Have you ever had the dinner battle at your house? We have...numerous times. Mostly with our 3 year old, but last night was little dude's turn. You see... I have always said that I will never make separate meals for my children, this is what we are having for dinner you eat it or you go hungry (harsh I know). Well, then Bennett comes into the picture- when he was born he was extremly allergic to milk...even at his first birthday he broke out in hives while eating his ice cream for his party (sad I know). So- whenever I made anything to eat for our family, if it had milk in it I had to get him something different. Within the past month I have noticed that the reactions are no longer there...he ate macaroni and cheese for the first time and actually loved it (as to the previous time when he broke out in severe hives all over his face and mouth). You can imagine my joy when I realized that dinner will once again only be one meal...
Last night I made a very simple dinner...chicken on the grill, carrots, and rice. We sat down and started eating-Bennett sucked his carrots in like he was a vacuum and then looked at us and told us he wanted down. We decided we weren't going to allow this (usually he would get down, go play, and then come back 20 minutes later looking for a snack...something other than what we had eaten for dinner) so we said no you have to eat your chicken (this is at 6pm). At 6:15 he starts yelling because we won't put him down so we turn his chair towards the wall. From that point on every about 10 minutes we would ask "Are you ready to turn around?" His answer "yeah". We would turn him around and tell him to eat his chicken... "NO"... Ok, so we would turn him back around to face the wall. This went on throughout dinner (45 minutes...including clean up time) throughout Family Home Evening (yep we left him in his chair...30 + minutes) and then after having a grand ole time with FHE we went to the kitchen to have dessert. I think that he finally realized that we weren't going to give.... we meant business. So as we are sitting there eating our pineapple upside down cake (which was delicious.) when all of a sudden we hear these monstrous chewing noises and he is stuffing every piece of chicken in his mouth with his chubby little hands. It took him literally 35 seconds flat. After he finished he was turning to look for us saying "mama....dadda.....done" and it was 7:30pm. What a stubborn little boy... but after finishing he did enjoy dessert...and lots of loves just so he knew that we still loved him.
It only took us 90 minutes...boy we are REALLY mean parents...
