Dinner AND a show!

I remember a time that I used to be able to eat dinner while it was still hot.

I’ll admit upfront that I’m (as my wife says) weird about food. I love my food to be piping hot. If you could find a way to bring the food from the oven on fire, I’d probably enjoy it even more. I’ve even contemplated investing in a hot plate to keep my food hot as I eat it.

Having hot food and a toddler do not go hand in hand, however.

Here’s a typical dinner at my house.

6:01 p.m. – Dinner is served. E in his highchair, mommy and daddy sitting at the table.

6:04 – E begins kicking back and forth on the chair because he likes the LOUD thud sound his shoes make. At that point, we remember to take off his shoes.

6:05 – E throws his fork across the room. He has an amazing throw for a 21-month old.

6:06 – TIME OUT. E has to sit by himself for one minute in a corner of the dining room, during which time he cries while looking up at us. It’s heartbreaking and a bit annoying to eat while someone is crying.

6:07 – Time out is over. Back to the highchair.

6:10 – He holds some food in his fist as we coax him NOT to throw it and to EAT as we mime eating and rub our tummies saying “Mmmmm”

6:10:27 – He throws food across the room

6:11 - TIME OUT Number Two. Mommy takes his fork away.

6:12 – Back to the highchair.

6:14 - Cries because he wants to eat with his fork. “Okay”, we say, “but you can’t throw it.”

6:15 - WHACK, he throws fork.

6:16 – TIME OUT. More crying. Hey, you think I like having to put you in time out? At least that’s what I’d like to say.

6:18 – Back to the highchair.

6:20 – at this time, The E Show begins. For those of you unfamiliar with the E Show, it stars none other than my son as he plays to an imaginary audience who enjoys as he giggles, makes faces and puts food on his head. It’s pretty adorable, but we try not to encourage dinnertime antics.

6:21 – My wife and I try not to look at him. If either of us happens to laugh, we cover it up so he doesn’t see. Sometimes we don’t do such a good job, which of course causes him to laugh and smile even MORE.

6:25 – E cries for fork.

6:26 – We give him fork.

6:29 - Content with the fork, E decided to throw his sippy cup across the room where it explodes in a lovely splash of milk meets carpet!

6:30 – TIME OUT.

6:31 – More crying. This time it’s me, as I clean up the milk.

6:32 – Back in the high chair.

6:34 – E doesn’t want to sit down. Now he is crying and saying “hold you” over and over (code for him wanting to be held by “you“). He wants to be held, despite not having eaten more than a small bit of food.

6:35 – I never thought I would be one of these parents, but I wind up playing “here comes the airplane” game with his food, “flying” it into his mouth, so he will eat a decent amount of it.

6:40 - Wipe him down to get off the surface grime. Rush him to tub for the rest of the cleaning.

6:41 - My wife and I each play the “I washed him last night” or similar card in attempt to get out of bath time duties.

9:00 p.m. – Once E is in bed, I go back and eat some hot food. Alone.

Note: I’ll be updating again tomorrow (Wednesday night) with another post.

Note: Thanks for Sean for catching the time errors when this first posted.All you RSS email subscribers now have evidence of the errors!

As always, thanks for reading,

david

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