“I ate all my chicken”

My four year old is becoming increasingly conscious of the world around him. As a parent, it is somewhat eerie when you start to realize your child is putting concepts together, remembers things from “when I was three,” and discovers how to be covert – or thinks he is covert… So begins his story of, “I ate all my chicken.”

Z tends to eat slowly, which is putting it mildly. We have finished many a meal in which his daddy has remained seated with him while everyone else moved on to other things. This is a fact of which Z has become increasingly aware. It is also a principle on which he often bases an argument of not having to eat very much because, “I take forever.”

On Saturday evening, I cooked chicken strips, broccoli (yes, my son actually likes it), and corn and served Z and his daddy in the living room. It appeared to be the makings of a pretty typical evening. The first red flag should have gone up when after giving my son his plate, he asked me, “Where’s [the dog] Lizzie?”

“Outside,” I responded. “Eat your dinner.”

“Let Lizzie back in,” he says.

“You don’t need Lizzie. Just eat your dinner.”

So we all sat in the living room: Z and his daddy in the two captains chairs while I am perched on the couch with the toddler going between each of us to see who has the food he wants. (He eats at his high chair while I cook and then nibbles off our plates during meals.) After a little bit, Z announces, “I ate all my chicken, but I don’t want the other stuff.”

“Okay,” I tell him. “But you need to eat more chicken if you don’t want your broccoli or corn.”

He thinks for a minute and then says, “Okay, more chicken.” At this point my husband is up getting himself some more chicken so he cuts up a piece and gives it to Z. This time a few minutes go by but not near as long as the first time, and Z announces that he ate all his chicken. Wow! We ask if he wants more. When he says yes, his daddy doesn’t bother to cut it up this time and instead brings him the full chicken strip. One minute later, our son greets us in the kitchen with an oh-so-proud of himself face and announces again, “I ate all my chicken.”

Now, I’m suspicious, so I go to the chair where he has been sitting. I look behind and underneath it to find what I believe is all three chicken strips served to him plus a piece of bacon from breakfast (how the dog missed it I’ll never know). I walk back to my husband in the kitchen and simply say, “go look at his chair.” As my hubby looks at the floor covered with food and I bring a plate in to clean it up, he tells our son to go to his room. We then proceed to take five minutes for everyone to breathe. When he finally looks at me to say, “I’m not sure where to go with this,” I look at the clock (7:25 p.m.) and respond, “a bath and then his room seem appropriate.” So our son, for what I believe is the first time in his four and a half years, went to bed with no TV, no games, no books, no cuddle, and no dinner – I did concede to take him a snack when he admitted to being hungry, even though I was tempted to give him the chicken that he had thrown on the floor.