Today I locked myself and Yannick out for the second time within a couple of month. The the key was inside in the lock of the front door when the door slammed shut.

Last time this happened I paid £115 to get a new lock. This time my new contingency plan worked, albeit with a slight hitch.

After climbing over the fence from our neighbour's garden I found that the key for the back door that I had left with our neighbours after our first accident didn't work. I was totally flabbergasted. And I had get back over the fence… Not my favourite past-time.

In the end I phoned Frank who also had a key for that door and asked him whether it had the same number on it as the one I had here. It didn't, which gave me hope. After a long day being out at Hillier's Garden and a café Yannick and I drove all the way to Farnborough to pick up Frank at the end of his working day - and when we arrived back home I found after another fence climbing incidence, that, hurray, his key was the right one! Phew.

It's funny but dry runs really work to kindle an interest in unknown/previously disliked foods.

At Christmas time Yannick got a little cooker/oven unit which was accompanied by some plastic food:

• a burger bun
• hot dog sausages with rolls
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• a burger
• a lettuce leaf
• a sunny side up egg
• corn on the cob
• tomato slices
• a chicken thigh

Some of these items he had never seen in his life, for example a sunny side up egg or a burger. We also don't eat corn. However, he loves cooking, frying and baking all of these items.

Inspired by this I thought I could include him a little more in our real food preparation and he loves that.

Before the cooker, Yannick would only eat egg as omelette. I had tried scrambled egg and hard boiled egg but he wouldn't touch either of them. So after seeing him play, for the first time I made a sunny side egg and I gave him strips of toast to dip into the yolk. He LOVED it.

Today I thought I show him several incarnations of egg. We did a sunny side up once again, a normal breakfast egg (5 minutes) and a hard boiled one. As expected only the sunny side up one was excepted. I showed him the soft yolk of the five minutes egg and he finally accepted some of that - but only poured over his almost finished sunny side up egg. The hard boiled egg became only interesting after I put some sauce over it (in Germany we eat those with something similar to tartar sauce), but by that time he was too full already to appreciate it.

From the other plastic food items we have only had hot dog sausages which are like Frankfurters and he loves those. I already knew that broccoli wasn't going to be a big hit even though he loves serving his plastic broccoli. But at least he would try it again after playing with it.

I will have to try cauliflower cheese again, last time it was 'so so' with him. About corn I'm not sure as I don't like it too much and I think Yannick wasn't too keen on it either when he had it somewhere else recently.

And guess what, my child doesn't like baked beans too much. Just like Frank and I.

Things he loves:

• Cucumber.
• Apples. Sometimes kiwi. He used to like pears, have to try those again.
• Porridge with banana.
• Fruit purées.
• Rye-bread, crispy bread rolls, or toast with cheese, salami or paté.
• Camembert/brie.
• Sandwiches with salmon, prawns or cheese.
• Pasta/tortellini/ravioli with red or green pesto and crème fraîche.
• Pasta with smoked salmon (or prawns), courgette, and dill in crème fraîche.
• Rice with chicken in sauce hollandaise and if I'm lucky some veggies in there (mushrooms/courgette).
• Rice with braising steak and super sauce (with puréed carrots and red wine!).
• Rice with left over super sauce and chicken meat (marinated in soy sauce).
• Pizza.
• Fish fingers.
• Chocolate, biscuits with chocolate - but not cake (in general)!
• Smarties and milk chocolate buttons.
• Yoghurts and fromage frais.

We had the following dialogue today:

Me: (by accident speaking aloud) Oh, I'm bleeding.
Yannick: Where are you bleeding?
Me: Oh, ehm, hm, women bleed every month, there's nothing wrong with that.
Yannick: *confused expression*
Me: *thinking how am I going to explain this one to a two year old???* That's what we do when we are not pregnant.
Yannick: What's pregnant?
Me: *thinking have I never used that word before???* Ehm, when there's a baby in mummy's belly.
Yannick: What is that? (pointing at a sanitary pad)
Me: Ehm, that's like a nappy for grown ups. To make sure that mummy's underpants stay clean.
Yannick: How do the babies get in the belly?
Me: *should have expected that question sooner or later* Ehm, um, when mummy and daddy really love each other a baby will come.
Yannick: *another confused look*
Me: *frantically thinking about what to say as he's probably now thinking that we don't love each other* Don't worry, mummy and daddy do really love each other but there's currently no baby in mummy's belly.

At that point he finally changed the topic. Phew.

Anybody here who can give me some hints on how to explain this better? I am actually a great believer in explaining things as they really are (apart from Father Christmas :P).