Can I plant some custard?

Custard. My son loves custard. I would go so far as to say he is addicted to it. He LOVES it. Absolutely loves it. He has a pot of custard every night after getting in from school. He loves it that much I’ve had to put a limit on it. He is allowed only 2 pots of custard a day. And very occasionally he does have 3!!! It has to be Ambrosia Custard though, nothing else. And it’s not just custard he loves. It’s Ambrosia Rice Pudding too. Frequently he will have a pot of custard followed by a pot of rice pudding. One day we were trying to get out to go to the local seaside for the day. Everyone was happy with this plan except my son who when he was told we were going to this place very nicely said “I need ten minutes to think about this plan, is that ok?”. And although that would put us ten minutes behind I was pleased he knew enough about himself to know he needed ten minutes to decide. After a while of thinking he asked for his “ten o clocks” and yes that’s right it was custard so I said oh come on let’s get dressed and we will have it when we are back later. Oh no. What a stupid suggestion by me. He said….

“But mum, I can’t cope unless I have custard”

And I knew this was true. And also quite scary. I hope Ambrosia never ever goes out of business. I do keep the stocks up in this house though.
Currently it’s the Easter holidays and my son is off school for 14 nights. He is spending 7 of those nights with me and 7 at his dad’s. So on the last day of school I took stock of our custards and rice pudding. If he had 2 a day for 7 days I would need at least 14 custards in-stock. It’s always better to have a few extra just in case and they only sell them in 4s So I would need to buy 16 (4 of the 4s) of the custards Then I buy the same for rice pudding. That’s a lot of custard and rice pudding.

On the first morning of the Easter holidays me my son and husband were all sat discussing the garden. We had recently moved and the garden was huge and we were talking about planting seeds when my son said….

“I think I’m going to plant some carrots”

Carrots are the only vegetable he is guaranteed to eat and this was 2/3 years in the making. He had been served a Sunday dinner every other Sunday for around 2/3 years and it started out that he would just look at what was on his plate (4 carrots, one tiny bit of broccoli, a spoonful of mash, small Yorkshire and the tiniest bit of chicken) and eat nothing. Over the course of around a year this progressed to him licking the carrots but ignoring the rest. One day he actually bit the carrot but it came back out. Then he moved onto eating 1 carrot. Over the next year this progressed to him consistently eating the carrots, very very occasionally eating one bit of broccoli. And today he is absolutely guaranteed to eat the carrots and he will pick one other thing to eat, so it’s carrots and mash, or carrots and the Yorkshire pudding, or carrots and the tiniest bit of broccoli. Never all of the things. 3 years to get him to eat carrots. And in those 3 years I have not enjoyed any of the Sunday dinners I have had. Every time we sit down to eat I am in a state of anxiety about whether he will eat the one bit of nutrition he gets. Whether I will have to go and make his favourite food of pasta like I did on Christmas day so that he does eat something. I have sacrificed enjoying my Sunday dinners in order to get him to this point. And I am pleased about that. It is the one bit of nutrition he gets. So I was pleased when he said he would grow carrots. And I told him so….

“That’s good because you like carrots”

I could see the cogs turning thinking of what he else he liked, of what his favourite thing in the world was and he asked….

“Can I plant some custard? Because I think I’m going to plant some”

I can see it now planting a pot of custard and a custard tree growing, branches brimming with Ambrosia pots. Now of course we couldn’t do that……however, we could entertain the idea of getting a cow! I spent some time looking into buying a couple of cows, believe it or not. With our own cows, we could try making our own custard, though it might not taste as good as Ambrosia. Let’s hope that Ambrosia sees this and decides to send us some free custard. That would definitely put a smile on one little boy’s face!!