What we do

Dinner at our house takes FOREVER. Seriously - 45-75 minutes. Becky and I of course are fast eaters and have cleaned our plates in about 10-15 minutes. But not Ally. She dawdles and chews so s-l-o-w-l-y I can hardly stand it. Most nights she takes a potty break in the middle of eating which extends the time too. Its just killer for Becky and I. We have a deal that one of us can get up and do something (laundry, dishes, other chores) but one of us has to stay at the table with Ally. Truth be told I think the easy job is the chores. Its just agonizing to sit with her and try and talk, but of course she won't respond if her mouth is full, which is most of the time. I have heard of people setting a timer for the kids to eat in a set amount of time. But Ally needs to eat and if we said dinner was over in 30 minutes she would be ok with that. She really just doesn't care that much about food or eating. Dessert is not even an incentive. If we say "eat your carrots (or yogurt or even chips) and you can have dessert" she frequently say "that's ok I don't want dessert" and will stop eating. But if we sit with her she will eventually finish her plate and sometimes a bowl of cereal too. One night to pass the time Becky decided to count how many frosted mini wheats (AKA "shredded wheat" in our house) they are in a box.

Can you guess? Becky guessed 70. I guessed 100.

We were both wrong. This box had 198.

And Ally - she was eating her Greek yogurt, baby carrots and wheat thins for dinner. And making faces at mommy while I tried to take a picture of her!