Dining With Hitler (and Oliver Twist)

Yeah, we have a serious dining dilemma on our hands. You know how peds tell you that once your baby reaches the 6 month mark, they know how to manipulate you, and will not hesitate to do so? Jax is a textbook case x10000. He is such a sweet angelic little boy...until he gets hungry, then all bets are off. Honestly, it's Hitler reincarnated. You hear that yell, and you better come running, cause if you don't, well, I'm not sure what will happen -- I just do what he says. Even Big Bad Shawn buckles under the demands of our Little German General. I got so brazen this evening as to say, "No, Jaxson!" (he was hollering because we apparently weren't quick enough on the pears-to-rice-to- bottle exchange), and the kid stared me down; I literally cowered. Shawn saw my moment of weakness, and tried to cover for me, but Jaxson just growled at him and spit. He's also mastered the "let's bang the table 'cause I'm sittin' in the highchair and there's no food" technique. I used to be a little frustrated at how long it's taking for his teeth to come in, but now I'm just praying they'll stay away as long as possible -- I value my fingers. Once I figure out how to record audio on this blog, I'm totally downloading dinner time; then you'll all see that it's not just me -- the kid is a food Nazi.

Then we have Ryan who has suddenly become some starving orphaned refugee whose guardians evidently NEVER feed her, because she has now started scrounging for food. I caught her twice today nibbling from packaged food in the pantry. Once at lunch, after she had eaten 1/2 the bag of baby carrots, along with two ham, cheese and biscuit sandwhiches. I came into the kitchen and she was taking a bite out the giant raisin ball (you know, how they stick together when they sit in the pantry unopened for months...) that she had scooped out of the container. She then of course put the clump (when I say clump, I mean the entire contents of the raisin container) back in it's jar, like so much edible playdoh, closed the lid and returned it to the recesses of the pantry from whence it came. Then, not 30 minutes after her EVENING snack (she has 4: late morning, early afternoon, after-nap, evening -- all sandwhiched in between 3 square meals, I swear!!), and a mere 5 minutes before dinner, she goes into the pantry and opens the package of hamburger buns, takes one out, nibbles, then replaces it, etc... The kicker is that 5 minutes later -- not hungry! Great dinner of Parmesan Chicken with a Baby Spinach salad, and the kid claims she is full. I'll make her full all right... Anyway, after about an hour at the dinner table, she finally ate enough to be excused, at which point she began begging me for dessert. When will the madness end????

I of course had to let her eat the delicious Chocolate Raspberry Torte (since she helped make it and all), but luckily it was richer than Trump, so she didn't eat much. BTW, the torte looks messy because it was. You try icing a 1 " high cake with a 3 yr old and no cake platter thingy. For God's sake, someone send me a cake- serving- platter- dish- thingy!!!

P.S. Here is the recipe for the 4 layer pumpkin cake that some of you have been asking for--God Bless Kraft Foods.com!!

P.S.S. Right about now some of you are wondering, "what the hell is her deal with taking pics of all the shit she makes??" The answer is 2-fold:
1. I am being proactive, in an effort to save myself from the fate of my mother (okay Mom, yes, we really do believe you used to have fresh-cut fruit and homemade cookies waiting for us after school...*wink wink*)
2. My Dad doesn't even think I can boil an egg, cause, well, I actually burned one once, and then there was that time that I forgot to boil the water before putting the spaghetti in, and I once made a BLT with hamburger meat and the "B.L.T.", cause that's what I thought it was (hello, I only knew about the McBLT -- my mom never made BLT's; see #1) so yeah, you get the idea...

P.S.S.S. Sorry about the food stuff Mom***. You know I really do just adore your Chicken Spectacular, I just umm, am always watching my weight and all... (Does this mean you're not gonna pay for Ry's Spanish classes now?)

***DISCLAIMER*** I absolutely love, adore, and worship my mother. All food or parenting related comments that effect her negatively in any way are merely there for humor and humor's sake alone. She was, is and always will be the first person I go to in any crisis of any kind, except for that one time my dad was having a heart attack and made me promise not to tell her, but that's just cause we love her sooooo much and didn't want to worry her or anything, until they asked us what his social security # was for insurance stuff and he didn't know it, so we had to call her, you see, but otherwise we would never have bothered her, we love her way too much... Oh hell, I'm a shitty daughter, but I would die for my mother, and I'm absolutely certain that her wish for me to "have a daughter just like you" has come true in spades, so let's just call it even.