My Kitchen: the Mess Hall

We have had many adventures with Scarlett and her high chair.
It's kind of pointless by now...she can unbuckle her straps. She can wriggle out of ties and elastics and all the other traps we've devised. Either we're really crummy at fastening her to the chair or she's super brilliant.

I think she's super brilliant.

Like any other baby, Scarlett loves to drop her food on the floor. Very purposefully. It's almost like she imagines she's a Food Whisperer, studying the food, deciding it really wants to be on the floor. The floor is its home. She plucks the food up, dangles it just a second over the precipice of her tray, and with a solemn face drops it. A mercy killing? Then she peeks at it on the floor. Maybe to survey the damage. Did it survive the fall? How does bread splat compared to the way grape tomatoes splat? How big can I get that juice spill to spread?

I often wonder how she has the energy to be crazy every day when most of her food meets its end on the floor instead of in her belly. And sometimes it is just a little bit sad to see a praiseworthy piece of dinner that is more like art for all the work I slaved into it get swiped off her tray without ever making a detour to her mouth.

But it's okay. She has fun. She's cute about it. Like "Now Mom, these activities are for educational purposes. This survey will only take a few minutes." And apparently she gets the food she needs somehow.

With all the adventures she puts her food through though, she makes a huge mess for me at every meal. If I don't keep up with her and sweep/vacuum/mop every time, the area under her chair resembles a little city ants would call Paradise.

Honestly, I want Scarlett's high chair experiences to be positive. They're mealtimes, after all. And food shouldn't be mixed up with other issues, if it can be helped. So with all the stuff she and I put each other through while trying to secure her to the chair for safety's sake, it's probably a good thing she's having so much fun sending her food lemmings off the cliff of doom.

That's what I'll tell myself every time I have to hunker down and clean up yet another food mass-catastrophe.