Pressure

I recently stopped myself during another hardcore clap-slash-high-kick-hip-shaking-sing-songy-wiggly-giggly dance move in front of the high chair.

What on earth was I doing?

I was dealing with pressure.

We are not talking about the pressure that comes with working in a busy press office that I deal with four days a week. We are not even talking about the pressure involved in creating an awesome PowerPoint presentation for important people using Microsoft two-thousand-and-still-no-idea. We are certainly not talking about the pressure involved with making VERY important decisions VERY quickly using other people’s budgets and money. And we are definitely not talking about the ‘just give me five seconds to do a wee’ pressure.

I was dealing with High Chair Hunger aka HCH.

HCH can cause severe anxiety including swearing at toasters to hurry the eff up, checking the microwave/stove/oven every 48 seconds to see if your measly veg/meat ensemble is defrosted, and even doing the jumping up and down wee-wee dance because your kid can’t wait the 17 seconds for you to whiz like a Kitchenaid.

This pressure was so unknown to me pre-babe.

If your kid has HCH, you will notice the symptoms immediately. These include: gripping the sides of the high chair and ‘galloping’ the chair towards the kitchen; high pitched squeals that come from the back of the throat; throwing items such as sippy cup, cloth, Duplo or any object that you stupidly thought would distract your kid for one minute, at your back and the obligatory pulling at the straps, trying to stand in the high chair manoeuvre.

This evening though, it was intense. I decided to step it up a notch so instead of the bread and soup option for the fourth night in a row, I thought I’d fix up a few rissoles. I knew I should have prepared them during my son’s two hour nap that arvo, but again I decided to spend that time watching Channing in Magic Mike surrounded by dirty washing, dishes and floors.

Man, my kid was hungry even though he had eaten three serves of shepherds pie at daycare along with a variety of snacks. I thought a scattering of sultanas, fanned across his tray like chicken feed would have kept him at bay. Those ‘tarnies were sucked up in seconds. I put some banana on the tray, cut up into little shapes to make it exciting. This barely gave me enough time to start rolling out the mince.

I chopped up some strawberries, gone in seconds. I put some toast on. It wouldn’t pop fast enough. The rissoles were sizzling, I turned up the heat. I sliced some kiwi fruit, steamed some broccoli, threw in some crackers. Gone. Cheese. Eaten. Mandarin. Down the cake hole. The rissoles were close, but not quite there. Dried apricots, some left over pasta, the toast (finally). The rissoles were done. I put them in the fridge to cool them down.

I checked them a minute later. Scorching.

I put on some music. I did the dance of desperation. I clapped. I sang. I squealed. I did a full routine to Whitney’s ‘I wanna dance with somebody’. I was amazing.

I served up the rissoles. I sat in front of him. I smiled as he put the rissole to his mouth. He smiled at me and piffed the rissole at my face, I ducked and the dog jumped like an AFL legend and snatched the rissole mid air. It was spectacular.

I handed my son another rissole. He threw it again, this time my dog used my back for leverage. Spectacular and massive. I was impressed.

The pressure disappeared, so did the anxiety to feed my child who is already the size of a teenager at 15 months. Kids are funny and they rule the world. Well, maybe not the world, but certainly the high throne, sorry chair.

This post first appeared on Bubba West.