Bananas ... and so forth

Little fact about me: I don't like bananas.

I'm about the only person I know who can't stand the things. I've eaten precisely 0 (zero) bananas over the course of my life, as far as I can recall. My mother tried to get me to eat them but I couldn't abide the taste or the texture. The mere thought would be enough to make me gag. She gave up after a handful of attempts that I can recall.

Now that I'm a mother I suspect that that I'd eaten them as a baby. Quite why I decided I wouldn't eat them is something that must remain a mystery.

I mention this because the Infant ate bananas as a baby, then stopped about the time she acquired the ability to construct sentences. I couldn't understand what was happening but suspected that it was toddler assertiveness ... that she'd find bigger and more important issues to fight me over (boys/short skirts/make-up/telephone/homework/housework and so forth) and get over bananas.

Other things that went the way of the banana included Rice. I love rice. I could happily live on rice based dishes. As a baby the Infant would happily tuck into a risotto or paella. Then suddenly, no more.

Fine. I'm happy to cook two evening meals a day in a three person household [hint: you're supposed to detect heavy sarcasm here]. And wash up afterwards. And put away.

Then three weeks ago the Infant was sent away for a week by the Mother-in-Law I can no longer describe as From Hell (because she might be seriously ill and under those circumstances such a soubriquet might be construed as Poor Taste).

What a shoddy excuse for a Greek Goddess I am.

A week ago we had Peking Duck - a kit our local supermarket sells that we all love. Usually I make myself a side dish of steamed rice. I was rather astonished when the Infant asked for some. I was even more taken aback when she actually ate it. What really got me was the way she explained without missing a beat, in response to my slightly sarky question concerning the date of her renewed taste for rice, "I tried it at SuperWeek."

Last night she was still up when I got home. Eating a banana!!. Damned SuperWeek. Damned kids. Meanwhile our house is in total turmoil.

• We have all the cat crap : food bowls (new), carrier (borrowed), litter tray (blue) and newspaper (old).
• We have all the camping crap - loads and loads.
• We have washing and ironing everywhere - too wet outside, no dryer.
• We have crap crap - largely this is his stuff crap. Books (mostly) but also other stuff that he's just had to acquire, though without having any purpose for this crap.
• We have toys - the Infant's (mostly) but also some of his toys such as weights.
• We have all the pictures taken down from the walls ahead of painting (not yet done) and propped up along the walls.

Ordinarily I'm a pretty shoddy housewife - what point cleaning when the Fat Bastard is a couple of paces behind me all the way, making things worse than before I started - but recently I've been frantically trying to do something about the state things have slipped into by working around all this crap. A lot of it is crap he promised me he'd take to the local charity shop, but that stuff is still around the house in the boxes I put it into.

Although I did say on Tuesday that I'd come to regard the prospect of a long weekend away with the Fat Bastard as attractive I'm now quickly working myself up into a state of "bugger it the weekend couldn't be worth all this stress".

In the midst of sick and stroppy cat, fat lazy bastard husband, sleepy infant, lousy weather (we're off camping so this was a given), I've also got to cram forty hours work into Monday-Thursday with a dodgy knee that's led to a dodgy back and sort out this mess with IND.

In fact I'm bloody fed up.