I’m NOT Eating!

My son actually tried to hold the argument that dinner “stinks” because “eating is stupid”.  Hold on, let me put down my pan of brownies while I try to recollect whether or not I was actually there for the birth of this kid.  “Eating stinks”, seriously?!?

I should mention – dinner was on the table.

After I rolled my eyes at my son’s comment, I watched as my youngest used a hair comb to imitate eating corn on the cob.  Her hunger had gone to her head.  We couldn’t eat just yet though, as I had caught wind of someone’s diaper gone south. 

A couple whiffs led me to the drawers of my potty-training three-year-old.  She told me it was her sister that “pooped hers pants” and that she didn’t know why I smelled something around her, adding “maybe you’s smell brownies or sumpin”.   Yeah, brownies, that must be it.   I don’t know what it is with this kid and her brownie references to poop.  Would it kill her to pick a dessert that doesn’t directly LOOK like the subject in question?

I digress.

So the diaper got changed, potty girl washed her hands ten times, and we continued to make our way to the dinner table.  The food had been sitting there for five minutes by this point.  I could only hope that I would have to circle the table and place everyone’s plate in the microwave one by one. Lucky me, the food had been steaming hot to begin with.

Soon enough the corn-on-the-cob comb gets thrown across the room and the self-announced anorexic boy continues his complaint about the world coming to an end in the event that he has to actually sit at the table and eat that food.  Meanwhile, the girls are circling their chairs like vultures and screeching for help into their seats. 

I was just about to lift the girls into their seats when I noticed the male version of Norma Rae had started a picket line, minus the sign, in the hallway.  He was rattling off the infinite # of reasons why he wasn’t going to eat.  One of them was that “it’s not fair”.  You got me.  It’s not fair that I provide you with nourishment to grow.  The drama ended with an ultimatum that if he didn’t get his precious little behind to the table that there would be no trips to the park in his future.   

I glanced back to the table and noticed that potty girl had retrieved the comb and was now standing on her tip toes and dipping it into her glass of milk on the table (giggling, of course).  The youngest was retracting noodles off of her plate and flinging them onto the wall.   I peeled the noodles off of the wall and threw them away- and then I flung the girls into their seats. 

When we all finally reached the dinner table my son yelled “Spaghetti!  My favorite!  AWESOME mom!  I’m TOTALLY eating ALL of this food!”

I still can’t believe that he didn’t smell the spaghetti throughout our entire debate.  And when he asked for a second plate of spaghetti four minutes later, I couldn’t help but imagine myself holding a sign that read “Kitchen Closed – Eating is Stupid.”