Eating Contest

Sometimes children and trying to manage all that they entail and all that you still need to do for yourself is like a carnival.  Lots of rides, many you have to pay extra, above and beyond your entrance fee, to enjoy and many distractions along the way.  One event is the pie eating contest.  More on that later.

Last night I decided to make tacos for dinner for Kristy and myself.  Something we have on a regular basis and is one of our favorite meals and has become very routine to make.  Prior to making our own meal, as is typical of our evenings, the kids get fed first.  Grace is still eating cereals and purees and is not feeding herself, so it is still very hands on.  I look forward to the day when we can feed her the same food that is on our plate and just hose her down when she is done.  I am sure that she will enjoy making messes of every meal.  Abby is, well, a 5 week old and is still completely dependent of us facilitating her meals.  So the kids eat before we even conceptualize making food for ourselves.  It used to be that around 3 pm Kristy and I would ask each other, “What’s for dinner tonight?” and we would have a plan in place.  Now it is what are we still up for making at this hour and many times the answer is a bowl of cereal.

So I make dinner and realizing that Kristy is only 20 minutes in to the usual hour long ordeal that is feeding Abby and I say, “Should I plate your food, or wait?  I don’t want it to get cold on you.”  That is a pet peeve of mine, letting freshly prepared hot food sit and get cold with no one to enjoy it.  She says to me that I should just eat and that I can hold Abby when I am done to give her a break and let her have her meal.  And the race begins.  I don’t know why, because it was never prompted for me to finish in a certain length of time, but I felt like I had just entered and eating contest and had to finish before everyone else.  Funny part is that I was competing against myself.  I ended up eating three LOADED tacos, two with a potent hot sauce on them, in less than 5 minutes.  I had a stomach ache and a whole mess of regret for having eaten like it was the first meal I ever had in a month.  What was I thinking?

I guess kids will do that to you.  You eat at separate times from them and your spouse, you act like every meal is your last and when all the smoke clears, you are left with taco sauce all over your face and no one to give you the first prize trophy.