Feed me, Seymour!

As I've said before, Andrew ate for the first 11 months of his life. Constantly. He has slowed down with age. Many nights he doesn't eat dinner because he's not hungry. But his Must Eat Now essence remains. This week it has emerged twice, causing me a little embarrassment and a lot of amusement.

The first was Saturday evening. After a light dinner and a bath, we drove to see Kathy, Dan, Hannah, and new baby Maya at their house and to give the girls their gifts. Hannah is almost three. Maya is 5 weeks. Kathy and Dan might have gotten a combined 4 hours of sleep the night before if they were lucky. So it was supposed to be a short visit. Kathy had to go pump, so we stayed longer than I had intended just so we could be sure to see her and say goodbye. Then some more of their friends dropped by with their two young boys. We were going to go, but Kathy assured us we were not causing any extra chaos. So we stayed a little longer so we could meet the friends. The boys came. Hannah hostessed. Andrew played with the three of them for a couple of minutes, then came out in the living room area to wander around and explore a bit. He wasn't hurting anything and seemed content, so I didn't think anything of it. I noticed he pulled a folding chair out from the extended dining room table (oh yeah, Kathy and Dan had hosted a huge family dinner on Christmas Eve, which surely refreshed them and didn't exhaust them at all). I figured he was just moving furniture as he does wherever he is. I heard him repeating "naa! naa!" in the background, but as any parent of a young child will tell you, unless the kid is screaming that scream, one often tunes the babbles out. Fast forward about 3 or 4 minutes: Andrew has climbed into the chair at the table and is still saying "naa! naa!" Snack, snack. I guess that dinner was too light. Kathy gave him some goldfish, which he happily munched while listening to the adults talk about whatever we were talking about and ignoring the kids and the Eden-esque playroom from which he normally must be bodily dragged. As he quickly neared the end of his first course, I weighed which would be more embarrassing -- asking an old friend for more food for the kid or watching the kid throw a holy tantrum while screaming for naa! naa! Fast forward another couple of minutes: second, third, and fourth courses of American cheese, grapes, and more goldfish. By this time Hannah and the boys had come to see what was going on and were also having snacks. And Kathy and Dan were still awake, presumably not by choice. Thankfully they both love kids and apparently don't mind moochers.

The second was this morning. School is closed this week, so Andrew's partaking of back-up daycare. We call it The Back-Up, as in "Let's go play at The Back-Up!" Back-up daycare is provided by a regular daycare company that has a couple of locations that just service kids whose regular care providers aren't available. They contract with a bunch of businesses, including mine, and the business offers the service as a benefit to its employees. It's wonderful, and Andrew loves it. LOVES it. Anyway, this morning I was getting his breakfast ready at the counter at The Back-Up. I had asked him if he wanted to come eat his breakfast at the table, and he ignored me to play with all the cool new toys in The Back-Up. The Back-Up is like toddler crack. But I digress. I finished cutting up his hard-boiled egg and tearing up his American cheese, my back to the table, and turned to call him again. No need. Andrew had already taken his place at the table. Taken another kid's place, actually. And was eating the other kid's breakfast. The other kid had announced that he didn't want anymore and was currently visiting the potty, so Andrew was arguably justified in deeming the cereal bar and grapes abandoned and up for grabs.

What can I say? He's a Davidow. We eat.