Calvin-Bowl

I swear I used to be rational. I used to have a reason for my actions, a plan to accomplish my intents. Then I had kids.

One of the most significant changes in your life after having children is meal times.

In the beginning it is fairly minor of a change. The kid either downs a bottle or distracts the husband while they eat.

Once the small person moves to mush you now have to wait to eat while giving them their supper. This involves putting 1/8 tsp amounts of mush into the mouth of someone who is enjoying the tactile excitement in discovering their tongue.

This continues until you can slap a cup of 'Cheerios' on the little table and they begin to feed themselves. And the cat.

My kids are now old enough to manage well on their own. They have the dexterity to both feed themselves and avoid stabbing mishaps with the others at the table. It is because of this that I expect the unreasonable.

I expect them to eat their meals.

The younger one gets tired of the table fairly easily. She is bored of sitting there by the time my wife sits for dinner. Every meal I repeat the mantra "Be quiet and eat. Stop moving and eat."

It might seem cruel to disallow discussion over the dinner table but what comes out of her mouth isn't discussion, it's like hooking up a voice synthesizer to a wireshark feed.

So as she staves off the boredom from a half hour of consuming life giving food I invent new rules for table manners in a way that would make 'Calvinball' appear rather linear.

The rules for our meal times include:
-> No toys at the table.
-> Wear clothes when eating.
-> No kicking.
-> No punching.
-> No yelling.
-> No rubbing food on the table.
-> No stabbing the plate.
-> Eat with your mouth closed.
-> Not too much ranch sauce on your potatoes.
-> No talking if you're the slowest eater at the table.
-> No having a second drink of milk.

This week's addition: No interpretive dance at the table.

You can thank the younger one for that. She had been forbidden from speaking but figured that full body sign language was still allowed.

The older one isn't so much an inspiration to create rules as she is an influence to pursue a child psychology degree.

One of her favourite foods is ribs. This is neat, as ribs taste good. Last night she saved her ribs for last, eating all other food on her plate. Then she picked up a rib, looked at it as Hamlet would a skull, and began to speak to it in soothing tones.

"Mmmmm, dead pig grease."

My wife and I responded with a worried look at each other. The child continued uninterrupted as her sister had exceeded her talk to food ratio for the meal already.

"This must have been a skinny pig. Skinny little pig. They must have hit parts off with a crowbar."

I must say that is the first time I have ever heard the word crowbar used in a conversation with one's dinner. My wife and I were now choking on our mouthfuls so she endured:

"I think the pig died from bone loss."

So that may explain the irrational regulations that are held to our board. It also explains several of my nightmares since.