A TASTE OF MY OWN MEDICINE

Ethan often loses interest in eating before he's gotten much into his stomach, which is what happened the other morning. I tried every tactic in the book and my final attempt was to use a modified version of the "train/plane" method. In this method the food onboard the silverware pleas to find shelter in his confines of his mouth. Clearly this old dog hasn't learned any new tricks (meaning me), but I thought the cries of "HELP ME" from the food would surely open the hatch. It didn't, so I left him at the table and started to unload the dishwasher in hopes that he might decide to eat something on his own. Two minutes later he was making airplane sounds, zooming his fork through the air saying "help me". What do you know, one fork full of food sailed smoothly into his mouth. Sweet victory, albeit short lived - but one fork full is better than none.

Fast forward to this morning. Ethan requested cereal for breakfast, so I happily obliged him. I sliced some bananas and put them into a container to the side of his bowl so he could eat them at his leisure. When I sat down to eat my cereal (which was exactly the same kind that he was eating), he lost interest in his own bowl and turned to partake of mine. I shared until my bowl was empty, and then I handed him the bowl of bananas. He took one look at them and said "NO WAY". I decided that he'd probably do better consuming his fruit if I gave him a small big person fork. He ate one or two slices and then pointed the fork at me and moved it towards my mouth saying "HELP ME!". As you may know from my previous posts, I can't eat bananas. (For the record, it's true that I'm capable of EATING bananas, but I never do because I don't LIKE them.) What was I to do in this instance? Yup - I opened the hatch and let the banana slice fly right in just to set a good example. I managed to get the slice of banana down with a smile and then strongly encouraged Ethan to put the bananas in his own mouth. I couldn't help but laugh everytime Ethan put a slice of banana onto his fork after that...I must admit - the kid got me good.