It's Been A Long Time . . .

Since someone said 'I don't know how you do it, with twins'.  Last Friday I tortured at least 15 people, a poor waitress, and myself by taking the twins to a weekly breakfast with friends; an event I normally enjoy while the twins are in school.

Mirabelle threw all three pieces of my bacon on the floor.  Which is a serious misdemeanor in our house (as I love bacon--and at that moment in time, slightly more than my children).  Finn wasn't interested in eating, sitting or (thankfully) bacon.  He was, however, interested in climbing bar stools, running for the nearest exit and exploring any area with an 'employees only' sign attached.

We've finally reached a point where eating out is not nearly as enjoyable as past experiences (crying on the inside).  On the positive side, we can start eating outside again--apparently our little haven of coastal oasis is being spared by the nation's arctic blasts.

For those just checking in, I'm not a big fan of feeding the twins at home 3x a day.  More accurately, I'm not a fan of cleaning up after feeding the twins 3x a day.  However, things are slightly better, thanks to preschool!  Instead of the ritual plate tossing when they're done eating, the twins now simply push their plates back and say some incomprehensible form of 'all done'.

Of course, as I write this, Lady Belle decides to dump her cereal on her tray and toss the bowl to the floor . . .

Diary of a Whiny Baby

For clarification, that would be me, not my children.  I dread mealtimes, mainly the mess afterwards.  I'm three seconds from driving to Lowes and purchasing a huge roll of plastic sheeting--which I will promptly drape over the kitchen table, floor, walls and windows.

But then I envision the effort involved in putting the twins in the car, carting them through Lowes, then lugging my purchase and twins safely through the pea soup that is any parking lot in the coastal South right now and suddenly I feel sleepy.  Not to mention the fact I'd still have a mess after meal time, it'd just be on plastic instead of wood floors.

I've spent the better part of this week trying various approaches to mealtime management.  Here's a brief list:

• If a cup is dropped, it stays on the floor (Bad idea, this just makes Finn mad and thirsty in 20 minutes).  So my new approach is to give them their cups, then ask for it back when they are done.  It's working so far.

• The dogs stay outside while the babies eat so there are no distractions or encouragements to feed the dog (apparently no one liked this idea, including the dogs).  The new approach is to let the dogs sit on the floor and watch the babies eat.  The dogs learn their boundaries while the babies eat and the babies get to experiment with the freedom of feeding themselves and something else (everyone's a winner now).

• Giving the babies one food item at a time to monitor how much they eat of any given fruit, veggie or protein (they were on to me and knew I had something else, possibly better, waiting in the wings so a lot of plates were dumped).  Now there is one plate with all their food choices and if they want more of one item they can attempt to tell me (no guarantees I'll actually understand).

• Mealtime should be riddled with 'teachable moments' on good table manners and what is right and wrong (even I started thinking I was being a bore . . . not cool).   Now we just eat and play.

My new approach revolves around reminding myself these kids are barely 13 months old.  For them, mealtime should be fun and exciting because there are new tastes and textures to explore.  For now, we're going to shelve table manners, at least until they can talk or exhibit some clearer sense of understanding. 

The Natural Fork

I've come to the conclusion the twins were barbarians in a previous life.  This would explain why Finn enjoys throwing his fork on the floor as soon as I hand it to him, or why Mirabelle would rather use her fingers to pick the food off the end of the fork instead of sticking the fork with food in her mouth.

Perhaps my children are natural geniuses; because honestly, why do we really need forks in the first place when we already have two perfectly good hands?  It apparently defies simple logic and I'm not sure I can fault my children for questioning why Mommy is making dinner so much more difficult than it really ought to be.

I'm not alone on this matter, most of Western Europe felt the same way in the 11th Century, roughly the time the fork was introduced as a proper meal time utensil.  One clergy man even went so far as to write:

"God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks - his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating." 

Excerpt taken From Hand to Mouth by James Cross Giblin.

So now I'm presented with an even more complex dilemma, will my children go to Hell for using forks?  Will I meet them there for forcing such demonic behavior?  Frankly, I'm baffled the Tea Party movement hasn't jumped on this one pushing to make fork use unconstitutional.

Is it already time to play the 'Because I Told You So' card--or should I start with the truth?  It would go something like this:

Some snot-nosed Byzantine princess married an Italian dude and refused to eat with her fingers (I know, right!?!).  Then it became a status symbol to own a fork and actually use it during meals.  Now today it's a sign of civility, can you say Ci-vil-i-ty, Finn?   

So, here are your choices.  You can eat with your fingers (probably go to Heaven) and get picked on by the other kids at school or you can learn to use your fork properly and pick on all the kids who use their fingers.

Final note, parenting is hard work.