Dinner...Again

So it seems the age old problem of dinner at our house continues to exist. Dinner. This word really should not be related to the word problem. But it is.  The complaining children.  The tears.  The disgust.  The chewed food spewed back out.  The word disgusting. The constant talking.  The lack of ingesting food.  The question of dessert. The lack of new foods.  I cannot help but feel defeat.

I hate it.  I hate it because dinner is the one time where our whole family comes together at the end of the day and I just want us to sit and talk about everything over a plate of delicious homemade food
that I made that everyone enjoys and is grateful for and isn't consuming because maybe dessert is coming later.  Is this too much to ask?  Maybe for a three and seven year old.  I don't even expect my children to like many foods.  But the unwillingness to even try and the little child picking up on the big one's shenanigans is not helping one bit.

Well guess what suckers, Momma was a teacher which really just means I've got tricky ways of making you do what I want without you even realizing it because you're having too much fun. And we just recently inherited an ipad which prior to last week failed to exist in our house.  Actually, most fun technology fails to exist in our house.  Which I guess has worked in my favor because it allowed me to execute Unker Bunker Plan: BLAMMO and the kids are all wiggin' out and eatin' and sayin' please and thank you.  That's right.

Here's the plan.  Children must follow these rules at dinnertime:

 

 If you follow these rules, you get a sticker.  After determined amount of stickers, you may earn 15 minutes on the ipad. The End.

 

Now, let me tell you what happened.  Tonight at supper Isis asked to say the blessing. Immediately the children bowed their heads and folded their hands.  Chris and I wondered what the hell was happening.  Isis thanked Jesus for a Mommy who teaches us that it doesn't matter what kind of clothes we wear, but what matters is how we act.  She then thanked Jesus for a Mommy who teaches us about food and table manners.  She then apologized to Mommy and to Daddy and to Jesus for the times when their table manners were not up to par.  Amen.  We then transitioned into a freakishly polite dinner where our children said things like please and thank you and yummy and can I have more?  Everyone took a turn to talk about their day then Eliza started poking and badgering and Isis calmly said, Eliza let's not do these things at the table. Then we decided to add another rule about keeping our hands to ourselves.  Then the kiddos thanked me for dinner and asked politely to be excused.  Then I fainted.

 

Everybody earned a sticker for tonight.  We are starting the bar low with three stickers for screen time.  Eliza has already attempted to add a 2nd sticker to her chart because she thinks she is crafty.  She has also gotten out of bed to ask me when she can play the ipad.  I am a genius.  Until next week, when the novelty wears off and my children return to being children and not whoever it is they were tonight.  But for one week of peaceful dinners, I"ll take it.  Plus I'm a teacher.  I got more where that came from.