The Monkey Cup

Sometimes I find myself rolling my eyes (yes I am that bad a parent) and thinking or even saying 'goodness me it's only a ....' You can fill in the blanks with any number of things, book, cup, spoon, action figure. You get the drift right? 

For example, we have mismatched cutlery here at Monkeyfeet HQ (I know, I know hang my head) and for some reason Peanut has gotten it into her head she likes the round handled spoons, and she gets quite bent out of shape if that's not what's in her breakfast bowl. Now  I'm not a brilliant morning person I like to get up and running and on with my day faff free. So this spoon issue drove me round the bed one particular morning. So after having spouted 'goodness it's just a spoon'I traipsed off into the kitchen to find a 'round one' and that's when I saw this....

And had a lightbulb moment!

I know it seems a strange thing but this monkey cup was bought in Edinburgh Zoo because it reminded me of cups my gran used to have for us grand kids (three of us) when we were little. She had an orange giraffe one, a yellow tiger and a brown monkey one. Oh the fights we had over the monkey cup, not one of us wanted it because, well it was brown, the colour of poo, and when you are young these things matter not just like 'ooh I don't want it' but I mean REALLY matter, 'my life will end if you make me drink from that' kind of matter. Imagine a day of two other people laughing ALL day because you had the ' poo cup' !

So now we all use a round spoon for breakfast and not because I'm pandering to a stroppy five year old. It's  because Ive realised in her world that spoon means something, just as much as the monkey cup meant to me, and as parents I think we need to remember sometimes that our little people are forging thier way in a big scary world and the strangest things take on huge significance in thier quest for independence. 

So the next time your little person has a melt down because you chopped thier potatoes/ gave them orange not apple juice/ opened thier yoghurt/ gave them the wrong spoon etc etc. I think it's important to remember ... no one wants to be forced to drink out of the 'poo cup' do they ?