Am I the only parent out there that gets totally and utterly exhausted just from sitting down at supper time? Tonight may have topped the cake. I found myself watching meal time unfold like I was in an Adam Sandler movie. It started out pretty normal....Lily, my 6 year old, looking at her soup with fear. "Mom...did you forget I'm a vegetarian?" My reply is always the same..."No Lily. You are not a vegetarian. For one thing, you live in Montana and vegetarians aren't allowed in Montana. Second, your favorite food is a meatball and that is definitely not vegetarian. Now eat your soup, please." The conversation continues like it does every supper time..."Mom...I don't like this soup". I reply with the same lie every time.... "This is your favorite soup, Lily. Don't you remember? You had it before and you said it was the best soup you ever had. I remember you saying that". Eventually, she tastes it and realizes it's edible. This happens during every single meal.
After a minute or two, I look over at Molly, my 8 year old, and I realize she is licking the dollop of sour cream off the top of her soup like a cat. No big deal. Molly often eats just the frosting off of cupcakes or the whipped cream from her pancakes. But then, after she licks all the sour cream out of her soup, she looks at me (with sour cream on her nose) and asks "More soup please!". Wait a minute....the actual soup hasn't been touched.
Me: Eat the rest of your soup, please.
Molly: No! More soup please!
Me: Eat the soup that's in your bowl.
Molly: More! More! More!!
This goes on for a while........
But what is odd about this whole dinner, is that right when I'm getting annoyed with the "I only want to eat sour cream for dinner" fight, I hear a soft "moo" sound. What??? Why is there a cow moo-ing in my kitchen? Sophia, my 10 year old pipes up "That's my cow. His name is Kevin". Apparently, she started playing with an app on the IPad called Minecraft and there's cows involved. So as we're trying to have a peaceful dinner, I randomly hear gentle moo's. I know we live on a farm, but our farm doesn't have any real animals on it yet. So the sound of a cow was just....interesting.
After a while, all my kids start eating like they're supposed to. Yes!!! Battle won and I haven't even raised my voice! But just as I'm starting to pat myself on the back..... "Burp! Excuse me, I'm a big fat hog". That would be Brady, my 5 year old. Well, we can't have a meal without bad manners. This just ignites the whole table to a riot of burps and toots. This is when I start to just zone out. I really do. I can't get through a single meal without this happening, even when we have guests over. Just when I think my husband is going to step up and start the lecture on good table manners, I hear "BBBBUUUUURRRRRPPPPPP". Yep...that would be my husband. I give up.
I will have to say that my family behaves exceptionally well in restaurants. Only the occasional burp from Brady that quickly gets a reprimand. My kids (and husband) do well when they're supposed to and are proper when they have to be. I guess that's all this mom can ask for.
