I'm playing along with my friend, Jenn, documenting a year in photos. You can see all of the assignments I've done here or check out Jenn's here.
Assignment 29: Photograph your mealtime.
I know I posted a photo of us eating dinner not too long ago but I wanted to take another photo of us all at the table again eating lunch on the weekend (the light is so much nicer during the day). Meal times can often be challenging for me. I try my best to get everything ready at a decent time (and at the same time) and I try to make something everyone will like that accomodates my strict diet but not every meal is a win, that's for sure.
Helayna is Miss Wigglepants at meal time - getting her to sit still, stay on her chair and not be off distracted by everything else in the world seems impossible some times. If anything (paper, a book, a marker, a toy) is left on the table, she has it in her hands and is utterly distracted by it. But she's our really good eater. She often eats everything on her plate and asks for seconds. It's pretty rare for her not to like something (although there are a few things she really doesn't like).
Silas is even more challenging. He's not just a wiggler, he likes to save his biggest (and loudest) temper tantrum of the day for dinner time. He eats great at breakfast, okay at lunch, but dinner time is often hit and miss. Some nights he eats great, other nights it's a fight. If he comes to the table and sees something he doesn't like (or thinks he won't like) he freaks out - screaming, crying, yelling, flailing his body, the works. Usually one of us has to do some serious convincing to get him to eat his meal. Our rule is that you have to try one bite of everything on your plate. Most times, if we can actually get that one bit into his mouth, he will eat, at least some of, what is on his plate. It's just getting that first bite in him, that's the challenge.
I admit that I had visions of happy, peaceful meal times in our house before we had kids and we get those every once in a while but often meal times are stressful, challenging and not for the faint-of-heart, at least not in our house right now. It's not like meal times are a battleground in our house but they just require a serious amount of willpower and patience. Maybe someday they'll sit still and eat?? I don't know.
We finish off every dinner with Bible reading so the kids know that they have to stay at the table until we do our reading and memory verse and then they take their dirty dishes to the counter and can be excused.
And I have to share this photo too because it's a much more accurate depiction of a weekend meal in our house. The kids are supposed to be eating. Helayna's doing well but Silas is on my chair, standing up, playing with a toy. Daddy is emptying the dishwasher and I'm busy trying to take a photo. Just keepin' it real here, folks. ;)
