Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Nothing Is Ever Boring

Today I stopped and bought a couple pounds of shrimp to mix with some pasta for dinner. And so it all started. I try to involve the kids with the cooking of the meals, as they are both extremely picky, and, so I've been told, a hands-on technique should help them expand their menus- hasn't worked so far but I'll keep trying. The shrimp were a disaster. Corbin was PETRIFIED of them- it didn't help that Josh told him he was gonna put one down his shirt- yes, sometimes I feel like I have three children I'm trying to reign in. So Corbin was running around the house, screaming his head off. Brian was sitting at the table and had a little less of a reaction- a turning of his head, sticking out his tongue and saying "blech". I wanted him to touch it but I think he was convinced I was trying to get him to eat it- eyes and all. I couldn't stop laughing at the drama surrounding the little pink guys.

Finished making dinner and sat down to eat with my family. Brian immediately pushed his plate away with his "blech" response. Corbin immediately ate all the shrimp but just pushed the pasta around with his fork. I ate mine, it was heavenly. After Brian threw his shrimp on the floor and was prompted to clean them up he decided to keep trying to get down from the table to my persistance that he at least stay at the table while we ate. Suprisingly he said "banana" pretty clearly so we got a banana down and I gave him half of it. At this point we gave Corbin his half-hour time limit to eat his pasta to recieve garlic bread- Corbin thinks bread is a real treat. Brian swallowed his half of a banana in one gulp and started reaching for the next. I stopped him and told him he had to eat a 1/4 of a strand of spaghetti for another bite of banana. It took about 8 minutes to get him to do it- with me continuously repeating "FIRST this (pointing to pasta), THEN banana (pointing to banana)". We continued this process probably three more rounds before he started doing it on his own and up to eating two strands of spaghetti to each bite of banana.

I look over to Corbin's plate and it looks like he may have eaten a bite or two. I remind him of his time limit- he only had about five more minutes left. He started crying, he was sick (okay, then you need to go lie down until you feel better), that he was full (but he still thought he needed that bread), then he just started shoveling it in.

At this point I got up to crush up some melatonin to put in Brian's drink. He hasn't been sleeping again so I dug it out, hoping that tonight, I might get a full nights sleep (and here I am at 11 PM not able to sleep). I always have to put his drinks with supplements into cups with lids and straws as if he sees any particles in it he'll refuse to drink it. I grabbed a lid from applebees that has those four little triangles in the straw hole that you push down for the straw. Brian drank some and started playing with the straw. He pushed the straw down into the hole, which was promptly followed by his pointer finger. He tried to pull it out and those aforementioned triangles dug into his poor little skin. I removed the cover from the lid and tried to get it off, but everytime I pulled it it just dug into his skin more. He was crying so hard- and when my little guy cries from pain I know it's bad as he has such a high pain threshold.

Josh jumped up to get scissors to cut the lid off of his finger and Corbin started SCREAMING and CRYING REAL TEARS- the kid thought we were going to cut off his little brother's finger. We got the lid off and then continued to laugh for a good ten minutes over the ordeal. The drama that has just happened was just so over-the-top that is almost seemed surreal.

So in the end, Corbin finished his entire plate in the alloted time (in reality I think he went a couple minutes over)- I can not remember the last time he has finished a plate of pasta- and he got his garlic bread. Brian probably ate about 15 strands of spaghetti- a big feat for him. Brian's finger is intact. Oh and Brian fell asleep, on his own, in about two minutes of lying down- I'll let you know if he stays asleep all night (which is his real problem).

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