We Play with Our Food

If you happen to drop by our house on most days around lunchtime, you might see Josiah and David sitting at the kitchen table, supposedly eating their food, but actually playing a hilarious game of Billy Sad (which is a contest in which one person tries to make the other laugh).  Or you might see boxes of cereal lined up down the center of our table; most likely David put them there to create a barricade between Tobin and himself.  (Sometimes they bother each other just by looking across the table at each other.)  You might hear an Adventures in Odyssey CD playing (adventures to eat by?), or my voice reading a chapter from A Child's History of the World to my boys as they munch their lunch.

In case it's not obvious, lunch is pretty casual around here.  Our evening meal isn't terribly formal either, which isn't surprising since I even tend to call it the country-folks'-preferred-term, "supper," rather than the citified version, "dinner."  You won't find multiple forks at your place setting, or a fancy cloth napkin...just plain, simple, abundant and (hopefully) delicious food...cheerful conversation...warmth and love.  Nothing fancy.

But lunch is even less formal.

One of the things we like to do to make lunch fun is to design pictures with our food.  I certainly don't do that daily, but every so often I come up with some special design that makes the boys smile.  The other day, however, they were the ones to make the picture--in this case, a happy face with chicken nuggets for the hair, dried cherries for the eyes and nose, cashews for the ears, and applesauce for the mouth.

Josiah's version:

David's version: (and lest you think my boys must eat like birds because there isn't much food on their plates, I'll let you know that at least several of them had seconds after they ate their first serving...we like to start small, with easily manageable portions, and then let them ask for more if they so desire)

Tobin's version: (which looks nothing like a face, but he still was happy for me to take his picture)

For us, this is just one of the ways that we try to turn mealtime from a necessary event into an opportunity to laugh and make memories.  It's simple really:  we just play with our food!  :)