Suppertime is Rife with Material

As a general rule, we eat supper at the table together every night (that we are home). While I sometimes miss the days of vegging with a plate of food on the couch in front of the TV, supper at the table, as a family, without the TV is important to me. It hasn’t let me down. Every one of us seems to be full of things to share with each other at the end of the day. It’s enlightening and entertaining, and I can only imagine it will get better with time.

Last night, Luke was fuss-potting all over the place, letting me know he was too tired and too hurting to be content with supper for more than a few minutes (he still managed to shovel in a whole chicken finger). As Dave tried to stuff an ice sock in his mouth to help with the teething pain (and, er, shut him up), I had to explain to him that Luke no longer tolerates help with things he thinks he can do himself so he needed to offer the sock into his hands, not his mouth. He won’t let me feed him anything with a spoon or my fingers anymore. This started Sunday morning, with oatmeal. (See exhibit A, below.) So, I was explaining about Luke’s new quest for independence and how he’s learning how to do all kinds of things by himself, and Ella was sitting in her chair at the table, contemplating. Then she asked a question that gave me a glimpse into the workings of her mind.

“Can he nurse himself?”

Hmm. Thoughts were bouncing all around my own head like a little super ball as I formulated a response. I stifled my laughter at the mental image of him nursing himself, and told her no, but he can latch himself on.

Exhibit A - Fiercely Independent

Later, as she ate a plate of seven layer salad and potatoes left over from Memorial Day, she asked, “Mama, is this like church salad?” I said, “Yes, it is like church salad.” Then she asked – guess what she asked? “Why?” Thrilled at being asked a “why” question that had a new answer, as opposed to the standard “because that’s what her mommy named her” or “because that’s how God made it/her/him”, I said, “You want to know why? Because, I know the answer to this one.” She grinned and nodded, so I whispered, dramatically, “Because I make the church salad that we eat at church.”

Supper leads immediately to bath time, during which she scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed her little body last night. (I put out a new bottle of baby wash.) As I was prodding her to finish up so we would have time to read books, she stuck her foot up in the air, five pretty little piggies wiggling at me, and said, “Mama. Smell my feet.” And so I did.

And, because I cleared of f the camera, here are a few more pictures.
 
Dying Eggs, before he tried to climb out of the Bumbo (which is not supposed to be used on elevated surfaces)

Swimming in the front yard

 Napping on the front porch

Bedtime is exhausting