Dinnertime

So, as most parents know, when you have kids, you can kiss your nice quiet dinner time goodbye.  When your kids are newborns, I swear the second you sit down to eat, they wail.

When they are toddlers, they want to snack on the move all day long.  They can't sit still for more than 2.2 seconds. 

Then they hit about 3 and suddenly all of their favorite foods are the most foul and disgusting things ever. 

Then they turn 4 and that pickiness continues, but it's sooo random.  What was gobbled up one night is highly offensive the next.

Ya, dinnertime is a struggle.  I lovingly call it the witching hour.  It is usually between 5-6pm, just before Jeremy gets home and I am trying to get some semblance of nutrition on the table while at the same time, the kids are whining, fighting, and begging for a snack.  The phone is ringing, the dog is barking...yadda yadda yadda...witching hour.

We have taken a hard line on dinner rules and here's our unbreakable rules...

• You have to try one bite of on everything on your plate.
• If you don't eat up your dinner, you don't get dessert.
• No snacks before dinner.
• What's for dinner is what's for dinner.  I am not a short order cook.

So here's a little example of how our evenings have been going lately...

---"Mommy, can I have a snack?"---"No, dinner is almost ready."---

---"But I'm starving!" ---"Good, dinner is almost ready."--- 

{repeat about 20 times}

Dinner is served.  The face says it all.

The complaining and getting up from the table and whining continues until we are done eating.  We start to clear the table, look over and voila!  Suddenly he is gobbling every last bite and says he loves it!  Go figure.

I ask him why he won't just eat when we are eating and he says sometimes he like to eat by himself.  That's great dear.  Thanks for making dinner time such an enjoyable experience.

Gotta love these little munchkins, without them our dinners would be so boring. 

hhhmmm...imagine that...