Mealtime Progression

As we have arrived (fairly recently) at the mealtime seating arrangement we will continue for many years, I was reflecting back on all the various seating arrangements we've had on our journey here.

For the first eight years of our marriage we ate like this..side-by-side, calm - uneventful. (This isn't actually at our home it is at the B&B where we spent our tenth anniversary but you get the picture.)

Then we had Nathan and things changed quite drastically as we worked the mealtime of an infant into our schedule. He of course started out eating in his high chair. We put it in the kitchen because it was so much easier to clean up a tile floor underneath the chair than if we had set it next to the dining room table which was on carpet. Ain't he cute?We transitioned Nathan into his booster seat and moved the high chair out for a while since someone else had joined our family and would be needing it before too long.
Next came Benjamin in the high chair and Nathan in his booster seat right next to him.

We were fortunate enough to find a booster seat that matched Nathan's at a garage sale. Benjamin immediately loved being just like Nathan in his own seat. Here's a couple more shots we snapped as they dined this way for quite some time.

I think the thing I liked best about this stage was the fact that anytime we went somewhere else to dine we'd just take the seats with us and the boys would usually eat pretty well despite the distractions of being somewhere new since they were still strapped into the same seats side by side like always. This shot was taken in our church's fellowship hall at Benjamin's second birthday party.

Now we have finally arrived at our big dining room table all together. If I'm home alone with them I sit in the seat at the end. If David is dining with us he usually sits at the end and I sit next to Benjamin. Yes, the carpet under the table is quite difficult to keep clean (TGF dust busters) but it's worth it to be all together around the same table eating. I look forward to all the conversations and stories we'll share here through the years.

Nathan had counted that he had five pretzels left and was holding up five fingers to show me.
Benjamin in his usual monkey-see-monkey-do pattern held up his fingers as well. You can see him checking on Nathan out of the side of his eye to see if he's doing it just right.

Happy dining!

Yeah, Mommy!

The other day I was feeding the boys lunch and Nathan was not wanting to eat whatever I had given him so I was encouraging with a little positive feedback. I told him that if he ate a bite of his lunch then I would say "Yeah, Nathan!" This had worked in the past and was helping him along this day as well except when he came upon this thought - he said, "You take a bite and I'll say 'Yeah, Mommy!'" As cute as that was in and of itself, my parents just happened to be eating lunch with us that day and I thought my dad was going to fall out of his chair he was laughing so hard. I have to admit, it was pretty funny. The hard part was trying to keep a straight face and continue to encourage Nathan in his dining experience.

Here are some pics we snapped at dinner tonight. We were attempting to have them both smile and look at the camera at the same time. So much for that idea. This first picture is the closest we got. At least they're both smiling. (As you can see we did get those haircuts we'd been needing.)

You might think it wouldn't be possible for them to have a tickle fight while strapped into their booster seats. Well, you'd be wrong.

And last but not least here they are practicing for their first ride on the Texas Giant. Actually this is just some cute stretching.

Notice they're both wearing their lizard shirts. We'd been talking about lizards all day since they had those shirts on so for a special treat we went to Petsmart tonight when Dad got home from work. They had a blast looking at all the different critters - especially the lizards.