Mealtimes used to be so clean. At six months old, Astrid sat in her high chair with her mouth wide open and gaping like a freshly hatched gosling. She was poised and waiting for each lick of the spoon. She wasted little and rarely spilt any on the floor. She usually ate the entire bowlful.
Her tastes were wide ranging and unfussy. Cleaning up afterwards involved lightly dabbing stray morsels from the corners of her mouth with a damp cloth. All in all, mealtimes used to be pristine affairs.
How times have changed.
During a typical meal now, debris is scattered far and wide. Astrid flings dollops of matter across the room. She uses her spoon as a catapult. She flicks bits so they stick on the wall. Food can reach a radius of up to two metres around her high chair. She paws her fodder with her hands and squeezes it through her fingers. She drops it down her front, so by the end of the meal her lap has become as full of food as her bowl was at the beginning.
We bought her a special bib to protect her clothes during these messy, thrice-daily sessions. It resembles a radiation suit or some other protective gear because it is long-sleeved, shiny and bright green trimmed with blue. Even with this garment on, Astrid somehow manages to cover her clothes in bits of banana and bread. It is as if mealtimes and getting dressed have blended into a single event: Astrid has decided she will wear food from now on.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining about the transformation of eating into a grubby riot. It is all part of Astrid's burgeoning independence. She wants to have some say over what goes into her mouth and how it happens. Most of the time she wants to feed herself, which involves grabbing the spoon close to the food end, putting it in her mouth, turning it over and scraping it off with her lower teeth. That's if the manoeuvre goes well, which it rarely does. And so the chaos begins.
Hand in hand with the mess has come a new finickiness about food. I read somewhere that perhaps the reason children develop such fussy eating habits is that they have so little control in the rest of their lives. They hold no sway over where they go, what they do or when they go to sleep, but they can decide what they eat. Mealtimes become an arena for power struggles, a place where rejecting food garners more attention than eating it.
Astrid's likes and dislikes change from day to day. Perhaps she is already inculcated into the tyranny of choice that dominates 21st century life. Already I find myself asking her if she would like apple or pear or some other such meaningless decision. Obviously without words, her response is difficult to decipher. Even with words, much of the time her choice would, I imagine, be arbitrary.
Keeping her lips pressed tightly shut and shaking her head is less an expression of dislike of a particular taste and more a way of asserting her character in a more potent way than elsewhere.
Our palates are formed early. The structure of our likes and dislikes, the map of our tastes that will determine how we eat for the rest of our lives, is set in the first few years. A lifelong hatred of sprouts, for example, might have stemmed from a bad mood when you were two years old. The answer must be to keep mealtimes as jolly and simple as possible.
Astrid has developed an attachment to an interesting and unusual object. It is a bit of wood from the top of a set of wooden rings. The rings are different sizes and colours. They stack together on a pole to form a rainbow of brilliant colours. In contrast, the top is dull and plain, the colour of polished pine. Yet Astrid loves it.
What is the appeal of this wooden talisman? How can it prevail over other, more ostentatious, battery-powered toys?
I can only speculate. It is chunky and tactile. It is rounded at one end and sharper at the other. It is just the right size for her to grip. It has holes, which she puts her fingers in. Undoubtedly she finds it easy to hold, but she must also get comfort simply from keeping it in her hand. There is satisfaction in clasping such a smooth and solid thing. No doubt it is the first in many prized items from which Astrid will be inseparable - for at least a week or two.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Wicked
Director: Jon M Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey
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THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
The details
Colette
Director: Wash Westmoreland
Starring: Keira Knightley, Dominic West
Our take: 3/5
Low turnout
Two months before the first round on April 10, the appetite of voters for the election is low.
Mathieu Gallard, account manager with Ipsos, which conducted the most recent poll, said current forecasts suggested only two-thirds were "very likely" to vote in the first round, compared with a 78 per cent turnout in the 2017 presidential elections.
"It depends on how interesting the campaign is on their main concerns," he told The National. "Just now, it's hard to say who, between Macron and the candidates of the right, would be most affected by a low turnout."
2018 ICC World Twenty20 Asian Western Sub Regional Qualifier
Event info: The tournament in Kuwait this month is the first phase of the qualifying process for sides from Asia for the 2020 World T20 in Australia. The UAE must finish within the top three teams out of the six at the competition to advance to the Asia regional finals. Success at regional finals would mean progression to the World T20 Qualifier.
UAE’s fixtures: Fri Apr 20, UAE v Qatar; Sat Apr 21, UAE v Saudi Arabia; Mon Apr 23, UAE v Bahrain; Tue Apr 24, UAE v Maldives; Thu Apr 26, UAE v Kuwait
World T20 2020 Qualifying process:
- Sixteen teams will play at the World T20 in two years’ time.
- Australia have already qualified as hosts
- Nine places are available to the top nine ranked sides in the ICC’s T20i standings, not including Australia, on Dec 31, 2018.
- The final six teams will be decided by a 14-team World T20 Qualifier.
World T20 standings: 1 Pakistan; 2 Australia; 3 India; 4 New Zealand; 5 England; 6 South Africa; 7 West Indies; 8 Sri Lanka; 9 Afghanistan; 10 Bangladesh; 11 Scotland; 12 Zimbabwe; 13 UAE; 14 Netherlands; 15 Hong Kong; 16 Papua New Guinea; 17 Oman; 18 Ireland
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
The distance learning plan
Spring break will be from March 8 - 19
Public school pupils will undergo distance learning from March 22 - April 2. School hours will be 8.30am to 1.30pm
Staff will be trained in distance learning programmes from March 15 - 19
Teaching hours will be 8am to 2pm during distance learning
Pupils will return to school for normal lessons from April 5
Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: ten-speed
Power: 420bhp
Torque: 624Nm
Price: Dh325,125
On sale: Now
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
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Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
