Dinner Time

         Today, Camellia refused to eat dinner, again. Somewhere in The Child's Handbook there is an exercise on testing a parent's limits by refusing to eat. I'm sure it says something like, "This exercise is to see how long your parents can last before they stop trying to feed you what they made for dinner and make you a special dinner because they're worried about your health, despite knowing that you will not die or lose weight if you do not eat three square meals a day."
         As per usual, at 4 o'clock pm I sat Cassia and Camellia down at the table, but tonight I made a special dinner. You see, Camellia has been refusing any dinner that is not macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, pancakes, yogurt or waffles, so in desperation to try and win this battle of wills I'm trying new things. Tonight it was PB&J made to be "Australian Fairy Bread" where you cut out a shape from the middle of one piece of bread then proceeding to make a sandwich, then fill the opening with sprinkles to make it fun and exciting. Add in "ants on a log" and mandarin orange slices and you've got a well balanced meal any kid should totally dig into, right? Of course not. After Camellia got down from her chair the second time I brought in the big guns. Yes, that's right, the booster seat with a buckle. I strapped her in as the screaming began. If anyone had been listening in from outside they probably would have thought I was trying to cut off her hand and would have promptly child child protective services to make sure all her limbs were intact.
         Cassia ate her dinner and I sat there, writing up a list of different foods to prepare in special ways to try and get her to eat fruits and vegetables along with her preferred foods, and eventually Camellia calmed down. She drank her juice, she even attempted to eat the sprinkles, before she realized little bits of jelly clung to them as she removed them and the screaming started up again.
         As she calmed down, she tried the sprinkles again, this time she ate them, though she had a suspect glare on her face all the while. She made sure I wasn't looking as she continued to sample the sprinkles. Once her juice was gone she requested more. "You may have more juice if you have two tastes of each of your foods. You have already tried your sandwich, so all you have to do is try your oranges and your celery."
         She picked up an orange and I dared to hope she would take a bite. Guiding the orange to her mouth, she stuck out her tongue and licked it. She licked it again, and again. Of course, that's when I got over excited and asked her if she liked it, to which I received a nod, so I asked if she wanted to take a bite. "No, I lick." A few more licks and she set it down. "You did awesome trying your orange! All you have to do is try your celery two times and I can get you more juice."

         After some persuasion and patience she eventually licked the celery and said it was good, but would only lick it one more time before refusing to do anything else with it. "Camellia, you tried all of your food two times, great job! I'll get you more juice now." At this point Jewel Plant was ready for his dinner, so one-handed, I poured another 3 ounces of juice into her cup, which she promptly swallowed without a breath.
         It was 5 o'clock at this point and Cassia said she was done eating. Having eaten all of her fruits and vegetables and half of her sandwich I agreed and told them they had some time to play before getting ready for bed while I finished nursing Jewel Plant.
         As he finished nursing I told the girls, "After I lay Jewel Plant down it will be time to get ready for bed." I proceeded to the bedroom and they rushed back into the kitchen. In the time it took to lay Jewel Plant down and get it, maybe 30 seconds (he's usually so good at going to bed), I'm sure the following conversation must have occurred.
         "Camellia, I'm going to eat your sandwich. Mama won't let you have it back because I have a cold sore and she doesn't want you to get one, so you pretend like you want another sandwich. She'll only make you a little sandwich because she's too worried that you'll waste it, but at the same time she'll be so excited that you might eat she'll leave all the ingredients out on the counter so she can make you another little sandwich when you finish the first. When she goes to sit down in the living room and take a break before getting us ready for bed we'll take our sandwiches under the table. As a diversion, you open the drawers and I'll grab the sprinkles. She'll only focus on you removing the place mats that she won't even notice I was gone. When she goes back to relaxing that's when we'll open the sprinkles and consume the whole container before she even knows what happened."
         And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I ended up cleaning up a million tiny sprinkles instead of reading more of the last installment of Odd Thomas tonight.