Dinner with a 2-year-old

Most of the time, Jeff and I have dinner with our sweet Biscuit baby. But sometimes, like tonight, we have dinner with a 2-year-old. An obstinate, argumentative, whiny 2-year-old.

"Biscuit, eat your chicken nuggets," I said.

"Noooooo. That not chicken nuggets," Biscuit said. Technically, he was right. It was chunks of stir-fried chicken. But they were the same size as the chicken nuggets I make. The meat was the same consistency. I even sprinkled a little bit of panko bread crumbs on the chunks to make them look a little more like the usual chicken nuggets.

"That bite too big. That bite too big. That bite too big, Mom," he said, like if he repeated it several times, it would make me agree with him and tell him he didn't have to eat any of it.

"That one too hard, Mom. It too hard. That not nugget. It too hard." Honestly, it was excuse after excuse after excuse.

He did eat a bowl of pinto beans. He still seems to love most kinds of beans, well, as long as they're brown. No green peas, no lima beans, no navy beans. They don't look like what he considers beans to be. He wants pintos, crowder peas, black beans, baked beans or black-eyed peas. And that's good. I'll shove veggies in him any way I can.

Since Biscuit wasn't eating his chicken, Jeff reached over with his fork and stabbed a piece. When he got it about an inch from his mouth, Biscuit noticed. "NOOOOOOOOOOOO, Dad! That MY chicken."

"You're not eating it, so I can have it," Jeff said.

"I eat it. I eat it," Biscuit said. So Jeff stuck the forkful of chicken in front of Biscuit's mouth. Biscuit proceeded to take the chicken off the fork and put it on his plate. "I put it on my pate, Dad."

"If you don't eat it, I'm going to," Jeff said. "There's no reason to waste it."

That's when Biscuit took a couple of measly little bites of chicken. "Mmmm. That good," he said. But of course, he wouldn't take another bite after that.

We've also been struggling with eating utensils. When he's not using them to eat, he waves them around, rubs them through his hair, bangs them on the table, all the things we don't want him doing with eating utensils. Now, it's like those lessons have leaked out of his little head. I bet it was 14 times that I said, "If you're not using your fork and spoon to eat, put them in your plate or on the table." He would set them on the table, then not two seconds later, they'd be waving through the air again. I came really close to saying something akin to, "If you don't put that fork down, you're going to put your eye out!"

Yep. Dining with a 2-year-old is a whole different experience than eating with my sweet Biscuit baby.