So today we took our lunch together a day early, Evie and me. I decided I was really hungry for Chinese food - something we had been eating during our last few Friday lunches together (except last weekend, when we were out of town).
Here's my conundrum:
My daughter likes Chinese food. She actually does. She'll eat peppery chicken til her head explodes, but only if I feed it to her with chopsticks.
She thinks its hilarious that I use twigs to shovel my food into my face hole. Of course, she must also participate in this or it is a tainted experience. So I feed her a few bites, then eat my meal. Mostly, she doesn't care and goes right back to eating French Fries.
Wait... I'm getting ahead of myself. Story is jumbled or something... let me elaborate here.
I fix her a plate of her own. For the two of us, its only a little over eight dollars to eat at our particular restaurant of choice. This nice little place on W. 10th Street. I sit my daughter down in a high chair, fix her a plate, fix my own plate, sit both down so she can begin eating, then get our drinks. After that, I'm able to sit down.
But not eat.
I feed her a few bites of things and she eats them off my chopsticks. Then she'll cram french fries in her mouth until she decides she wants a drink out of her cup. I usually tend to forget to bring her own sippy cup, so I pour her a glass. Well, you've ate Chinese food, right? Do you see lids on those cups at the buffet? Probably not. They aren't McDonald's, after all. So I stop what I'm doing and let her drink non-stop from her cup (usually Hi C, Sprite, or Orange Fanta). I have to hold the cup, or she can have a pretty big spill all over the table, something that has happened more times than I care to admit.
When she's finally done slurping her drink, she goes back to her fries. Now, keep in mind, she has other things she can eat, too. This particular restaurant puts out a pretty good spread, some of it American foods, too. That is, if chicken nuggets and onion rings are American foods. They are, right?
So she eats plays with the other food while I'm eating some peppered chicken, crab stuffed mushrooms, General Tso's chicken, some of that meat they put on a stick that I only assume is chicken, and a variety of other things. Sometimes Evie wants to try some more, sometimes not, but mostly after she's had her first order off my plate, she's done.
But she only eats the french fries. Oh, and a slice of garlic bread. And the donut things. She likes those.
Today I let her try a fortune cookie. I took the paper out in case she got the idea that it, too, was edible.
She seemed to enjoy that.
Slowly, she's starting to eat a little more, but mostly she just wants those Chinese French Fries.
Shaking my head in disappointment.
