over one year ago i confessed that i disliked feeding my children.

interestingly, despite a year where the babies have changed a great deal (the vomitting has ceased drastically, they now walk, sing and babble), some things have not changed.

they still don’t have hair, and i still don’t particularly enjoy feeding them.

in particular, i don’t enjoy being with sebastian while he is eating.

HE. IS. SO. SLOW.

it is agonising to be around this little blonde dude during mealtimes.

he does everything but eat. it is so annoying. and half the time it is my fault because we get to talking and then next thing i know 20 minutes have passed and he hasn’t lifted his spoon or he is plucking choice items off his plate with his fingers and placing them into his mouth sporradically.

it is enough to drive me insane. am i not meant to talk with him? where is the balance between eating and having a proper dinner hour? if he eats, he isn’t talking, but the minute i give him a break from eating, he manages to turn it to a 20 minute break from eating the food. it stuns me how much i dislike eating with him.

i give him credit, he does have manners…that’s one of the things i love about sebastian getting closer to his fourth birthday…i am seeing ROI for the endless hours i spent repeating please, thank you, excuse me and i beg your pardon. his table manners are good, he doesn’t talk while chewing. the problem is, he prefers staring off into space, or getting up and racing down the hallway to show me the book he wants me to read him at bedtime, or picking a piece of cat hair off his leg to eating his dinner.

at restaurants, he is much more enthusiastic about eating, and food disappears on a fairly regular basis, especially when he knows we are holding back the chips until his plate is cleared. but at home..oh, many, the AGONY. the forever agony.

i have considered timing him, giving him a reasonable set time for meals, but when i mentioend this to a friend i was informed that i was teaching him bad eating habits by rushing him through a meal and he would be obese and never get a girlfriend and it would all be my fault that he had a terrible life. gah.

instead, he knows that when he gets up from the table, that’s it, meal time is over. unless it is to do a wee-wee. so then, we get to live through the pleasure of being woken up the next morning at 5.30 with the cheery,

mummy, i want my bweakfast now. i’s so hungwy. 

it’s not that he is full, he doesn’t start eating, so he can’t be full. and i know what he is eating on the playground isn’t enough to fill him up. it’s not like i am discouraging him to chew his food…he doesn’t get that far. fork does not reach mouth. its not like he dislikes his food, although chances are it would taste better warm.

i am in good company, if that is ANY consolation. his teacher, the beloved michelle, has commented that sebastian is having trouble concentrating at school during the morning routine of setting out diary, removing outdoor coat and shoes, hanging up knapsack and bookbag, putting on indoor shoes. she gives him time limits and sometimes has to walk him through the routine. easily distracted, she says.

his distraction is driving me to distraction.