Fun dinnertime

I had so much fun with the kids tonight at dinner. Usually dinner consists of "sit down, turn around, eat your food." But tonight the kids kept making me laugh.

First, we had shrimp with tails. Normally I buy tail-less shrimp, but I couldn't find any at the store. At the beginning of dinner, I showed the boys how to take the tails off. My little pile of tails was from me and Lisy. Then I noticed Benjamin had left his tails on the table, so I put them on my plate, too. When Samuel noticed, he had to add his tails to my pile, which included leaning across the table to reach my plate. This is honestly not an area where I thought peer pressure would matter.

Sammy was completely enthralled with the shrimp tails to the point that he forgot the rest of his dinner. He kept snagging more shrimp from the pan just so he could remove the tails (fortunately he did eat the shrimp).

Benjamin ate all his shrimp, and Lisy ate all her noodles (although neither ate the vegetables). I pointed it out to Dominic, and he suggested switching their plates. It worked! When they saw their favorite foods magically appear before them, they literally laughed and cheered and gobbled up the food. It was so funny watching their reactions.

As dinner ended I finished off my water but was still thirsty. Jokingly I said, "Waiter, can I please have more water? Too bad that doesn't work at home. At home I'm the waiter." But Samuel jumped up and said, "I'll be your waiter" and ran to the fridge. All the cold water was gone, so he brought back soda. Just as I was in the middle of telling him no soda, I saw that it was my favorite, so then I sheepishly agreed. And of course all the kids had to have some, too. I laughed watching them guzzle their water so they could have soda.

I don't remember what happened next, but somehow dinner ended with a lot of laughing and tickling and silly songs (ok, so I was the one doing all the singing). I blame it on the sugar high. Then, as each one finished, I would bounce them on my knees, which made them laugh even more.