Just trust me, it is.
Thursday is my self-appointed night for Spinning, but I am being uncooperative. The topic this week is Our Worst Post Ever. Not only do I have too many to pick just one, but I don't want to point them out. Not even to make fun of them.
Instead I think I'll describe (the short version) how dinners have been going at my house lately. We've rearranged my living room, which is a good thing, but it means that the girls can't watch a video during dinner. Some of you are thinking "Yay! What the heck was she doing letting her children watch something during dinnertime?" I can't blame you, but it guaranteed they would mindlessly eat their food 95% of the time. Now that they're paying attention to what they're eating? They've suddenly become more picky and have a hard time focusing on the business at hand.
I tend to take whether they eat or not in stride, usually because I'm trying to sneakily read a book down at my end of the table, so I'm only looking up once in a while to make sure that nobody is choking. Or maybe the girls and I are being silly, and why eat when you can be silly? I just figure that I've made them dinner, I've given them several different foods on their plate, if they haven't eaten anything by the time David and I are done eating (and we aren't inhaling, this is a leisurely process), that they must not be that hungry. I'm not making any alternate menus, and they'll make up for it at breakfast.
But my poor David finds the whole thing excruciatingly frustrating. Which means meal time goes like this lately:
Rachel- Puts the food on the table, makes sure everybody has everything they need, gets everyone settled, starts eating.
David- starts to sit down, then heads to the stereo to pick out some music. This is not a fast process.
Elizabeth- either starts drinking her milk or eats all or most of her veggies and fruits.
Lilli- starts drinking her milk, wrinkles her nose at the main course, eats the fruit, eats the veggies if it's broccoli, and starts saying "I all done! I all done!"
Rachel- looks up, determines everyone is still alive, finishes eating, continues reading book.
David-starts eating, tries to read own book, realizes that neither child is eating the meat on their plate and says "Elizabeth, eat your (chicken, etc.)! Lilli! Eat!"
Elizabeth- tries to negotiate
Lilli- pretends she didn't hear.
-Repeat this several times.
David- (in general) "DO YOU WANT A TIME OUT?"
Elizabeth- takes a bite
Lilli- pretends she didn't hear anything OR starts to cry and says to me "Daddy hurted my feelings!"
David- (moans) "Lilli, why won't you eeeeeeeeeat?"
Rachel- hands Lilli a napkin. Playing in your food gets messy.
Elizabeth- starts re-enacting a favorite scence from the Wonderpets Sleepover with Ollie.
Lilli- finishes her milk, does her parts of the re-enactment. Those girls, they're the next Abbot and Costello.
David- "THAT'S IT! YOU'RE BOTH DONE! YOU'RE NOT EATING ANYTHING ELSE TONIGHT!"
Elizabeth- finally eats a decent portion of the main course. Leaves the table.
Lilli- pretends she didn't hear anything.
End scene.
1 comment:
Subtract one child and that's my house.
John thinks it's too quiet without music so he'll try flipping through the tv to find a music channel even though I've paused something live that I was watching and THAT becomes a back and forth. And of course Sprite eats the veggie and the fruit and the ketchup, neglecting the reason for the ketchup, the meat.
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