Please tell me I’m not the only one who can’t say, “It’s Dinnertime!” without thinking of “The Emperor’s New Groove.
Before I begin, I have to tell you how I fell off the face of the earth. I got sick. And then when I got better I was rushing around at the speed of lightening doing things that should have been done while I was sick.
I have quite a mental catalog of posts that need posting, but last night. Last night took the cake. I had to share it with you, and my only regret is that I don’t have a good camera. Right now all I have is my camera phone and it has a stinking delay! It also takes approximately 200 years to load because there’s approximately 2,000 pictures on it.
Anyway, thanks to my wonderful sickness, I haven’t wanted to really eat much of anything. Nothing sounded good for dinner, but since I HAD to choose, I chose Salmon Patties. Everyone in our family goes bonkers for them, and I had a bunch of fresh baby spinach leaves, so I sauteed them to go along with the salmon. I dished up dinner and gave the kids each only a few leaves of spinach, telling them they had to finish their spinach before they could have salmon.
My daughter gobbled her spinach up and moved onto her salmon like it was nothin’. It’s my son we’re here to see.
“I don’t wan’ it!”
His disdain turned to frustration.
Then full on anger.
He tried giving some to his sister, but she gave it right back.
Then he looked at Dad while Dad said, “Just eat one bite. Just ONE.”
So I took all of his leaves away except one… teeny… tiny… little leaf. Trenton picked it up, stared at it, and tried tearing it in half to make it even smaller.
Dad got up to get something out of the fridge. I looked away to help Lacy with her milk, and when we turned around…
He had DONE it! We were so proud of him, and we dished up his salmon right away.
Lacy was proud to.
She hugged him. He hugged her. She hugged him tighter. He tried to bite his food. He was, after all, starving. He couldn’t eat, he was getting hugged to hard.
“Stop!” He cried. His sister only giggled and hugged him harder… she was being sweet! Trenton loves hugs, right?
About that time Trenton started crying. REALLY crying. Not just fit-throwing crying. Through his tears, he shot his sister a look of utter pain.
She was shocked. She hadn’t meant to hurt him! She was trying to be nice! Just the THOUGHT that SHE was the one to make her brother cry… it was too much for her to handle.
Not sixty seconds later, the situation was contained. Reversed, even.
(That’s a brownie in his mouth, by the way.)
And that’s what happens at the end of a day where everyone played extra hard and NO ONE got any naps. After dinner, I settled down on the couch with my ever-faithful pile of laundry and started folding.
Not ten minutes into it, I wasn’t surprised to find my son completely passed out. With his little train in his hand.
I wonder if their teenage years will be sort of like this.
Power struggles, hugs, tears, brownies, toys, sleep.
But I’ll always be glad for priceless pictures:
Oh my gosh. This is hilarious. Your kids are priceless! Also, now I really want spinach.
Cory has a similar reaction to cooked spinach (He likes non-cooked spinach though. Weird.) and we can only wait and see if this is heriditary.
I’m so glad you appreciate it! I was laughing so hard.
This situation sounds vaguely familiar. (except that my kids would eat the spinach a LOT faster than they’d eat the salmon patties. And except for the randomly falling asleep part. I can count the times THAT has happened around here on one hand, and they almost all involve illness…) :)
Really?! I thought randomly falling asleep all over the house was normal! I did it all the time when I was little. I STILL do it (yes, I’ve fallen asleep in the middle of the living room floor more than once). My kids do it all. the. time.
I always preface it with “Our moment of triumph approaches!” and then follow it up with “It’s dinnertiiiiiiiime!”