A Difficult Diner

While there are times that Brianna will sit and enjoy a meal heartily, the majority of meal times she's as flighty and fidgety as a bird. The slightest distraction or interruption usually means she's done, too busy to be bothered with eating...

Last night as we were having dinner she happened to spot the extra set of fingerpaints. (I'm not quite sure how she saw them since they were perched on top of the hutch, up high, but, of course, little x-ray eyes spyed them there.) So, naturally, she was immediately disinterested in her food. "Mommy, fingerpainting time!" she screeched. "No, it's dinner time. We're not going to fingerpaint right now." I told her. "Mommy, fingerpaints. I need them okay?" (This is her new arguing tactic. If she gets denied something she claims to "need" it.) "Eat your dinner first and then we'll see about finger painting." I said. Surprisingly, no tantrum followed after this. Instead, she just started picking at her food. She picked up a slice of green pepper (we were having a chicken stir-fry) and said "Mom, what's this?" "It's a pepper," I answered. Then she took a bite, spit it out and told me "Don't like it!" (Despite the fact she'd been eating them just fine only 2 seconds ago.) She grabbed up a piece of zuchinni after that. "Mom, what's this, pepper?" she asked. I replied "No, that's a zuchinni baby." "No, not kee-nee," she informed me. I guess that showed me for telling her no fingerpainting. Then, as further paybacks, she grabbed up a long noodle and held it like a hostage over the side of her tray, over the carpet. "Don't you dare drop that," her daddy said. Of course, she only smiled and lowered the noodle some more. "Brianna, put that right back on your tray. We don't throw noodles on the floor," Daddy told her. Finally, with a sly smile to let us know she was doing it because she wanted to and not because he told her to, she did put it back on her tray and then said loudly "All done!" I guess she got her point across because we let her get down.

Meanwhile tonight we had tacos for dinner. Not having had a very good nap, Bree was cranky and at first refused to sit down at all. Finally, after much cajoling she did sit down and was actually enjoying her taco, dipping each bite into her ketchup. This was all fine until for some reason she didn't like her milk or the sippy cup it was being served in. "Mommy, purple milk!" she demanded. Not knowing what the heck purple milk is I said "You want a purple cup?" "Okay," she said. So, I rumaged around, trying to find a purple cup but, no luck. "How about a green sippy cup?" I asked. "Nope," she replied. "Oh, I know, here, you can try drinking your milk out of a big girl cup today," I offered. "Okay," she said again. I grabbed a non-purple, toddler-sized open-top cup and poured her milk into that. Of course, it took her about all of a minute to realize that with an open cup she could blow bubbles into her milk, as opposed to sucking it out. So, while Travis and I tried not to laugh or pay attention to her at all she spent 5 minutes happily blowing her milk into a froth, over the edges of the cup, and everywhere, occasionally pausing to lift her head and laugh hysterically with milk dripping down her face. But, with all that milk everywhere, inevitably the cup and her hands got a little slippery and she dropped the cup onto her tray where it spilled over. The tray actually contained most of the mess, but Bree was still upset. "My ketchup!" she said, all dismayed. "It's okay, we'll just clean it up Brianna," we told her. This didn't help though and she burst into tears. "Oh," I said, "Don't cry over spilt milk!" Then I busted up laughing that I'd actually said that. (There's something wrong with me, there really is!) Well, we wiped it up and moved on with our evening.

I remember the days when we actually used to just, you know, eat our food at dinner. Although, meals were a lot less interesting then. Oh well....