Little bear is very annoying

Little bear is probably coming down with something gruesome - he is usually this awful just before he comes down with something green nosed and disgusting.

This morning, 7am, I heard a desperate cry of, 'Mummy! Mummy!' So I hurtle upstairs. 'Mummy, I can't find Ratatouille!' So I picked up the toy rat from next to little bear and hand it to him. It set the tone.

We go downstairs, and I ask him if he wants cereal for breakfast. This is met with expressions of absolute loathing. Just because he was demanding it yesterday doesn't mean he actually likes it again today. I make the usual suggestions and offer toast, weetabix, sugar puffs (cereal means cheerios), chocolate rice puffs (from approved food, a rare treat), toast and jam, porridge - all are utterly rejected. I start racking my brains. I am getting a bit desperate because I believe it important to have a good breakfast, but I can see that just handing him something is not going to work. Little bear announces, 'I need something NOW because my sweet tank and my healthy tank are empty down to my knees! You think of something, Mummy!' I hate it when he demands that I do his thinking for him, and it never ends well.

I take a deep breath, he is pushing his luck with this. In desperation I offer eggs, fish fingers, soup, beans and sausage, ham sandwich, cheese spread on crackers - all met with out right refusal. War openly breaks out when I refuse to give him sweets for breakfast. Marshmallows came from approved food yesterday and little bear noticed! He was NOT having marshmallows for breakfast.

So we stood in the kitchen, glaring at each other, and little bear noticed a half eaten packet of crisps that had been re-sealed. He asked (relatively nicely) for a crisp sandwich and he found some cold hot dog sausages in the fridge. I caved, reassuring myself that at least it wasn't marshmallows.

We had war over the sweatshirt for school, I insisted that he wore a clean one. We had war over finding his reading book, which I eventually tracked down. We had war about him dressing himself at glacial speed and we had war about getting out of the dratted door. He should be just about coming down with whatever is lurking in time for half term. Sigh.