Dinner and a Show Part Two

No, not the kind of Dinner and a Show I wrote about yesterday, thank God! For those wondering if my wife reads this blog, the answer can be found in the comments of yesterday’s post, where she corrected me. She goes by the name Perfect Non Hormonal Wife, in reference to another post I’m too lazy to go digging up a link for.

Anyway…

Tonight, my wife, son, E, and myself went to dinner at a Japanese steakhouse.  This is the second time my son has been to one of these restaurants (I think – a correction shall be forthcoming if I’m wrong – just check the comments) but the first time since he was old enough to articulate as well as he is doing these days.

We sat at the hibachi grill and when the chef came out and put on his show which involved knife spinning, fire and flipping of various foods. My son’s eyes were glued to the action!

E  got a bit nervous when the chef created a big fireball and looked at me with a worried look and grabbed my shirt sleeve. Very adorable.

Dinner and a movie

Later, we came home and I popped in the DVD, Cars which I rented from the library. This is the first movie my son has ever seen.

You should have seen his eyes when the movie first started. They were wide in awe as he watched the animated cars raced around the track. Not Clockwork Orange wide, but wide eyed in the same childish awe as he displayed during dinner – just taking things in, amazed.

During a few scenes, he called out, “woah” and “oh!” and then held out his hands in a confused manner and turned to me as if to ask, “what happened?” – all of it adorable. The movie was much better than I would have guessed. Not sure why I was surprised, Pixar has done nothing but good movies to date.

I should note that E didn’t officially see the whole movie as he fell asleep before it was over.

Updates from around the web…

Tara mentioned BloggerDad in her post Monday which honored… well, blogger dads. Thanks, Tara!

Ron over at Clark Kent’s Lunchbox also mentioned my blogging and cartooning work in his post here. Thanks, Ron!

For those of you not following my exploits over at BlogToFit, I lost five pounds this week and six the week before. In total, I’ve lost 16 pounds since November 19.

Over at I Draw Comics, I posted a new Todd and Penguin comic in which I explore one of my favorite new food finds, pancakes in a spray can.  I also posted a new Taking Up Space comic, which is a wee bit cynical.

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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