This yay-hoo right here…
So spaghetti is a new food he has been eating. He loves all the sensory parts of the noodles.. breaking them to put them in the pot… picking them up to eat after they are cooked (who needs a fork), the whole bit.
Anyway, I asked him if he wanted Spaghetti for dinner tonight.
At first he said no… but as soon as I got the box of noodles out, he came running over.
“SPAGHETTI! Oh boy!”
He helped me prepare the noodles and watched me cook them on the stove.
When they were ready, I made him a bowl.
He sat down, but didn’t eat it.
Perhaps it’s not what he wanted. He started playing with his tablet. His noodles went untouched. Close to 20 minutes passed.
He never asked for anything else…
Then I remembered I hadn’t taken him to the bathroom since we had gotten him home from school so I went to take him. It was after 7pm.
“Okay, Jojo lets go Potty!”
“No! Spaghetti?”
“Well, you haven’t eaten any yet and we need to go ‘potty.’ Come on big guy. Lets do it.”
“Spaghetti?”
“First, go potty. Then, we can come back and eat spaghetti.”
“SPAGHETTI!”
At this point, I just picked him up and he started giggling. I sat down with him in the bathroom.
He stood on top of the toilet…
He just stood there opening and closing the cabinet above the toilet for 10 minutes.
Finally he did his business and we went back to the dining table…
Except he went to the play room and started playing with his toys.
“Jojo! Come eat spaghetti?”
“SPAGHETTI!! Oh boy!”
“Come on Jojo! It’s here for you.”
Nothing. He didn’t make one move toward the dinner table.
After a while, it was about time to get ready for bed.
“Okay Jojo, Jammies time!”
“Nooo! Spaghetti!”
“You can eat it whenever you want, Jojo! It’s RIGHT HERE!”
Nothing.
So, I brought the spaghetti into the play room (with his jammies). I’m breaking my own rules about food in the play room, but whatever.
Jonah lets me put his Jammies on and then I tell him he can have some spaghetti.
“Dada, I want space!”
His bowl of spaghetti was sitting on the floor next to him in the play room.
“Uh-huh. I bet you do.”
So another 5 minutes passed. I got Jonny ready for bed.
I come back down stairs. The spaghetti is still untouched.
“Okay Jojo, time to brush teeth!”
“NOOOOOO!!! SPAGHETTI????”
“You’ve had it here for an hour!”
“Spaghetti?”
So I took the bowl back to the dining table and sat down.
This time he came with me.
He sat there. Not eating his spaghetti. Not really wanting anything else to eat…
“Come on Jojo! It’s ‘spaghetti oh boy!’ Num-num!!”
Jojo picks up one noodle… he then licks off the marinara sauce and studies it.
Then this little boy looked at me…twinkle in his eye, and puts one end of the noodle in his mouth.
He then proceeds to take the other end and sticks it directly in my mouth. (Lady and the Tramp style)… keep in mind, he has NEVER SEEN Lady and the Tramp.
And that’s how he ate his first bite of his spaghetti. I couldn’t stop laughing.
(I knew by this point he was just trying to stall for time. I gave him another 10 minutes to stay up. He earned it.)
He tried to keep playing the “spaghetti card” when it was time to brush teeth, but the tactic failed and he left his mostly uneaten bowl of spaghetti on the stairway, and finally gave in and brushed his teeth and went to bed.
And that where I find myself now.
On the floor.
In his room.
For the last hour.
He’s currently not sleeping and showing no signs of even being REMOTELY tired.
Lets hope he’s not hungry.
We’re all out of spaghetti now.