Last Night at Dinner

When it comes to dinnertime and food, Daddy becomes a very focused man on one thing - eating. He is a little unfocused on the kids and table manners when it comes to dinner, so the job of teaching Parker manners and how to sit and eat properly fell on me. Once Parker moved out of the high chair and into the booster seat, he was sat next to me so I could teach him the way civilized adults behave at a table. Everything was going smashingly well; at least as smashingly as it can go with a 3-year-old named Parker, until he developed a recent inability to keep his tongue, food, or own saliva in his mouth. He is constantly sticking his tongue out onto his chin to lick some invisible substance there. I have this inability to deal with the mouth noises that accompany this tongue wagging and just the tongue thing in general. Its like some large amphibian-reptile grossness. Something inside of me snaps and I become a maniac, truly crazy. I think I see red, but I am not sure because I cannot remember what happens afterwards. I just recall something about "why your tongue?" and "napkins" and "this is not how civilized people behave." Obviously, mommy does not do a good job being a role model for civilized behavior all the time either. BUT she can admit when she is defeated and she knows her weaknesses very well. I gave up. Last night, I decided it was causing too much of a distraction for us to enjoy dinner any more with me flipping out about the insanity of Parker's tongue not wanting to stay in his mouth. His seat was put next to Daddy's seat last night with the promise that Daddy would pay attention to him, help him eat, and most of all, help him sit and behave. Here is what happened:





But don't worry folks, because sitting right to the right of the young, dancing Parker, who please note his salad was not touched, was his daddy, still eating happily away, not even noticing the dancing man next to him. His siblings all noticed though:




I guess if I really want to eat with civilized people in this house I will need to eat alone and I really don't think that would be much fun at all.

House Gnomes

My house has an incapacity for staying clean. Just when one room gets all picked up, vacuumed, and on the rare occasion dusted, I turn around to find it completely covered in toys, fingerprints, and dog hair again. Some days, I wonder why I even bother to go through the motions of cleaning at all. It does give a sense of relief and one moment of peace to see my house look nice. I like to think that the constant cleaning efforts will leave an impression on the little ones that they should pick up after themselves without being told 10 million times in a row to do it; however, it is an uphill battle. Not only that, they now have another house gnome that has joined in the mischievousness and messiness. She has learned to unload the dishwasher and open up pantries that have tired child locks on them. She loves to leave little "Indie messes" all over the place. Even the toy baskets are emptied quicker than they can be picked up. But really, when they are so cute making the messes, I cannot get that upset.