Oh sure, they look innocent enough...Lucy and Edie walked into the kitchen today holding hands. Very sweet. They handed me a piece of paper.
Seems they had been conferring with Tim and Nina Zagat and felt that I needed to be reminded of "The Diner’s Bill of Rights". Their version differs slightly from the Zagat version (which you can check out here).
Lucy & Edie’s manifesto, scribbled in pink crayon on green construction paper and cut into our favorite new shape, a triangle, was assembled by a top-ranking group of toddlers and pre-schoolers hell-bent on hammering out some kind of meal time shock and awe campaign. They have asked me to disseminate the manifesto on behalf of your children.
Yes, that's right - your kids attended the Summit as well. Read it and weep:
The Kid Version of "The Diners Bill of Rights"
1. The right to believe that ketchup is a main course.
2. The right to stay seated for less than 5 minutes at the dinner table before you’re overcome by the desire to remove your underpants, place them on your head and run around the table singing “Spoonful of Sugar”.
3. The right to take an otherwise spotless dining room and turn it into a crumb-infested pig trough within 30 seconds of coming to the table.
4. The right to demonstrate that you’re really a thrill-seeking, power-hungry, narcissistic, demi-god disguised as a cute cuddly kid and prove it meal after meal by refusing to eat food unless it is your favorite color or because it has some egregious ingredient like, oh I don't know, sauce, cheese, flecks of green or anything that even vaguely resembles a vegetable.
5. The right to make a gargoyle face and shout “This food is yucky” to the same food you loved three weeks ago for absolutely no apparent reason.
6. The right to discuss the color of your poop just at the moment the guests start to eat.
7. The right to make a horrible face and slowly spit spinach out of your mouth into your mother’s hand if you try it and decide you don’t like it.
8. The right to have perfectly wonderful table manners until Grandma comes to visit and then decide to use your straw to fire peas into her hair as if you were part of some tribe from the Amazon.
9. The right to try to do a somersault at the table and kick the plate into the air with your foot, so that a fork nearly takes out your father’s eye and the food goes flying through the air and there are permanent beet marks on the wall…and still be loved and adored by your parents.
10. The right to go on a hunger strike so long and intense that your parents are convinced you might actually perish, only to wait just before they call the doctor before you gorge yourself at a single meal and save yourself from the throes of death.
Did they miss anything?
YM
13 comments:
How about the right to refuse anything to be consumed off your own plate while eating THE EXACT SAME FOOD off of your mother's?
"Stolen beans are better beans."
They also believe they have the right to use the same carrot stick over and over again while dipping into the creme fraiche dip and sucking it off...they can also sit ON the table and pretend to eat their meal...they find it easier to run around the dining room for an hour while slowing down for 'just one bite'....request separate bowls for each component of the meal...and use the dreaded 'i'm gonna frow up' to get out of eating the beautiful parmesan crusted, roasted brussel sprouts i made.
i was on kid duty this week....Aunt Annie is tuckered out.
Ditto Molly. OMG it's the SAME EXACT thing that is on your plate.
How about the right to spit food out on the floor or repeatedly swipe food from side to side onto the floor when you are done with a meal. Forget placing your fork and knife, just throw the plate down.
Ah! Very nice ladies...I see now that I am not alone in my crumb-infested dining room - Halle-freakin'-luja.
A special nod to Cheesemonger's Wife who isn't even a mom yet AND she made roasted brussel sprouts crusted with parmesan cheese - God love you for trying, honey. You win Aunt of the year!
You guys made my day...
Kim
I hate liver, except in expensive pate at a resturant.
my 1 1/2 year old niece eats chicken liver terrine. We put it on crostini and pretend we are at a cocktail party with our juice boxes. (she has a juice box...i have wine) Cracks me up. I pick them up for a sleepover tomorrow. I can't wait.
Can I just say that I love your blog? I don't even have kids and I still laugh hysterically when I read your posts.
could you pick up on the heavy veil of sarcasm from my earlier post?
I just finished cleaning up from the escapades from earlier this week. I don't know how mom's do it.
I still don't know how I'm going to do it. Scares the bejeezus out of me. And I'm not even preggers yet.
The right to say "I'm done with dinner." Have dessert and then go back to finish up whatever was not eaten.
maybe mistress mae will use kim's blog as a form of birth control!?
seriously, this post kills me. Genius! I thought I had it made when my now almost 14 year old son was very little as he ate EVERYTHING i gave him and rarely complained. Now, I am lucky if I can get him to eat anything other than meat.
But I remain hopeful. I fully believe he will pull a culinary 180 at some point in the future.
the right to beg for something specific and promise to eat it, but when it arrives to say, "i don't want this."
grrrrr.
How about the right to use your milk glass as a dipping sauce or finger bowl, with the additional clause to switch between the two at the same meal should the fancy strike you?
I have 2 boys (3 and 1) and I am also comforted by the fact that I AM NOT ALONE ;-). Thanks for making me laugh on a regular basis YM!
I just have to tell all you wonderful people... you're the best birth control ever...
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