I like food. I like to eat. I like to sit down and enjoy my food, while it’s still hot, preferably within the same hour that it has been prepared. As of late, however, I’ve found that in order to do this, I need to eat alone. All alone.

What happens is I make breakfast,lunch or dinner for the girls and invariably, despite my best attempts to the otherwise, my own meal is forsaken. This morning, for example, I got up, got the kitchen cleaned up, got breakfast on the table for the girls. Like I said, I like my food still hot, so I waited until I had the girls seated and doing their own thing before I depressed the button on the toaster. I fix my toast, my fruit, my yogurt and sit down. Mo shoots up and says she needs to poop (nice breakfast convo) and I need to wipe her. Okay. . . .

Hands washed, back to the table. Co has inhaled her milk and is making the ASL sign for “more” and “milk” as she chants “Mo’ muck” over and over again. Up to the fridge to get the milk. Now, usually, I will implore her to eat what is on her plate before I refill the drinks, but surprisingly, she’s already eaten everything. So, “mo’ muck” it is. Pour the milk, carton in the fridge, back to my seat. Mo now says, “I want more Cheerios, Mommy,” to which I reply, “I want some manners, Mo”. A quick “please” follows and I direct her to where the Cheerios are in the pantry. They are right at Mo level. I figure she can grab the box and bring it to the table. Yeah, not so much. Big box with pictures of Cheerios on it and she says, “I don’t see it. I think you need to go to the store and buy some more.”

Riiiiiiiiiiight. So, up to the pantry to get the Cheerios. Note to self — going forward, just put the box on the table.

At this point, Co is turning several shades of scarlet as she works out her daily constitutional. She’s been having some explosive poops as of late and I definitely do not want to deal with another rash, so I whisk her upstairs and change her diaper.

Back downstairs, where Mo proclaims that she is finished with breakfast. I look down at my own plate. My toast is now cold and soggy due to the abundance of spray butter and grape jelly. My fruit has started ferment and my yogurt is a warm, milky soup. This will not do.

So, either I get a better handle on the morning routine — which, seeing as I already thought I did may prove impossible — or I eat before they get up. But, at 5:30am, I’m barely able to get my first or many 8 ounces of water down my throat let alone some scrambled eggs and bacon.

Mmmmmm. . . . .bacon . . . .

Oh, where was I? I have started snacking throughout the morning on grapes and sliced apples so that when lunch time hits, I’m not about to go ape-shit (seriously) over lack of sustenance. When the girls have lunch, usually around 12:30 or 1pm, I slug back more water. I put them down for their naps at about 2pm and then tuck into the lunch that I made earlier in the day. Yes, proper prior planning people! In the interest of better health and because of these hard economic times, I have been faithfully brown-bagging it. But I digress. Lunch is usually a cold lunch of a sandwich and some pretzels and fruit or something, but it’s one where once I sit down, I’m down until I’m done.

My most favorite-est meal, though, is dinner. It’s the end of the day, there’s usually a glass of wine (or three) involved and bedtime is near. But, because I enjoy dinner so much, even if my stomach is touching my back, I will feed the girls, bathe the girls, read several books and do several prayers so that I don’t have to re-heat my plate so much the broccoli is now the color of cauliflower and the consistency of wall paper paste.

More often than not,the girls and I make quite a fetching threesome at the dinner table. Mo has always enjoyed helping Co get into the Clean Plate Club, and they usually end up swapping items on their plates such that whatever it is, it gets eaten. Even when they turn their noses up at a dish and say, “I don’t like it”, they still take several courtesy bites (I cook it, you taste it, I insist), often surprising themselves with how much in fact they do like it. We make airplane sounds to get veggies into Co’s mouth, we pretend to be lions and tigers as we bite into spare ribs, we make the most dreadful slurping noises as spaghetti noodles whip us on our cheeks and noses while we suck it into our mouths.

I’ve come to realize that while there will be times a table for one is all that is keeping me from checking into the funny farm, my meal is way more enjoyable when there’s someone there to share it.

Oh, and any ice cream or chocolate based dessert that follows doesn’t hurt either.