Mealtime with Hazen

One part of my day that is always fun and cute is mealtime with Hazen. Sometimes we have to be a little inventive to get him to eat a good dinner. Other times, he can outeat even Jason! Some of the tricks that we have are old ones, you know, "Eat all of your dinner, and you can have some Ice Cream for dessert." Sometimes we'll have a picnic in the living room, which means we get to watch "Funny Show" (Wipeout), while we have dinner. He really likes that one. Hazen's love language is crap....erm....stuffed animals, and he has a new favorite about ever day. The other morning, I was trying to feed him breakfast before getting him off to school, and he was going SO SLOW because he wanted to play with "Fuppy" (Stuffed Dog given to him by Joanna Stephens in Danville that he is still OBSESSED with....random). So, I had this genius idea! Get Fuppy a bowl of cereal, too, and see if he'll eat as long as Fuppy is occupied. Totally worked. Also, the kid is a little intense about messes, so I've learned that if I put a paper towel under his eating area so it mops it up, he is way less apt to stop eating every 12 seconds saying, "Oops Mommy, I spilled. You fix it and clean it up?" My personal favorite these days, however, is a special trick that I have NO CLUE where I came up with, but it only works if I do it. After he proclaims that he's done, Hazen is sent over to Mom, who checks his tummy to see if "Tummy's Full". I do a few squeezes of his stomach, and whatever "Tummy" says, homeboy complies with. If tummy says that he needs 7 more bites of dinner, then Hazen dutifully eats 7 more BIG bites of dinner. If tummy says. Wow, bud! You've eaten a great dinner! Tummy says that you can have a cookie if you'd like, then Hazen will eat his cookie. I try to vary it and really not take advantage of this little trick, so say he's eaten a decent amount of food, Tummy will say he needs 3 more bites of food, but I make sure instead of it being rice, for example, he's getting protein or veggies. This week Tummy has learned that he loves Polenta and Curry. (Not together, gross........) I'm so grateful that Hazen is a relatively good eater (when he wants to be), and that I get to keep on mixing it up as a Mom. That's what makes this parenting thing fun, right?