Saturday, July 22, 2006

When the kids learn to talk, they transform your dinner table into a Rude Restaurant

It occurred to me during dinner tonight when my son said for the second time, “I said I want more milk!” -- this time with more emphasis, figuring I must not have heard him the first time – that when your children grow old enough to talk, your kitchen becomes much like a rude restaurant. At this establishment, the surly patrons simply holler when they want to eat. They turn up their noses at the balanced, homemade meals prepared for them and complain loudly when their foods are touching each other. While their meals are being prepared, they charge into the kitchen and throw open the refrigerator door and while the cold air escapes all around them, they whine, “There's nothing to eat!” The chef stops chopping vegetables long enough to inform the impatient patron that dinner will be ready in a moment. (The host and waitress failed to show up for work today, freeing the diners to roam wild throughout the rude restaurant.) “But I want a Popsicle, now.” When dinner manages to find its way onto the table, I try to sit down and eat with the kids – even though this would be a great time to get the dishes done. I want to demonstrate for them, in a way I hope will stick, that mommies are people, too. People who need to eat, just like them. People who prefer to eat food that is still warm and on their own plate, as opposed to the cold rejects finicky children have left behind. So far, they don't seem to be catching on. They seem to interpret my sitting down to eat as the equivalent of a server stopping at the table to ask if everything is to their liking. It usually is not. “I need more juice.” “I don't like this chicken.” (My daughter assumes all meat is chicken.) “I need another spoon.” I get the impression that children are pretty sure their mothers were born to serve. We were pretty sure – while we were busy outperforming the boys in college – that we were destined to find a solution to world hunger. We had no idea what a challenge just feeding the group at our dinner table was going to be.

It only recently occurred to me why my grandmother's generation was always insisting we clear our plates and to be thankful we weren't like the starving children in Africa. They remembered a time when food couldn't be wasted. According to news reports, our generation seems to have let things swing too far in the other direction. We've cleared our plates clear into obesity. My friend's pediatrician has her all concerned that her kid's weights are skewing too high. You certainly couldn't tell this by looking at them. For my part, I'm just grateful my kids aren't dangerously allergic to peanut butter or wheat and that they actually like raw broccoli and that even though they aren't yet doing it politely, they are asking for more milk.

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