Table Manners

You'd think that after a year of eating solid foods that mealtime would be getting a little less messy and a little more civilized.  In fact, however, I'd say that meals are messier than ever and the mess is getting more and more widespread as the girls get more and more coordinated and their throwing arms get better.

Each girl has their own messy eating issues.  Maya is actually fairly neat while she's eating but as soon as she's full she thinks it's great to see how far she can throw her food - or even more fun - see how long she can pelt me with her food until I notice.  Today we were almost done with dinner and we weren't paying Maya much mind because she seemed calmly and peacefully occupied with her food when I  noticed bits of pear flying across the table and landing several feet away.  She got at least five feet of distance on her pear throwing today - Josh was so proud.  

Kate has a whole host of messy eating issues - so many that I mostly just give up and let her do whatever she wants to with the food because  it seems hopeless at the moment to try to get her to be less messy.  Thankfully we have laminate flooring and a very hungry dog - so cleanup is generally not so bad.  Her current most disgusting and disturbing habit is to begin to chew a mouthful of food and then see something else that she'd rather eat (or decide she doesn't want to eat what she has in her mouth after all), spit out what she has in her mouth and use her fingers to wipe her mouth clean.  ICK!  She also likes to dump all her food on the floor, dump her water out of her cup, mix it with food and then splash in it (we've learned to remove laptops and other things we don't want covered in slime from the dinner table when Kate is eating)  and occasionally she'll even dump things on her head.   

Despite all this, they are making some progress.  Maya is getting good at saying "more pwees" instead of just shouting "MORE! MORE! MORE!" when she wants something and Kate is getting really good at using a spoon and fork.