She munches her way through some herby chicken and I am astonished, as she never wants chicken at home. She eats too much in one go and regurgitates some of it, and then carries on quite happily.

Inside, I hold her up to a wall calendar filled exclusively with photos of pigs and she does the oink noise (a gentle, soft snort). I taught her that noise this week and I am very proud of it. She likes doing it so much that she will snort when she sees a picture of a cow or a bear and I have to correct her. Sometimes she even oinks in my direction and I try not to take offence.

Croissant
On Sunday, M and I go for a run. It’s the first time I’ve run in a year and it’s surprisingly okay. We talk smugly about running while we’re running. I can do it! Towards the end, I know M is doing that thing where she pretends we haven’t hit 5k so I’ll run a bit further, and I let her pretend.

We go and get pastries from Today Bread, and bring back a pain aux raisins, croissant, and a cruffin with custard. I portion them out for us and give bits of my croissant to P. She alternates between us, holding her hand out for more.

I eat the croissant last, because I assume it will be the least interesting, but when I start eating it I realise how good it is. Most croissants are either too doughy or too dry, and this is neither. Perfectly flaky and soft, it tastes just like the kind of thing you’d get in France. M says it’s one of the best croissants she’s ever had.

P isn’t even 18 months old and she’s already tried maybe the best croissant in London!

After she eats her lunch of tomato pasta and blueberries, she goes down for her nap. I sit outside with a new book and rest my feet on the sleeping dog. His fur is warm in the sun and the book is funny. T comes outside and I tell him I am so happy.

Chips
I am told it’s a very important time for football at the moment, as Arsenal are very close to winning the Premier League for the first time in 20 years – or losing it like they do every year. We have a quick drink in a pub garden and order a bowl of chips before we have to get home for the game.

The chips are very hot and we both squirt ketchup on our respective sides of the plate. We alternate eating a chip and breaking one open to cool down for P. While she is still chewing, she holds her hand out for more.

T says that I should start getting into football (he says this often). Even though I grew up surrounded by it, my interest is limited. On the surface, it looks very simple, I tell him, there’s a ball and a net. But underneath, it’s actually incredibly complicated. I’ve never got beyond the simple version of it and so when I watch a football game I think this is boring, yet sort of difficult to understand.

T says there are actually only a few rules, and then he goes on to name them. But my attention has already drifted, thinking about how it’s funny that some people have names that you always want to say in full because there’s something satisfying about them: Charlie Chaplin, Bukayo Saka.

When we get home for P’s tea, she will only have a few bites of bolognese, a few bites of banana. The match is incredibly stressful for T, but while the dog hides under the kitchen table, P seems to have an inverse reaction to it. She quietly plays with her blocks and brings little wooden animals over to me. I tell her what they’re called and she pads contentedly back and forth between her basket of toys and the sofa.

She is happy because she’s full, I think, and so am I.