I read somewhere once that when you have a child you will put on about half a stone in weight. This was directed at parents who have biological children rather than adopting them, but I can certainly see how it is possible.
I’m not just talking about those times when you escape into the kitchen and scoff some chocolate biscuits as quickly as possible so you don’t get caught (and have to share). We all know that’s a necessary bit of respite to maintain some semblance of sanity. I’m talking about finishing off the leftovers; the unwanted chips, the sausage which has been rejected due to being too brown, or the slightly soggy but otherwise perfectly edible fish finger. Ok, maybe I’m going too far with the fish finger.
I do hate food waste though, so I can see why parents put on weight. We may be on our feet more, chasing after errant toddlers, breaking up petty squabbles, or rescuing the dog from over-zealous cuddles, but eventually we just plonk ourselves on the sofa and refuse to move for anything short of nuclear disaster.
Another thing: Ice cream! What’s with that? How does something that seems so easy to eat as a grown-up manage to get itself spread over face, hands, clothes, walls, chairs, tables, etc?
I remember thinking how great my Mum was at stopping my ice cream from dripping down onto my hands by licking around the cone, saving my hands from the stickiness. Only now, as a parent, do I realise that she probably benefited from doing that more than I did. Not just from preventing leakage and therefore the sticky mess that she would need to clear up, but she GOT TO EAT MY ICE CREAM!
Still, we can’t win with ice cream. Our children ask for it, if we have some in the freezer they can have it if we’re feeling like generous parents. It is often ‘too cold, Daddy!’. No amount of explaining that ice cream has to be that cold or else it would be a liquid mess seems to be good enough. So, we inevitably have to finish off the ice cream for them.
We only give them vanilla or if they’re lucky Neapolitan, I think we’re a bit scared to give them anything more exotic like ‘Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food‘ just in case they like it enough for it to override their dislike of ‘below-freezing-temperature ice cream’ (or ‘ice cream’ as we like to call it). I don’t want to share that, it’s my favourite!
Maybe letting them join in on the Ben & Jerry’s would help offset my parental weight gain, maybe it won’t. I’m just not ready to find out.