picky eaters

this morning by 6:30 i was being squashed between 2 very awake kids trying to tickle and poke each other across my body, all of us crammed into miles' trundle bed. this game didn't last long. i tried to take advantage of rich's last real day here until he flies back east on wednesday by sneaking into the big bed, as rich and miles played out some military camp/rave-like exercise routine but no such luck as maya can find me anywhere as soon as i sit or lie down, so she can SHERSHIE. the shersheying around here is a bit out of control. that little girl loves her mommy's breasts. she sings songs to them,really, abcd, shershey, etc. and recently lovingly labelled them each with the names of two little girls she adores.

i am out of the blog flow. no writing class, and kindergarten lists floating like confused ghosts through my head. but to the picky eater part:

rich makes buckwheat pancakes for breakfast. miles only wants the biggest and roundest ones. he has to pour the syrup himself. he asks us to cool down the blueberries by outting the pancake in the freezer. he wants whip cream on each one. maya has to sit on the tippiest adult chair, and will tolerate no assistance getting onto it. she wants the philadelphia eagles bib. suddenly she hates panckaes with syrup and needs the elephant cup to put her squirt of whip cream into. with a fork. no, not that fork, no, wait a minute a spoon. no, she will pinch 50 little fingerfuls of whip cream to transfer them off the offending pancakes instead.

lunch is brown rice with butter, black beans with a little garlic and carrots with brown sugar, with some yummy rosemary bread. miles finds a piece of rosemary in the bread and digs it out. he doesn't want the crust, which is about 80% of the bread, so he shreds it off all over the table. he declares he loves the rice and wants to eat it all the time but changes his mind after 3 bites. he sucks the brown sugar off the carrots and eats 1. maya wants to sit on my lap but is mad about all the food presented. as soon as miles gets down she clambers into his seat, eats a little of his rice, yells at me about the one black bean i put hopefully in front of her, knocks the rice onto our floor accidentally. she wants me to carry her over to the cupboard so she can "hold touch cup myself". it has to be a cup with no lid, perfect for spilling. or pouring into the rice i have refilled. naptime.

i am feeling hopelessly bad at feeding my kids by dinnertime. they eat a huge snack of organic but not so healthy corn puffs. i got some good life sushi for the grownups that miles does bravely try (he likes the fact that it is raw and "they got the blood out") but is so terrible tasting to him that he spits it out lengthily, onto the closest place, my plate. i lose my appetite. maya is protesting "no shooshoo" repeatedly even though no one offers her any sushi. i make some alphabet soup. miles eats out the green beans, corn and a few letters and says that he must have eaten too much of this when he was a little kid because he is tired of it. maya is full from all the puffs. rich and miles have made some nutritious sugar-free jello earlier that miles can have for dessert. maya wants "my treat too brother treat" so she gets some to top off her corn puffs, and ends up splattering it all over the floor. before bed they both drink about 20 ounces of milk.

so, it isn't always so bad. but today it was. tomorrow they will be eating broccoli and neat little bowls of healthy pasta.
i'm spending weeks of my life agonizing over the perfect list of kindergartens to submit to a crazy lottery machine and i'm letting my not quite 2 year old eat jello and cornpuffs for dinner.

oh, and here is photographic evidence that miles loves the doll his aunt cassie made for him. he knows it is extra special because it was made "with love". i told him this and he bought it. thanks cassie!! and the costumes are just a random sampling of the always on the floor dress up stuff.