Who are these children?

Mr. Crackers had to work late a couple of evenings this week, so the kids & I had to do dinner on our own. I am relatively apathetic about cooking dinner for the 2 pickiest kids in America when he is gone. I get weary of eating tomato soup, macaroni and cheese and spaghetti.

So, my hooligans & I spent the first evening without Mr. Crackers eating pizza with my parents. As always, the kids managed to make a simple dinner out seem like a mild form of torture. K was out of her seat every 5 minutes or so asking to go to the bathroom (this is her ploy to get a change of scenery & get away from the table. I still fall for it every time since I am a complete dummy she's only been fully potty trained for about a month or so & I am trying to give her the benefit of the doubt). C was tired, so he insisted on giving me all kinds of attitude about his dinner options & then once his meal arrived, announced that he didn't like what he ordered. All of this is pretty typical, but I can only inflict this kind of pain on my folks once a week, so I knew I was on my own for dinner the next evening
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Since I was still apathetic about cooking last night, I decided to torture myself again the three of us should go out for Chinese food. Strangely, my hooligans behave pretty well in restaurants when it's just the three of us. Introduce another adult into the mix & things get a little dicey. I'm not sure why this is, but I have decided to just go with it.

We got to our neighborhood Chinese restaurant & ordered our standard favorites. For some reason (I think the movie Kung Fu Panda may be the cause) both kids decided that they had to eat their entire meal with chopsticks. This was a first. Now both of my kids have a set of kid-friendly training chopsticks that was given to them by one of my friends last year, but I didn't have those with me.

These cute chopstick holders were in my utensil drawer at home where they did me no good!

So, I had to watch my hooligans try and get the food to their mouths 4 pieces of rice at a time. They would not listen to my helpful hints on how to use chopsticks. Nope, they wanted to figure it all out of their own. It was like watching a train wreck (a really slow train wreck that lasts 30 minutes or more). On the bright side, I didn't have to rush & down my food really quickly like I normally do. The meal lasted an eternity a really long time.





After we finally finished eating and got home, it was getting close to bedtime. We headed upstairs so the kids could put on their PJs before we settled in to watch some TV. I had turned on Andrew Zimmern's show Bizarre Foods while the kids were getting dressed. Have you seen this show yet? I really like it. The man has an iron stomach & will try absolutely any food at least once. Last night's show took place in Morocco & my 2 hooligans were instantly hooked. They sat down next to me & actually shushed me when I asked if they wanted to watch the Backyardigans. "No Mom! Be quiet, we are trying to watch this show!"



And watch it they did. We watched Andrew eat couscous, goat, kidneys, some kind of fetid meat and egg dish and even calf brains. My two kids were mesmerized. I was expecting to hear a lot of "Eewww, that's yucky!" from my youngest, but the only time she said it was when he ate the brains (honestly, I have to say I agreed with her on that one). It was really fun watching the show with them. They seemed to have a really open attitude toward the cuisine of Morocco, which is odd for 2 children who find such limited appeal in the food I make. Hmmm... I'll try not to take it too personally even if I hear "Eeewww" about something I cook at least once a day. Hopefully it's not a commentary on my cooking skills....



I don't know if last night was an aberration or if their minds are actually starting to expand a little bit, but it was fun. Now I just need to remember to put those training chop-sticks in my purse for next time!