somewhere along the line i have allowed myself to become a short order cook at dinnertime. its terrible and sets a bad precedent. i know this. i let everyone know that when we moved into the new house, that i would be making one dinner, those who ate it would be allowed to have dessert, if in fact it was a dessert night. those who chose not to eat it would sadly be hungry. i also told f., my chief picky eater, that he could choose what we eat for dinner two nights a week. so far this plan has been failing miserably. but i will not cave.
last night i had made breaded chicken sandwiches for jon and i, and for the kids, just i cut up the chicken. we also had cheesey potatoes and green beans. as far as i am concerned cut up breaded chicken is essentially chicken nuggets, am i right?! so here is how it went down when the kiddos came to the table.
m&k were strapped into their brand new booster seats and proceeded to sniff their food and push their plates at each other. as if to say, i am not going to eat it, you eat it. this little game ultimately ends in plates being hurled across the room and demands for "sauce." m. did appease me by eating a green bean, which he proceeded to chew on for the remainder of dinner. f. was finding every excuse in the book to not come to the table. finally when he does come to the table he says "oh gross - i am NOT eating this!!" he was then told that it was in fact dessert night and that our wonderful former neighbor had brought us a yummy chocolate and peanut butter pie that looked delicious. but sorry, not dinner, no dessert. now mind you, i am not being a total hard a$$. the rule is you have to try everything on your plate, not clean your plate - pretty sweet deal i think.
so f. proceeds to whine about how disgusting dinner is and what is this stuff on the green beans (salt, pepper and parmesan cheese - i know highly offensive!), etc. finally after having enough of it, j. sends f. to his room. honestly i forget the straw that broke the camels back, because we are having night after night of this drama. in the end f. had to be carried to his room.
ten minutes later, he opens the door and says, "come on, you guys have to give me another chance!" at this point, i had already cleaned up dinner and thrown away the contents on his plate. j. goes up stairs to have a heart to heart with f. a few minutes later j. returns and says the deal is f. is supposed to apologize, thank me for making dinner, eat a green bean and then he may have dessert. so when f. comes down he says to me "thanks mommy for making a delicious dinner!" heartfelt of course, because he didnt taste a single bite of it. so i reply "you are welcome, is there something else you would like to say to me?" and f. says, with a sly little grin, "yes mommy - you are beautiful". and so of course, moments later he was eating dessert.
