Toy Thursday: Playing with your Food

What is it about kids playing with their food? I remember my mom always telling my younger siblings to stop playing with their food or swinging their arms at the table. If something spilled because of carelessness, then we got in trouble at the table. And now I find myself doing the same thing.

Judah is definitely in that stage where food becomes center stage for all kinds of pretend ideas and creative imagination. And most of the time this results in a mess all over himself, the table, and even the floor much to my dismay.

His new thing is to pretend that food are some characters from a movie. We have a Winnie-the-Pooh noodle, a Piglet noodle, and a Tigger noodle. I am not sure if Kraft Macaroni (Cars) gave us this idea or not. One night we just could not get Judah to eat and so we said, let's pretend to find so and so and it worked. He played along and got the calories in him that he needed that day.

This imaginary meal play works well when you want to get him to eat as you can play along and concoct up ideas to stir the imagination. For instance, to get him to eat his peas we talk about using his spoon (the loader) to load up the dump truck in his mouth. Or try to munch his broccohli like Peter Rabbit. We even pretend that sweet potato is orange pie because it is sweet.

This does not work so well when they push the limits on creativity. When they know they are not supposed to do something, pretend suddenly becomes an alibi to get away with it. This would include splattering milk across the table at breakfast from the cereal bowl because it is snow or finger painting in the peanut butter making shapes.

So where do you draw the line. You want your kid to be creative. And you certainly want your kid to eat as in our case since Judah lost so much weight from being sick and needs to gain the calories. Yet, at what age do you implement table manners to include no playing with your food.

I guess we try to eat with our spoon. We say please and thank you and may I be excused. We wipe up and try to sit down to eat. And we always have to take at least a taste of what is on the table. I feel like that is a start until we are older even though my mom would have a fit. Still, kids have an imagination all their own.

From one mom to another, I would love to hear your stories and ideas.