Just Imagine!

Mitchell comes up with some pretty interesting "what if" scenarios. Today, while finishing his lunch, he was contemplating a world in which his pesky mother didn't wipe or wash all the food off his face and hands after he so masterfully put it there.

After a sip of milk, (which completely covered his upper lip of course) he put some words to his thoughts: "Mom, what if we lived in a world where all wipes were sharp! And what if tissues were spiky?! And when you turned the faucet on, sharp spikes came out instead of water! Can you imagine that?"

I can imagine it, yes. I imagine your face would very quickly be unrecognizable from all the peanut butter and other food collected there.

Just Keep It Coming!

I am beginning to spend quite a small fortune at the grocery store every month. Every time I swipe my card, I think, "This just has to last us for a while now!" About 5 or 6 days later though, when I open my fridge and all that's left are a couple containers of left-overs, a zucchini, half an apple that someone gave up on before it was gone, and some condiments, I just can't believe we ate that much in a week! Unless Mitchell has resumed his habit of taking things out of the fridge and placing them in the garbage bin, the reality is that we actually are going through that much food! And my boys are all so young still! What am I going to do when I have three boys bigger than I am? Where will I keep that much food?

Today, as I tried to fill Mitchell's tummy, I got a glimpse of what it will one day be like to feed my ever-growing boys. We began with the usual: a whole sandwich, a yogurt, and an orange. When he finished that, he looked at me and said, "What else do you have for me, mom?" I then gave him a banana and a couple slices of cheese. "Can I have some more food, mom? I'm still hungry." Next, I poured him a bowl of cereal, thinking that would fill in the hollow spots. Nope. "What else can I have?" I finally gave him some strawberries and a mini bagel and told him he'd just have to wait for snack if he was still hungry after that. Well, he finished all that, washed it down with a full cup of milk, and didn't say anything else. I'm not sure if his tummy was finally full or if he just knew not to ask for more.

I really do feel like I spend so much of my time shopping for, preparing, serving, and cleaning up after meals! I basically have to just keep it coming and hope I'm not overfeeding them!

And as if the two big boys didn't eat enough already, this guy is working hard to catch up. Granted he is trying to gain weight and I wouldn't mind loosing some, but we often eat the exact same amount at meal time! Gotta love that jam face...

The Dessert is not Worth It!

Neither of my "big" boys are big fans of dinner.  It doesn't matter if we eat PB&J or meat and potatoes - they eat very little of it.  I think they really just aren't that hungry most nights, so I normally only give them small portions and hope they can get it all down with plenty of milk to fill in the hollow spots.  If they eat well (without whining, complaining, refusing to eat, taking over an hour, gagging, hiding food somewhere, or needing too much actual feeding from mom) they get some sort of dessert, like a popsicle or a bowl of yogurt or a little ice-cream.  

Well, tonight, I went out on a limb and made something new for dinner.  It had both things they normally love and things they  normally detest so I was hopeful it would all even out in the end.  It started out fine, but they lost momentum about 10 minutes in.  After 15 minutes, they had completely run out of steam and were coming up with all sorts of fun things to distract them from the goal, which was finishing their dinner.  Ben was telling stories and jokes.  Mitchell was sitting backwards, upside-down, feet in the air, food in a pile on the table... After a bit of this, we decided they only had a few minutes left to finish, or no popsicles.  With only a couple minutes to go, Ben furiously started shoveling the food in to make it under the time limit and get the prize.  Well, last bite made it in it time, but it only took another second for that last bite...plus all the rest of them to come right back up!  It looked like he threw up more than he had originally eaten!  In order to get that popsicle, he force fed himself most of his food in only a few seconds and it all ended up on his chin, shirt, pants, and my dining room chair.  Throwing up is a traumatic experience, so I think maybe we did not accomplish anything positive tonight.  He didn't get his dessert, and we didn't get him to actually keep down any dinner.  In the end, he didn't even care about getting his dessert.  He just wanted to get away from the scene of the crime.