Well, This Has Never Happened Before

After an interesting afternoon of play that included a rubber duck and a cape fastened with a clothes pin, Joash and I had one of the worst supper preparation hours together, ever. He wanted to be held. He wanted me to make a wagon from the play dough. He was hungry and decided one of the bars cooling on the counter that Wilbert needed to take to church tonight would be good and stuck his fingers right in the middle. We had more tears and screams and tantrums in one hour that we usually have in a week. And I was working with raw chicken most of the time.

I was very relieved to see Wilbert come home today and so was Joash. He was a completely different boy as soon as Daddy walked in the door.

And then it was supper time. Joash doesn't usually eat supper very well. It has been getting a bit better as we now make him eat a bite of his vegetable before he can have the bread or fruit that he wants. So we have felt like we have made some progress.

Tonight's meal was Chicken Parmesan with pasta and broccoli. Really, nothing in the meal that Joash usually likes to eat or has eaten in the past. We put a bit of everything on his plate, prayed and then Joash moved his spaghetti around a bit with his fork...and then ate some. Then he pointed to his chicken and asked, "What is this?" We told him chicken and reminded him that he likes chicken (he will eat breaded chicken) and he stuck his fork into a piece of chicken and ate it. And the one next to it. Then Wilbert showed him how the broccoli looks like a tree. He took Joash through an elaborate game of setting up the tree, chopping it down, putting it in the wood stove (Joash's mouth) and making it go away like the wood stove does. They did this with every single piece of broccoli on his plate. Had there been more broccoli, I am sure he would have eaten more, but we had finished it off by that time. Wilbert and I just looked at each other with disbelief throughout the meal. Who was this child?

Now, no promises on his part of eating any of his supper tomorrow. But I am happy that he had a well balanced supper one day so far this week. After a rough afternoon, it certainly made this mom a happy one.

Comments

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