VEGETABLE MUFFINS, PAST LIVES AND MIDDLE EARTH.

On Saturday Q and I went to our local markets to buy our certified organic, locally produced, pesticide free wanky produce because that’s the kind of mum I aspire to be.

Actually because it’s cheaper and better quality than the local grocer and I do try to support small businesses but that’s hard because none of them make cereal, toilet paper, toothpaste and ear cleaners, all which force me to enter the dreaded supermarket.

Anyway, there is a stall at the market that sells vegetable muffins and Q is a bandit for them.

Yesterday I hit on the brilliant idea that muffins are not in fact a feat of baking wizardry and tried my hand thereby – in true tight arse form – making a dozen for less than the $2.50 it costs to buy one of theirs.

You don’t know the genius you’re dealing with when you come into contact with me people.

Back at the markets, Q is sitting in her chariot, happily munching on her vegetable muffin, her doting mother lugging apples and pears in the backpack (bring on summer – cherries don’t weigh as much) when a lady comments on what a good eater she is.

‘Yes,’ I say proudly, ‘she comes from two very serious eaters.’

‘Does she eat everything?’

‘So far yes. Particularly leaves. She loves a nibble on an old dirty leaf.’

‘Ah, that’s because she’s a fairy.’

‘A what?’

‘A fairy,’ the woman repeats. ‘It’s plain to see by the way she’s eating that muffin. She’s definitely an earth creature.’

‘Right. Definitely.’

‘Yes, she’ll always have an affinity with soil and plants and animals. And you mustn’t deny her. That’s very important. She was a fairy in a past life. She’ll spend most of this life trying to get back to middle earth.’

At which point I stopped pushing the chariot and told the woman I was going to peel Q a mandarin.

‘You do that, she’ll like a mandarin. They come from trees.’

No shit Sherlock. (I didn’t actually say that out loud).

‘Have a wonderful, wonderful life,’ she calls out as she crosses the road. ‘I know you will if you just let her follow her true path.’

And that, my friends, is all I need to know.

Bugger the parenting books. Who cares about reading, writing and arithmetic.

My sole responsibility as Q’s mother is to guide her towards middle earth and let her eat leaves.

What could be easier than that?