Supper with a side of drama

I made turkey croquettes, mashed potatoes and asparagus for dinner. Turkey croquettes are turkey burgers with a fancy name. They and other burgers are also known as ‘wittle meatwoafs’ because Mayhem “HATES burgers!” but likes meatloaf – big or little.

Everything on the menu tonight has been on the menu before & has been eaten with the bare minimum of fuss. Mayhem doesn’t care for potatoes but will gulp down 3 bites while grumbling. The rest of the meal has always been perfectly acceptable to all involved.

But not tonight.

Tonight’s meal began at 6:15 with wails of protest from Havoc at the very idea I might expect him to eat something other than mashed potatoes. Mayhem joined it with cries of “This is YUCK!” and was banished to his room briefly. He returned insisting that he was “not gonna eat it! no! No! NO!”

Havoc fell silent and occupied himself making mashed potato sculptures and nibbling his way through half of one 4 inch long asparagus spear while all attention was focused on the loudly protesting Mayhem.

DH & I ate our dinner mostly in silence interspersed with terse commands such as “Pick it up and put it in your mouth.” “Put the whole bite in your mouth.” “Stop playing and eat.”

20 minutes later DH & I were done eating. Mayhem had eaten half a forkful of potatoes and dropped the other half on the floor. Havoc had eaten half that asparagus spear and nibbled maybe a half a forkful of potatoes. It was hard to tell because he had them all flattened out in the shape of Australia.

They each had been given 6 bites of turkey and 3 asparagus spears. Mayhem had one heaping spoon of potatoes (about 3 bites) and Havoc had double that because he asked for more.

Time passes

The attitudes of everyone at the table were going steadily down hill. Mayhem has never stopped insisting he doesn’t like this food and won’t eat it. Havoc said he wasn’t going to eat anything, he would just go hungry.  I shook my head because I know this road ends with a 4am waking & snack attack. He hadn’t eaten since noon, it was now 6:45. He said he would have it for breakfast. I shook my head again. Been there, done that. Not doing it again on a school morning. He said “FINE! I just WON’T eat! I’ll sit here all night!”

Bad thing to say to a woman who is designing a crochet pattern. I have all the time in the world to sit here with you & crochet while you stare at your plate. Let’s begin shall we?

So we all continue to sit at the table and time continues to pass…

Eventually Mayhem dips an asparagus spear in some ketchup and comments that with ketchup the asparagus ‘tastes like nothing’ and proceeds to eat the rest of his meal. Havoc forks some potatoes in his mouth and glares at me while doing it, then insists he isn’t going to eat anything else. I start cleaning the kitchen. DH sits and reads. Havoc slowly eats a bite of turkey and says “This is really good Mama.”

I refrain from banging my head on the counter while he eats the rest of his dinner.  It is 7:39

I suspect the drama was caused by the fact that they were awake at 5:20 this morning, after goofing off in their rooms until after 10pm, and were almost 3 hours short on sleep.

They went right to bed after dinner tonight.